Elizabeth Gilbert's meditative breakthrough in Eat, Pray, Love occurs after she focuses her thoughts on her nephew Nick. She describes him:
Nick, my nephew, is an eight year old boy, skinny for his age, scarily smart, frighteningly astute, sensitive and complex. Even minutes after his birth, amid all the squalling newborns in the nursery, he alone was not crying, but looking around with adult, worldly and worried eyes, looking as though he'd done all this before so many times and wasn't sure how excited he felt about having to do it again. This is a child for whom life is never simple, a child who hears and sees and feels everything intensely, a child who can be overcome by emotion so fast sometimes that it unnerves us all.
This summer as I was rereading the book, I read this passage once. I read it twice. I called my husband into the room and said I had something to read to him. (He HATES it when I read to him.) He asked me to read it again. Chills went through us both. This is our Sal, who happened to turn eight in the spring. We were given this intense little boy who we literally didn't know what to do with. Sal's always been a quiet, thoughtful child who has been deemed "shy," "lacking in confidence," "a boy." But, I've always seen more. Sal wasn't just shy, he froze. How does a boy who is nearly completely unaffected by peer pressure, lacking confidence? And Sal's intensity and emotions exceeded that of most little boys I observed. He was a mystery. I knew he didn't have autism. There were too many anomalies that didn't allow for that. But there was something.
First grade was nightmarish. He had a first year teacher who was quite good, but as most new teachers are, her focus was on classroom management. Any child who did not obey was seen as being insubordinate, even a child who didn't talk. He was forced to read in front of the room and had to pull yellow cards when he couldn't speak to answer a question. He began hiding under his desk and other furniture to avoid being called on. I spoke with the guidance counselor who worked with him a bit and got him through the school year, but I pleaded with her to please pair him with a teacher in the second grade that would understand him.
I met with his second grade teacher the second week of school and explained all that I knew about my son, and all that I didn't know. I told her he was a mystery, and she said that she's the teacher they give the mysteries to. The counselor knew what she was doing. Sal excelled, but one day his teacher became very ill and needed to leave school on the day she was holding her tutoring club. An announcement had been made to the students to go to a different teacher for tutoring club. Sal didn't pay attention to the announcement and I got a phone call from the secretary asking why I hadn't picked my son up from school. Both the substitute teacher and the secretary asked him where he was suppose to be or why I hadn't come to get him, and he didn't answer either of them.
When I brought this to the teacher's attention upon her return, she could have said, like even I did, that he needs to pay better attention and needs to speak up for himself. But, she sensed something more was at work in his mind and asked the speech therapist, who happens to be a seasoned educator with vast knowledge, to come and observe him. She did and she consulted with his past teachers as well. The term "selective mutism" came up. I had once taught a selective mute who didn't speak at all. Sal spoke, just not all the time. Selective mutes typically don't react or show emotion in public. Sal did. Both his teacher and I scoffed at the suggestion, but the speech therapist explained that there are stages of selective mutism and encouraged us to research it.
I read for ten minutes on the internet that night and knew this was the answer to the mystery. This was it! I won't go into a complete definition of the disorder other than to say that it's anxiety with some other potential underlying conditions, like speech processing or sensory processing, that can or cannot attribute to the anxiety, preventing a student from speaking in school or any specific social setting unique to the person.
It's a rare and misunderstood disorder, and for Sal, who is a mild case, even with the term now being used at school, they felt he didn't need to go in for formal evaluation. As the school year came to a close, my gut told me to pursue treatment. I went to our pediatrician and told him that I had diagnosed my own son with a communication disorder and needed a therapist. Since I am not in the habit of self-diagnosing, and the doctor that I got that day, who typically drives me crazy but is young and very receptive, said he'd be completely supportive of anything I needed and proceeded to brainstorm ideas for pediatric psychologists.
The search for a pediatric psychologist was a dead end. Our pediatrician cautioned against going to just anyone and strongly advised us not to take him unless the counselor had experience with selective mutism. Once again, Facebook was to the rescue. There are a few Facebook groups for parents with children suffering from selective mutism. One of the posts asked if anyone had experience with the SMart Center and the comments came pouring in about how wonderful this place was and they cured their sons and daughters. Guess where this SMart Center happens to be? Jenkintown, PA, just under nine miles from our house.
We started treatment this summer and have been working on some goals outside the house to help Sal build confidence and deal with stressful situations. The real test, though, is the third grade. School is the place that causes the most anxiety and third grade is a monumental year for all children. Sal is starting on an incredible journey this week. This is what we've been waiting for. So, yes, my thoughts have been with Sal these past two days.
And then there is Eli, who is my social butterfly and can make a friend anywhere he goes, and is the middle child, and just hasn't been getting the focus like we've been given to Sal and a demanding two year old little brother. Eli goes with the flow, and we've been relying on him a lot to go with the flow. He's really a remarkable child in how sensitive he is to others situations and he's quite supportive of his brothers. We've taken him for granted, I'm sad to say. He's becoming a teensy-weensy bit defiant, and we've been a teensy-weensy bit too hard on him for it. So, yes, my thoughts are with him, too.
My prayers yesterday and today are for them both to feel loved and to feel confident, and for me to be the best mother I can to both of them, to support them, to understand them, and to just make them feel loved.
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