I was very shy and sensitive. I liked to read. I was sensitive to other people's pain. I was concerned about all the unfairness in the world and often noticed things like bigotry and hypocrisy, especially in my own extended family, but didn't feel I could do anything about it except talk to my mother about it over a cup of hot tea. She was never a bigot but I could see that she felt uncomfortable speaking out against bigotry and hypocrisy when she saw it in her family. As a child I just learned to be quiet and try to ignore it. It was more important to try to fit in.
My IQ was never tested. I never felt as smart as my mother who could answer more Jeopardy questions than anyone I knew because she had been reading so much her entire life and I don't think I was as smart as my younger sister, but I always thought I was smart enough until I had my son and he started correcting me before he started kindergarten and realized at that point that I didn't know everything. I am sure I thought my mother knew everything when I was four or five.
Some of the things I read about selective mutism sound a lot like the way I was as a child. I wanted to talk but I couldn't. As an adult I was always attracted to smart, articulate people like my husband and his family. I think part of my problem was that my dad was in the Air Force and we moved several times during my childhood. It was difficult for me to make friends, but I talked a lot at home to my mother and sisters. The year I was 15 and moved to California was the most difficult. I became very depressed because of bullying at the school and not fitting in. Some of the teachers were bullies. I got frequent migraines but managed to get very good grades. It was the only time I ever thought about suicide but luckily I was never impulsive and always thought before I did anything. I was very close to my parents and I knew what it would do to them if something happened to me. They always listened to me. They believed me when I told them I couldn't take living there any more and they let me move back to the state where we had lived previously to live with my grandmother. I didn't need counseling. I needed to get out of that toxic environment and once I did there were no more problems. I think of this when I listen to my son who hates where we live because of the attitudes of people in our small town as well as the monotony. We hear people openly expressing their bigotry. Some of them are in our extended family.
Unlike my son, I could color in the lines and enjoyed coloring. I won a coloring contest once.
I usually made straight A's--unless I had a PE class where the highest grade I was ever able to make was a B. I didn't do sports and didn't particularly like sports. I didn't like the idea of people watching me when we had to do sports in PE. I was very self conscious. I would never have been able to get up on a stage and perform in front of people like my son does in musical theater. I would never sing or dance or even speak in front of an audience. I avoided the social activities that my daughter loved and could never have been a cheerleader like she was. I preferred more solitary activities. I taught myself to crochet when I was about 10 and could make things without a pattern.
I didn't have any trouble doing math, usually made A's, but I didn't like it so didn't take any more math than I had to and algebra II was as high as I went with math in high school. My younger sister loved math and took calculus and trigonometry. She was interested in engineering. Two of our uncles were engineers. My dad talked me into taking accounting classes in college because he thought it would help me get a good government job. I lost some of my shyness in college and got married at 19.
