Here are three separate but similar things: shyness, introversion and social anxiety. You can have one, two or all three of these things simultaneously. A lot of the time people think they’re all the same thing, but that’s just not true. Extroverts can be shy, introverts can be bold, and a condition like anxiety can strike whatever kind of social animal you are.
Lots of people are shy. Shy is normal. A bit of anxiety is normal. Throw the two together, add some kind of brain-signal error – a NO ENTRY sign on the neural highway from my brain to my mouth, perhaps, though no one really knows – and you have me. Silent Steffi.
So what am I? I’m a natural introvert with severe social anxiety and a shyness that is basically pathological. When I was a kid, this manifested as a form of mutism, known as selective mutism. The ‘selective’ part sometimes confuses people, because it makes it sound as if I had the control over when to ‘select’ my speech, but that’s not the case. Selective means it’s out of my control. Progressive mutism is when your childhood mutism gets worse as you get older.
I don’t have progressive mutism, for the record. I’ve been able to talk – with difficulty – in places like school for a few years now, though the difficulty is more to do with social anxiety and shyness than mutism. This is incredibly hard to explain to people, which is why I usually don’t. ‘I couldn’t talk but now I can, sometimes, but sometimes I can’t. No, I don’t know why, sorry’ isn’t really that illuminating, as far as explanations go. And people really like explanations.
They like explanations and recovery stories. They like watching House and knowing a solution is coming. They like to hear that people get uncomplicatedly better. They love the stories of childhood mutes who meet an incredible speech therapist and recover their voice by the end of an hour-long documentary. Kids like me, who struggle through their childhood years, juggling various diagnoses that try to explain their silence to their frustrated parents, who graduate from ‘mute’ to ‘severe anxiety’ but still can’t speak to shop assistants or call anyone on the phone, just confuse things. Forever in the grey area, in the question you see behind the eyes of teachers and family friends: ‘Is she just putting it on?’ ‘It’s not a real thing, is it?’ They say, ‘It’s all in your head.’ They say, ‘It’s not real.’ And I think, What is more real than that? I think, therefore I am, right?
So, no, I’m not putting it on and, yes, it is a real thing. It just happens to be a real thing that a lot of people haven’t even heard of, let alone understand.
What are you thinking, Steffi? What are you thinking? Everything, all the time.
You’re so quiet, Steffi. Why are you so quiet? But in my head it’s so loud.
I’m sure everyone has an inner monologue, but I doubt many are as wordy as mine.
So here I am, sixteen and silent on my first day of sixth form. True to form, I make it to lunchtime without speaking to anyone. This makes me feel weak with relief at the time but then, sitting by myself at a picnic table outside the sixth form block, horribly depressed. It is clearly not normal to go four hours surrounded by peers without talking to any of them – and then feel happy about it.
Plus, there’s the whole year-I-prove-myself thing. So far, I haven’t.
I miss Tem.
No, don’t blame this on missing Tem. If she was around you still wouldn’t have spoken to anyone else.
But –
I’m interrupted by the sudden appearance of a boy, who slides himself casually down on to the bench opposite me and throws me a lazy grin. Hello.
I stare at him. Rhys squints. There’s a pause.
Hello?
I pull myself together, regain my sense of movement and answer him. Hi. I resist the urge to ask him what he’s doing sitting with me, because that seems a bit rude even though it’s what I really want to know, and sign instead, How’s it going?
Rhys beams at me, looking far more happy than my delayed reaction deserves. Great, thanks. I think . . . school . . . bald teacher . . . computers . . . BSL . . . tennis.
Oh God, this is hideous. I can feel a flush working its horrible way up my neck and across my face. I can’t follow what he’s signing. He’s too fast; too good; too relaxed. I have no idea what he’s saying to me. Why would he be talking about tennis, for God’s sake? Come on, Steffi. You can do this.
Rhys’s hands still and he smiles at me, expectant. The happy, hopeful expression on his face makes me feel awful. That’s why he wanted to sit with me – because he could have a conversation without reading anyone’s lips or worrying he was going to miss something vital. And I’ve ruined it for him.