Not a week goes by without somebody on /r/whatsthatbook looking for a book

[conuly]

about somebody who is nonverbal due to selective mutism and/or trauma.

I had no idea there were so many of these books out there, but for some reason these posters always insist on framing it as "she's not really mute" or "she's just pretending" or "she's choosing not to speak" or, at any rate, that somehow the character can speak even though they very blatantly cannot.

This is starting to give me hives, guys.

Comments

[lizziey]

How many of them end up looking for books that turn out to he written by Torrey Hayden?

[conuly]

I have no idea! If it's not one of the ones I know, I don't bother to stick around.

[cimorene]

Oh wow, yikes! That's so disturbing and also so bizarre... it's somehow more horrible because it was unsuspected!

[conuly]

To be fair, most of them do seem to be more bad writers than anything else - they do seem to understand that it's not really a choice, they just are fixated on this dichotomy between physical or developmental reasons to be nonverbal and psychological ones, and they have no idea how to say that.

It's still making me itchy.

[cimorene]

Oh, I see what you mean. People have a lot of difficulty comprehending the different types of addiction too. But yeah... it's gotta be grating as hell, from either side, really, since "not REALLY X", when it comes to disability narratives, often carries a large and unfortunate helping of assumptions about malingering/laziness etc, and also their lives are just as impacted regardless of why they can't talk.

[pauamma]

//"She"? Is the character in these questions always gendered female?///

[conuly]

It seems to be about 75% - 80% of the time, but that might be a flaw in my recollection.

[pauamma]

Thanks. That lopsidedness bothers me, perhaps as much as the framing itself./////////////

[senmut]

As a person who is selectively mute (I'm MUCH better than I used to be, now I am in a safer place), I have a lot of unease around dismissal of it. My own late partner gave me an ultimatum of speak or I leave once and ... it stayed with me. She never did come to understand how the words lock up.

(My wife, bless her, gives me space. And knows to ask if words aren't working)

[hashiveinu]

I think the name of the condition is confusing to many people, and may be taken to imply the person is "selecting" or choosing not to talk.

[flamingsword]

With a helping of ableism that named it that way, yeah.

[silveradept]

There must have been one of those coincidences where people thought that selective mutism would be an excellent reason why a paper-thin plot couldn't be resolved by communication.