ID: a photo of a person in a feild of white puffy flowers with redwood trees in the background. The person is light skinned with light brown hair and dressed in a black t-shirt and black leggings with black and leopard print scarves around their waist and they are leaning back with their arms above their head and face tilted up. I’m hanging out with my friend, who like me, is hyperverbal and then mute. We talk alot, and then we tire and our brains go to non verbal, often at the same time. But when that happens we both kind of panic, because there are so many messages everywhere that if you aren’t verbally engaging with a person at all times it becomes “awkward” and people hate to feel awkward so I have to keep talking or else ppl won’t like me. BUT I literally can’t talk, my brain ceases to form words, my tongue feels literally paralyzed, my brain feels full of cotton wool and I literally can’t do it. Sometimes it’s even to the point where I can’t think in words, so I wouldn’t be able to write or sign even. That’s when I make an excuse to leave bc I don’t know how to hang out when my voice isnt working. If I don't you'll keep coming up with small talk prompts which neither of us want and the air feels like it's made out of elmer's glue.
Most of my social anxiety is on account of mutism. What if I go out amongst people and it happens? I will have to leave, sneak out in a shadow and get on my bike and ride like hell, probably feeling shame along with great relief and the sadness of lack of attunement, ringing out in my burning cheeks and hollow ribs, which my nervous system reads the same as rejection. “I must be alone bc I’m not good enough, not good enough because I failed at speech once more, not good enough and definitely broken.” What would it be like, my non-mute friends, or even my fellow mute-friends who, like me have been indoctrinated to think no one will like us if we can’t talk, what would it be like if I didn’t have to go bc my throat feels numb and paralyzed and my mind is not making anymore words? What would it be like if I didn’t have to run bc of something I can't control? If I didn't have to run from.you. Would you ask me what I need and I might be able to write or sign (which ideally you would be able to understand). If I needed to dance instead of talk would you wanna do that too? Even if not, can I communicate to you in movement and gesture and will you listen? If I needed to lay down and be quiet but not alone, would you sit with me and be quiet but not alone, would you sit with me and resume your conversations not thinking it at all odd that I’m not contributing verbally, but still considering my presence a contribution? Could you read to me or sing to me? Could we both be fucking quiet and listen? Are there birds outside the window? Do you know them? Have you listened to the wind lately? Would it be too much to ask that we listen for awhile together? Why is silence and listening only for being alone? And fellow mute friends? Instead of feeling mutual shame about our non-verbalness and collapsing into awkwardness and avoidance, what if we had other language options??? Other communication options? What if we gestured, danced, shared some ASMR or a stim, what if we drew each other pictures, laid hands on each other to feel the energies, rolled around in the sand, made nature art, talked in poetry, talked in glossollaic languages, touched flower petals and looked at bugs? Why are we still judging each other and ourselves with neurotypical verbal-dominant social norms when there’s a whole world of ways for us to “talk?” Yeah anyway, what if there were ways to accept us and include us but bc you rely on neurotypical standards of communication they might not have occurred to you? Because *news flash* there are, so many other ways.
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