The ‘mute’ button

I feel like someone’s pressed it again. I feel totally silenced. Was it me? I am exhausted of this fight. 

Mutism has always been a safety blanket for me. They say ‘if you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all’, but I think sometimes it’s if you don’t have anything right to say. Silence is safety, talking is risk. If you don’t know the right way to talk yourself out of a situation, maybe you shouldn’t even try. I simply do not have the willpower or strength to keep trying to talk out. I don’t have the energy to analyse what is safe and what’s not. 

So I fall silent, again. To fight back, with words or strength is essentially a sin. ‘Children are to be seen, and not heard’, that’s what they always said. 

Is it better to fight and to lose, or not to fight at all?

In my experience, it has always been the latter. 

I am fighting to speak, but nobody hears me. To lift my internal mute is a dangerous agony. Even when I manage, it’s like my volumes turned right down; you probably couldn’t listen, even if you tried. More often I cannot lift the mute, I cannot deselect my selective mutism, learnt as a child, so I hide in the middle of it, screaming where no one can hear. 

Is it even worth it? Do I want to share my story? Does anybody want to hear? It’s much easier and innate to keep quiet. 

“Dark times lie ahead of us and there will be a time when we must choose between what is easy and what is right.” – JK Rowling, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. 

Trying to keep strong and positive (believe it or not). Trying to keep talking. 

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