#mutism

[crystem]

I am once again begging several companies and important services (hospitals, GPs, etc.) to allow forms of contact other than verbally calling. Even with special numbers for that kind of thing, oftentimes the people running these services will still call back ignoring issues such as deafness or mutism, and then act as though you were in the wrong for lack of response - even if informing them of your condition beforehand.

I was fully mute for a few years, and the amount of times medical professionals ignored this and tried to call me for verbal discussions, or didn't provide another method of contact, was abysmal. They even demanded verbal calling by phone to be let into the building. So many services need to do better about this, and so do several companies. Not everyone can talk (even if they can hear), and not everyone can hear (even if they can talk). I am begging these services to do better.

[ellecdc]

poly!moonwater x mute!reader? Maybe them learning sign or comforting reader when someone makes fun or says something rude to them.

🥹🥹🥹 this is so cute omg. thanks for your request!! 🤟🤟🤟

poly!moonwater x mute!reader (gn)

You kept your face pointed downwards at your textbook and ignored the two shadows seating themselves across the table from you, hoping that if you minded your business, they would too.  

People weren’t always very understanding of your condition, and those who pretended they were usually just asked a lot of very imposing questions; if you could hear, why couldn’t you talk? Were you ignoring them? Were you faking it? What was your deal? And contrary to popular opinion, speaking louder and repeating themselves didn’t change the fact that you still couldn’t speak to them.

“Y/N, right?” You heard a voice come from in front of you. You grimaced slightly but tried to rearrange your face before looking up.

Sitting across from you was Regulus Black and Remus Lupin; the latter having been the one to speak to you.

You nodded yes to his question, which earned you a beaming smile from the scarred boy.

“I’m Remus, and this is Regulus.” He said, motioning towards the younger boy with his head. You offered the best smile you could muster and nodded hello to the two of them.

“What subject are you working on?” Regulus asked, attempting to peek at your notebook. You pulled the textbook from under your elbow and showed them the front cover.

“Herbology.” Remus narrated. “I’ve always been pants at that, honestly.”

You smiled gratefully at the two; most people don’t put much effort into trying to converse with you once they realize it requires a touch more effort on their end.

“What’s your favourite class?” Regulus asked then, causing your stomach to drop.

They had to know, right? They couldn’t not know. Did they think you would finally talk if only you wanted to badly enough? Or was this a prank? You didn’t think pranks were the younger Black’s thing, but you knew Lupin hung around with a folly crowd.

You’re not sure how long you’d been sitting there spiralling when you felt a gentle nudge to your wrist. You looked to see a piece of parchment and a quill being pushed towards you by Remus.

You looked to him then, trying to see if you could spot any malevolence in his expression.

You couldn’t.

You cautiously took the quill and parchment and scrawled out your answer quickly. Passing it back and trying to ignore the burning of your cheeks or the sound of your heartbeat in your ears.

Remus beamed at your response. “I love that class too.”

“May I ask something that might come across as terribly forward?” Regulus asked suddenly, causing your heart rate to spike.

“I was only wondering how you converse with your friends or family; what’s most comfortable for you?”

You let out a steadying breath and accepted the quill and parchment back from Remus to quickly write “sign”. 

Regulus smiled at that, and you weren’t sure you expected a Black to be capable of an expression so soft.

“Wonderful.” He said as he pulled out a heavy book from his bookbag; a muggle book entitled “BSL for Dummies”. 

You felt your eyebrows migrate into your hairline as your mouth fell open.

“Now, if it’s not terribly inconvenient for you, do you think you might be able to help us learn?” Remus asked, smiling kindly at you.

You nodded quickly, mouth quirking up into a smile as Regulus helped turn the book towards you so he could ask “is this the right way to ask someone out on a date?”

[notemaker]

Headcanon that whenever Donnie has a Talking Is Hard sort of day, Leo is actually the one that gets him talking right up again. Must be a twin thing.

[nigesakis]

i hate the term selective mutism. cause it sounds like im making conscious choice. like im selecting in a menu going today im gonna talk. today im only gonna talk to my family. in this situation ill be quiet. like its not a choice. i dont know when my voice just disappears. ill start telling a story and then ill start stuttering and then its gone. i think im going to say something and nothing comes out. talking can be exhausting and needing effort like jumping or screaming and doesnt come instinctively. sometimes my body needs time to prepare for so long that when in able to answer, im 2 conversation topics too late

i dont even know i just hate that word selective. id feel more comfortable with like.. partial, maybe or intermittent. honestly anything but selective

[fruitybythefooty]

Things you can’t do when you’re mute (partially for the pnf community partially cause i was just thinkin about it):

- Phone calls (yes they have TTS apps that can do this but a) they cost money to remove ads that physically interrupt you and b) people are stupid sometimes and constantly ask if you’re still there even when you introduce with the fact that you’re mute and to give you time to type)

- Fast food drive throughs

- Communicating while carrying things

- Communicating while driving (unless you are with someone who can understand sign/one handed sign)

- Asking people if they need help quickly without stopping them and having them wait for you to type

BONUS, doable things that are just kind of annoying:

- Paying for gas with cash

- Buying things at a register instead of self checkout

- Really just paying for anything in cash

- People acting like I am deaf when I am actively listening to music with large over the ear headphones loudly and having to point to my ears and do a thumbs up (this usually get the point across)

BONUS TWO, things that are cool that have happened to me:

- A hispanic guy (this is relevant) came up to me at a gas station who had seen me paying for gas inside and I guess heard me blasting my music and started speaking to me in spanish. I understand enough spanish that i was able to get that he was asking if i was mute, then he asked if i understood spanish and i shook my head, and he switched to english and started telling me about a seminar he went to on mutism. He was very sweet and it made my day

- The woman who is always working at the panda express I frequent at my school learned how to say a few things in sign presumably because I go there a LOT

- A little girl at the summer camp I went to who connected with me heard another kid ask me why I was using my phone to speak and said loudly “Some people can’t hear and some people can’t speak its a disability”

- Another little girl at the same camp kept running out into the hallway and the teacher was older and worried more about keeping an eye on everyone than her comfort so I offered to watch her in the hall. I sat down with her and asked her if she was overstimulated (in a way a small child would understand) and she nodded. I don’t remember what I said next but she signed me too. I signed asking if she signed and she signed back “a little”. I explained why I couldn’t speak and she said she was the same. I nearly burst into tears for this child and the connection we had. I spent the rest of the day with her. She spoke quietly to other kids but with me she would just smile big and point to things she wanted to show me. We read some of her favorite books quietly sitting next to each other.

- Teaching kids the ASL alphabet, they are always so eager to learn

If anyone is mute or has recently gone mute or has non verbal episodes I am here with you. There’s nothing wrong with us. I love you.

[zebulontheplanet]

Hi everyone, as you know, I’ve been on a hiatus. Lots has happened. Some of this was written over weeks, so things might be split up or written differently.

For the new followers that followed me within that time, hello! I’m Zeb. This is going to be a long post, and I’m sorry but I need to say a lot.

On March 22nd, I went into a verbal shutdown for no apparent reason and haven’t been able to speak since. It’s been awhile, and I haven’t been able to really utter more than two or three words.

Do I know if my speech will come back? I don’t know. Do I know if it’ll stay this way? I don’t know. I don’t know anything.

I’m mute. I cannot speak. No, I did not come to this lightly, no I’m not making this up for clout. I have no reason to make something like this up. I am grieving for losing my speech. Being newly mute is hard. My life has drastically changed. From how my family treats me, to how society treats me. I’ve had to learn new things on how to navigate the world. I’ve had to learn how to talk to doctors using my AAC, I’ve had to learn how to make phone calls using my AAC, I’ve had to learn how to navigate life in a new way. That’s hard.

I am thankful that my family is incredibly supportive. At first, we thought it was burnout or stress. We thought I’d come out of it. I thought I’d come out of it. I haven’t though and that’s hard too.

People around me say not to worry. “Verbal shutdowns can last months, years, they’re still verbal shutdowns”. I’m not personally showing any improvements. I’m not showing any signs that I’m going to speak anytime soon.

I’ve had to adjust my whole life to my now lack of speech. I’ve had to adapt. See the world in new ways and do new things. My life has changed, and my life has turned into that of someone who is mute, because I am mute. I can’t talk. I can’t even sing. The best way I can describe it is that there is a wall between me and my words that I can no longer get past. I’m mute.

I grieve for my voice, and I took my hiatus to grieve for it and seek medical help. I grieve for the life I could have had, for the life I did have. I grieve for what my life will look like, what my new challenges will be. I grieve for that.

I have autism regression and catatonia. I knew for awhile that my speech was deteriorating and I could do nothing about it. I thought maybe I’d just be on the lower verbal side of Semiverbal. Not in a million years did I think it’d come to me being fully mute. I didn’t expect that. I don’t want to be mute. I wish I could talk more then anything. I wish I could talk to my partner, to my parents, to my sisters, to everyone! I wish I could sing. I wish I could do all these things but I can’t. That hurts.

Went to a neurologist and was marked as having “psychogenic mutism”. Don’t know if I believe this. Don’t know if it’s psychogenic or catatonia. I don’t know, and I don’t know if I’ll ever know.

I have been exploring other terms for my lack of verbality, and I will continue exploring them and learning from those around me.

My life has changed so much, and I hope I can bring you along for this whole journey, and tell you what you have missed.

[thatadhdmood]

Making communication cards for when I go non-verbal

[sacredsapling]

Hey all! As someone who's been mute and a disability activist (including raising awareness about mutism), a few clarifications:

Mute can be an acceptable term, when used as a descriptor or identity-term, unless someone says they prefer another term for themselves personally.

Mute can refer to being unable to make any sound, being nonspeaking or nonverbal by choice, trauma-related silence, or experience periods of inability or limited ability to communicate.

Mutism is often a good "umbrella" term, since nonspeaking means "able to make sound but unable to say words" and nonverbal can mean "unable to make any sounds."

Mute can fall anywhere on that spectrum, and it also can be a descriptor used for changing states of being able to speak, vocalize, or not.

Basically, if someone doesn't like the term, don't use it for them. If someone uses it, it's fine, and it's fine as a general descriptor because it's not inherently offensive (and asserting such can ostracize a whole group of disabled people, same as being like "it's not disabled, it's differently abled." Mutism, just like disability, is not a "bad word").

Just be attentive to slang and offensive uses/word combinations and make sure those exact sorts of phrases aren't used to describe someone who is mute/nonverbal/nonspeaking.

[pxppet]

Mutism/Nonspeaking Awareness Flag

I, like many others, suffer from mutism due to a physical disability. Every flag I've seen for the nonspeaking and nonverbal community is based in autism and related issues, without representation for those of us who are nonspeaking for reasons such as being a cancer survivor, schizophrenia, muscle tension dysphonia, spasmodic dysphonia, aphrasia, brain damage, etc. and related conditions. There are a large variety of conditions that I rarely see representation for, and this flag is for us.

The white stripes represents hope for a more accepting future for nonspeaking and mute people.

The purple stripes represents entirely nonspeaking people.

The blue stripes represents AAC and sign language users.

The green stripes represents people with fluctuating levels of verbality.

The yellow stripe represents community and the way we have each other's backs in this struggle.

The symbol is a vague representation of the lack of a voice. I couldn't decide which one looked better so feel free to use either.

[10yrsyart]

piggy backed on some of my doodle ideas from 2018. Past was my first Link and Wild is the latest Link, and i just think they’re neat :} 

Headcanons: Wild is selectively Mute and Past is naturally Mute. Past is also a different Link from Oracle (Ages/Seasons/Awakening), who is his cousin. 

[zimulacrum]

I’m someone with selective mutism, and I’ve always struggled to communicate my needs. It didn’t strike me with lightning until TODAY that I could create my own communication cards! Of course, anyone else can use them at their own free will, fully accessible and free of charge. And don’t worry, I’m going to be making more!

[threefandomsinatrenchcoat]

Perry and Doof but Perry is a mute human with questionable fashion sense and Doof has secretely learned sign language just for Perry

[fuckingwhateverdude]

10.7.23

[yonemurishiroku]

AU in which the Twins did snuff out the angel's breath

Nico falls out of the jar without his voice.

[sproutflags]

Hey, can I request a flag that can be used by every kind of mute/nonspeaking people? The only kinds of mute flags I can find are for autistic people with selective mutism. I'm a survivor of laryngeal cancer, but I'm allistic, so it would be inappropriate of me to use those flags. Thank you! (English isn't my mother's tongue, sorry if there are any grammatical errors)

Can i request a flag that can be used by all mute/speech impaired people? Thank you

Combining these two requests, hope that's okay!

Here's what I came up with for a general mutism/nonspeaking flag!

The symbol is a speech bubble with a restriction/"no" symbol within it. Here is the symbol by itself:

[fruitybythefooty]

it’s perry n doof day!