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Chapter 4 Selective mutism and my junior high school years
Unrequited love
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I loved one girl, K. She was a classmate girl. I didn't know how she thought of me, but I guessed that it was unrequited love.
In contrast to me, she had very sociable, convivial and extrovert personality.
In retrospect, I tended to love such girls when I suffered from selective mutism. I had a desire to change my extremely shy personality then. So, I was attracted by their personality.
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One episode I remember was that I touched her shoulder.
One day, I was asked her friend to get K. Ordinary students will utter a word to get K. But I had selective mutism. So, I approached her, touched her shoulder, and then point to her friend. K understood what I wanted to say and went to her.
I thought that I was lucky to be selectively mute. I was allowed to touch her shoulder because every classmate understood my selective mutism. If I didn't have selective mutism, my behavior might be regarded as sexual harassment.
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But I didn't confess my love to her.
I fell in love with many girls. But strange to say, I didn't want to go out with them when I had selective mutism.
I must have been odd boy. Most boys felt in love with the opposite sex want to go out with them. But I didn't. Why?
[Taijin kyofusho]
When I had selective mutism, I felt fear of communicating with others. In Japan, the symptom is called Taijin Kyofusyo. I guess that my fear of others was so terrible that my fear might exceed the appetite for communicating with girls.
[Sense of alienation]
I had a sense of alienation to children of my generation. I felt that I was a alien or something. My selective mutism was one of the most important factor causing a sense of alienation.
So, I felt that I couldn't go out with girls.
[My serious personality]
I was often called a "serious man." I was so serious that I believed that it was unwholesome to date with girls in puberty or adolescence.
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At the last month of the final school term, my homeroom teacher changed seating. It was the last time my teacher changed seating.
As a result of drawing lots, I was assigned to K's neighbor. I felt as if I was in heaven!
But when I thought carefully, I felt anxious for K. Were K satisfied to sit next to me? She was a chatterbox. On the other hand, I had selective mutism.
I spent a month next to K. When she left her desk, she became a chatterbox. But when she sat on her desk, she became mute. It was hard for me. She didn't seem to be happy when she sat next to me.
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Closing Exercises were held on March. In Japan school term starts in April and ends in March.
My teachers and classmates understood my mutism, although none of them might know the term "selective mutism." No people blamed me. They were very kind to me.
But my selective mutism didn't improve during the year.
(To be continued)
Index of SM story
