Not Talking (they call this SM nowadays) - experiences?

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Hello guys & gals,

I was just wondering if anyone else "didn't talk" at any point in their life, why, if / how you got over it, and if it really mattered or changed anything?

Just curious really...

Personally I was always very shy but I do remember the particular moment I stopped talking (shortly after starting school). It was due to a word ("No!") coming out wrong, and I was so embarrassed I just shut my mouth. When we went in for register the teacher told me I could whisper to my friend if I liked, and it just carried on like that. I'd whisper to friends, wouldn't speak directly to teachers (or any unknown adults) at all. If I got sent to the shops by my mum she'd have to scribble a note cos I was too scared to say a word. I would speak out loud at home though, or to my friends out of school (by a good hundred yards).

I stopped being "quiet" cos I had a ferocious teacher who decided he'd had enough and frightened me half to death in yr 5. I felt I had no choice so I had to spoke. It was very humiliating but that was the end of the quietness.

What was the reason for quietness? Don't know really.
Did it matter? Don't think so, in the long run.

Perhaps had I spoken up I would have sat on the "brainy table", and ended up going to a grammar school instead of the local comprehensive.
Maybe I would have been better at expressing myself, more assertive, and not allowed an ex-friend's lies to become a big rumour.
Maybe I wouldn't have hung out with the "wrong friends" (i.e. other randoms & rejects) and maybe I would have pushed myself harder, not got into drinking, done further and higher education, and done something really special with my life.

But hey, they're all maybes, and at the end of the day who's to know? My life isn't perfect but it's far from the worse. I can count my blessings, I'm happyish now, so none of that past really matters.

Would be interesting to hear from others x

My mom quit talking during her fourth grade year. She doesn't qualify as "Autistic" like my dad and grandfather and I (and a LOT of my family) do, but she has several Autistic traits and merely "passes" as Neurotypical. She turned out fine, though.

I think it's awful that your teacher scared you that way.

Sometimes I can talk like a professor, sometimes I can only stammer, sometimes I can't say anything at all. It seems to be tied to nerves or something like that.

i have these "silent" phases a LOT. and what it feels like...is...the mental capacity to have the words in my brain come out verbally isn't there. my mum gets royally angry when i don't talk. but i don't do it on purpose. and by the next day...the "blockage" is gone and I can talk again.

Some times i feel uncomfortable talking generally when im anxious i just want to keep my mouth closed. Or when i am sitting doing something i can go hours without making a peep. Often times i have to force myself to open my mouth to let people know how i feel. Or my urge to talk over rides my urge to be quiet. so for me either i am very talkative about some topic i am into, or i am not interested in anything and perfectly happen in silence. The same goes for music. i dont much like back ground noise. even my own voice.