When I was a child, I had selective mutism. It’s a condition caused by extreme anxiety or the result of a traumatic event. Trouble is no one in my family or I are aware of anything that possibly could have happened to cause this.

My mother said I was developing as a completely normal happy child. One day I was playing alone in my room and she heard me make this almighty scream, I was shaking so badly and was totally inconsolable but no sign of anything being wrong. She said that’s when I started to change.

My parents said I used to always speak of a baby. They used to hear a baby cry on the monitor when I was asleep, but it wasn’t me.

Then we moved into a new house, and my parents tell I was traumatised about leaving. I tried to run away and was crying every day saying “we need to go back, we left the baby, the baby is crying”. It got so bad my mother actually persuaded the new owner living there to let us come back and visit to show me there was no baby.

I was also terrified of men apart from my dad and grandfather.

The mutism got so bad i wouldn’t speak to my own mother. If I had to communicate something to her, I would use my sister as messenger and make her tell.

The thing is, I barely have any memories from this period, a few significant memories, but most of my knowledge comes from what I’ve been told by family.

Eventually as I grew older I stopped being mute and just grew out of it. But it’s something that’s always baffled me because there was no reason for that to happen to me. I don’t have any personality disorders. It was so bad I was taken to a child psychiatrist, was tested for deaf and dumbness and all sorts but nothing.