Setting the Scene

By Harriet Corke

 December, 2001. It’s time for my nursery’s annual nativity. All the children are itching - both their chickenpox scars and for the best role, that of the Virgin Mary. 

I have been attending this nursery for two years, and in that time I haven’t spoken to anyone - not even when I accidentally swallowed some paint. But, in a spectacular piece of anticasting, I am cast as Mary. 

You read that correctly. Me. A non-verbal child. As Mary. The character with the most lines. Who is onstage the entire time. 

Always pertinent in my artistic choices, I sat down on stage, said none of the lines and ran away as soon as it was over. 

Shortly after starting school, I was diagnosed with Selective mutism. The NHS website describes it as: “a severe anxiety disorder where a person is unable to speak in certain social situations.” It was something I lived with for about eight years. 

Being mute isn’t something you hear very much about. People who are mute tend to keep it quiet; though I am no longer mute, my experiences are rarely heard. When people do listen, I can see their eyes cloud with sympathy. They imagine a lonely girl retreating into a world of silence to cope with the pain of everyday life. 

I hate to disappoint people, but I wasn’t lonely or mistreated or ostracised. I was the school celebrity and, thanks to the warmth of my classmates, had a pretty great time. 

For certain people, however, my mutism was more of an inconvenience to be rid of rather than a problem to be solved. Teachers found me tricky, and so very little changed. 

It was my year 3 teacher who took the matter of my muteness into her own hands. Unfortunately she was rather uncoordinated, and mismanaged my case in small but marked ways. I was forced to listen to a recording of myself speaking, made without my knowledge. She snapped at me in front of the class if my lack of speech had annoyed her that day. Perhaps the greatest humiliation was being told off in front of the whole school during a fire drill, after I raised my hand rather than answer my name. She interpreted that as insolence. In fact, as the NHS website states: “A child or adult with selective mutism does not refuse or choose not to speak at certain times, they're literally unable to speak.” 

I don’t imagine there was ill-intent behind this, just a lack of understanding and an unwillingness to learn. Careless words were thrown around - and they stuck. A comment about my inability to take part in the school play “because you’d ruin the whole show” troubled me even as I (briefly, as a teenager) considered a career as an actor. 

But if that was true, how did I get the role in the nativity four years prior? Was it my mystique? My ability to cry on command (i.e. when anyone spoke to me)? Maybe it was the diverse aims of the casting: all the Wise Men that year were girls, and my friend, who was Muslim, was Joseph. (TV execs take note.) 

The answer is simple. I wanted the role, and they gave it to me. There were no questions about whether it was appropriate. They simply did something that they knew would make a child happy. 

Last month, CommunicationFIRST released a short film called ‘Listen’, which asks non-speaking autistic people about representation. In it, they explain: 

“If you always leave us out, people think we are not able to participate.” 

Selective mutism and autism are very different conditions. Nevertheless, this statement could quite easily apply to the selectively mute community. If our needs are not heard; if people continue to talk around rather than to us; if people continue to place limitations on us, then how can we be understood? 

I was a child in the early 2000s, when mental health education was patchy at best. But the fact that people’s willingness to understand me diminished as I got older is, retrospectively, troubling. After all, if you won’t listen to the Virgin Mary, who will you listen to?