Severe Mutism and Aspergers

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Hi everyone. It has been a recent discovery actually that I have selective mutism. I don't know exactly how or why its there and there isn't anyone qualified enough in my country to explain it to me (third world country) and so, I wanted to know if anyone else suffers from it. It would be great to get some answers because I find it ironic that all this time I found Raj from the big bang theory to be hilarious without even realizing that I was laughing at myself.

Couple that up with extreme social anxiety, mild paranoia and the social skills of a potato, I am pretty much at wits end. Not to mention the looks I get when I try to speak and my mouth doesn't open and I look like a demented mime.

I actually feel a bit better because no one has been told of any of this as they wouldn't understand and I would be ridiculed even more so its good to get it off my chest even if it is just on the internet.

One of the requirements for being diagnosed with Selective Mutism is that it can not be accounted for by Aspergers or autism. I was diagnosed as selectively mute at the age of about 3 but think it is possible that I have Aspergers instead. Both Aspergers and SM people will have problems with social skills but people Aspergers. I can only really speak from my own experience. I get overwhelming anxiety in social situations to the point I find myself physically unable to speak. I don't know whether or not this is experienced by people who have been diagnosed with Aspergers or not.
So I'm not entirely sure if I am SM or Aspie. It is possible I was diagnosed wrong or I may have just picked up some aspergers like traits.
Anyway SM is the failure to speak in certain situations. It's like I just shut down.

I was selectively mute as a child (diagnosed as such, though I think AS would have been more appropriate and am in the process of being reassessed), though less so as an adult. I know several people diagnosed with AS who consider themselves to have occasional mutism, though I kind of disagree when they refer to it as 'selective' as their mutism is variable rather than consistent/persistent. That said I also know of a psych who refers to AS patients as having selective mutism despite the mutual exclusivity of the diagnosis. I think mutism can be a convenient descriptive term.