Sometimes I can't speak - is it selective mutism?

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I've had a number of times when I was unable to speak. Someone will say something that I find really overwhelming or hurtful and I'm physically unable to respond. I feel something almost like that lump in the throat sensation you can get when crying. It has happened with people I know pretty well and also with acquaintances. Sometimes I can speak at a later point in the conversation, other times I can no longer address the person at all. I have a diagnosed dissociative disorder (not otherwise specified , not DID) so I can also get the glassy-eyed stare thing happening. I'm wondering if this is dissociation or selective mutism, or perhaps they are the same thing in these instances.

I've been diagnosed with selective mutism and what you describe sounds like it.

Thanks for your response.

How do you cope?

Typically these are situations where a response is really important. I've found that after the fact, I can't bring up the subject again and sometimes I avoid all contact with the person. If I start to think, 'I really should clear that up', but I get the same feeling, along with tiredness and my body feels sluggish.

I have self diagnosed selective mutism. It has occurred my whole life. Mostly in school or in situations I find intimidating. It has happened as an adult in situations with my partner. I am unable to speak or think or know what to say. He will stare at me waiting for the words and then just get angrier and leave. Maybe hours or days later I will tell him that I needed time to think and couldn't respond right away. He used to think I was ignoring him how some people do when they fight, but I think he understands now.

In school I couldn't talk to most of the students. I couldn't do presentations in front of the class.

I don't know how much it really affects me now as I just tend to avoid people I don't like or get a bad vibe from.

In the old days when I was in school, people always said they could barely hear me and no matter how hard I tried, I couldn't yell loud. Sometimes someone would say something and I had nothing to respond (like all words removed from my mind) so I said nothing, but could still make sound if I had to.

Is that something different?
If not, maybe it helps to know with time and practice that decreased a lot.

I'm nonverbal in shutdown, but it doesn't read like you're otherwise shutdown when this happens.
Cold it literally be just "speechless" by the rudeness of others? Plenty of people get that - they're so shocked/offended/outraged/whatever by the comment that they can't actually respond.

Shock is definitely part of it. But sometimes in movies and whatnot people will say 'Well, I'm just speechless', but I wouldn't be able to say that either. I feel like my nerves have been cut off - as though I were paralyzed. Sometimes the shock or trauma is so bad I don't know what is going on, but other times I have things I want to say - desperately - but I can't get my voice to work. What I find weird is that if the conversation moves on I can sometimes continue, but I still can't voice my response to whatever it was that triggered the mutism.

I have times where I cannot speak, but it feels more like I have lost the complete ability to speak. I have no urge to reply or really any feeling of my mouth being there; as weird as that sounds. Ha!

It is also accompanied by a sort of dazed? or withdrawn feeling?, I'm not sure how to describe it. I am still listening but I feel that I am more within myself and in a blurry state. Maybe it's a small meltdown or overwhelment.

It could be a dissociative state - I definitely have that.

Overall, my symptoms get a lot worse when I'm stressed [the literal interpretations of language, not picking up on social cues such as body language (as in, so bad I don't even realize when someone is about to hit me), mind-blindness]. The dissociative states also manifest when under stress.

The inability to speak thing came up again recently so I've been trying to figure out exactly what it is and what to do about it, since it has consequences.