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Well, I am speaking more. When I went for a colonoscopy, I responded to the nurse's questions as they came in.

Effective communication is facilitated when others allow me sufficient time to respond and articulate their thoughts at a measured pace.  

I am safe in this moment.  I can handle this one step at a time.   I can go at my own pace.  Except when I have a doctor's appointment where I have to be somewhere at a certain time.   Breathe.  I am safe in this moment. (for panic) My mind can rest.  Tomorrow can wait.

Things that are difficult for me.  What are these signs?   Taking things literally.  People say that I can't take change. That is not true for me. Sometimes you just have to mix up your day a little bit, and add a change of scenery.   I notice small details.  What are patterns? I have a very difficult time making friends.   Understanding social rules and social cues. Making eye contact. I try to force eye contract. It doesn't always work.  I did learn a trick from another counselor back in 1990 - 1995.  He taught me to look past people's ear. But I thought of something better. More appropriate. Looking at the person's forehead.  They think I am making eye contact when I can't make contact.  

I do think that Trauma can be from a major car accident.  I think that it started from I would say when I was about 2 years old.  Then when I was 18 years old, I was in a major car accident.  The accident was in June 1992.   My dad broke is nose and my spleen was ruptured.  I can remember me tumbling around in the van.  I was in the hospital for 2 weeks and then taken very carefully by ambulance to a hospital in Beaumont.    In the van, I was listening to music and drinking a pepsi and eating skittles when all of a sudden I looked up and saw a big yellow moving truck heading toward us.  The ambulance driver told my dad if I had been wearing a seat belt, I would have been dead.  I never had eaten skittles or drank a pepsi ever again after that.  Do you think that this is trauma starting before SM or is this ptsd?     I went to the doctor on Thursday October 22, they said I have Lymphedema where my foot, ankle and ...

Everything is on my mind and I don't know where to start.  Let's start with this colonoscopy.  I'm a little anxious that it is not going to go right.   Not sure where fiber gets turned into when we eat fiber from plants.  Through this whole thing, I need to stay calm.  I don't need my blood pressure and blood sugar going up.  I don't care what anyone thinks.  I know that anyone who has a severe anxiety disorder, I know that their blood sugar and blood pressure do go up.   I think this is what happened.  🤔  it believe that either Donna or my sister Karin let me in the gate or I followed my sister in the gate. There was a fear in me that left me shaking and I couldn't speak. Do you think that the dog bite would contribute to my selective mutism? 

My experience with selective mutism is that I make myself speak.  Sometimes it works and sometimes it does not.  I do believe that any anxiety disorder causes a freeze response that causes blood pressure and blood sugar to spike.  I do not think that I eat too much.  If someone else does say another word about it, me kick their a$$!  

I had a dream of speaking up and saying that didnt want to live with Karin and Gerard and that I needed to be around people who are just like me with selective mutism/autism.  Then the night mare was i dreamed that my mom wasn't here on this earth. And  someone kept making me live with my sister and her husband. So i spoke up and told them I didnt want to do that. Since me and my sister are 5 years apart, we would probably get into alot of fights. I am alot stronger than my sister is.  I had tried to look up if you saw someone in a dream that a loved one died what does it mean? 

I am wondering if I went into early perimenopause at 38.  People kept irritating me over there at the apartment complex-seville apartments. People kept irritating me except this one lady who wanted to be friends with me it seemed like.  Anyway, people would not listen to me and my feelings.  Now that just frustrated me and made me angry.  It's almost like I went into perimenopause early.  The main reason I got angry mostly was because people never shut up long enough so I could speak.   Okay, most of the people that were over there at the apartment are probably diseased including that lady who told me wanted to kick Jordan my dog at the time.  Now that really pissed me off!  

My blood pressure was up kinda high today.  The only thing I did get done doing was exercising.  Exercise and strength training raises blood pressure a little bit.  If anything, does anxiety raise blood pressure?  

During the mri today, I had started saying my mantra, "Be calm. In the moment. Right now. Breathe."  It seemed to calm me down alot.  And after about 20 minutes, it was all over with.  That thing is loud.    I keep wanting to spread awareness, but no one wants to talk about selective mutism.  

Does high cortisol and high adrenaline raise blood pressure and blood sugar even when I am scared to eat anything because Jason will say something about my eating and that I have high blood sugar and prediabetes? 

I want to explain something about how I communicate. Sometimes when I’m processing a lot or feeling overwhelmed, I’m not able to speak right away. I’m still listening and thinking — I just need a little extra time before I respond. The best way to help me communicate clearly is to let me answer in writing when I need to. Written communication is calmer and more accurate for me, and it helps me stay steady and respectful. If I’m quiet, it’s not me ignoring anyone or being difficult. I’m simply taking time to organize my thoughts so I can respond in a clear and calm way. I appreciate patience, predictable conversations, and no pressure to talk immediately. When things stay calm and unhurried, I communicate much better. I had a little help from an AI writing this. This is the only thing I use AI for is for communication. It helps me a lot. I would totally recommend that people just like me who have selective mutism and autism use AI for communication purposes only.

Do you know if the older we get the more challenging it is to managing SM?  To be honest, It does feel a little challenging.   I was overthinking today as I was posting in a SM group on Facebook that I'm feeling a bit ugh.  I was overthinking that I can't afford to live anywhere else.  Then I hear that this section 8 or something to that degree.  And my mom still tells me that I can't afford an apartment.  I will just believe her and ignore what Jason tells me.  I'm trying to ignore Jason.  

I am just checking my Google/YouTube account too see if I can post on this blog on my phone. Yes, it looks like it. 

What specific steps or thoughts helped you navigate that moment?   What strengths or coping strategies did you discover about yourself then that you can lean on right now? I was at my grandmother's house and I was 3 years old.  I am not sure if this can count as being overwhelmed but I know what I said to myself.  I told myself to live in the moment and right now.   Not sure how many years ago that was but in short at age 52 now, I thought of the "live in the moment" and "right now" statement and came up with this at 52.   Be Calm. In the moment. Right now. Breathe. I guess it taught me patience and calm but somewhere along the way I lost that calm and patience.  From who?  I am not sure.  I would like to say it was Jason but that is not right because I didn't know Jason back then.  

Right now my mind feel like I am unable to process my thoughts due to SM.  I am just unable to form words and spit them out.   It is that freeze response that is the problem.  If I would have gotten the shit beat out of me, I think I would have been afraid to talk because that would only make the freeze response even harder to control.  Right?   Below is what it feels like.  It just feels like I'm unable to form words to spit it out of my mouth.  And that is what the butterfly tapping does.  It just feels like to me that it doesn't make my chest not so heavy.  I feel stupid doing a butterfly tapping on my chest out in public.  I do the butterfly tapping while in meditation though.  If I didn't feel like people would look at me all weird, I would do the butterfly tapping anywhere.    The throat tightens at the same time Freeze often hits the throat and chest together. Sensations: throat feels closed or stuck ...

I would like to overcome my anxiety limitation.  Why would I want to overcome it?  Maybe it's better to have severe anxiety.  I will always be safe and protected.   Well, on Tuesday, September 1, I was triggered by that storm.  My dad got it in his head that we were going to flood again.  My parents were flooded out of the bottom floor and they lost everything but the clothes on their back and the bag that they packed to go over to my sister's house. There was about 8 foot of water in the house and my cat KatieJordan was trapped upstairs, and after the flood water went down, she brought all the neighborhood cats up there.  KatieJordan ran off over the rainbow bridge back in October 2019.   Now, if we were flooded out again, I would have tried to say, "Get your butt up here this instant!"  We would have all been yelling out the upstairs window for a rescue boat.  But luckily, there wasn't a flood.  And don't get me started ...

The most offensive thing that I heard my grandmother say before she passed away was the fu-word.  I didn't hear her say that word per say but my mom did hear her say that word. I was in the hallway and was really anxious.   My granmaw never ever cursed in front of me and my sister when we were younger, the two eldest of her grand-kids.  Now what I just realized was me and my sister were the two eldest granddaughters of our grandmother.  I never quite knew my grandpaw, he passed away right before I was born.  I heard all the stories about him.  He passed away in 1973 and I was born in 1974.  My mom told me that my aunt said that he was going up as I was coming down or something to that effect.  I wonder how old she was when she said that.  I did hear the funniest thing when my aunt was a young girl that she asked my dad if the toilet flushed when the lights went out. That was the funniest story that I heard about my aunt.  Another st...

I admire people for their determination and honesty. I wish I had a strong trait of my own. I tend to avoid confrontation, but I communicate best in writing. There are times when I need to speak up, and though it may take me a while, I do so when I’m comfortable. I might be slow to respond, but people will just have to accept that.