Abby Connolly
When you have a child with special needs, you often have to make sacrifices.
One woman’s daughter has a condition that makes certain noises triggering, so she’s been mute and using ASL around her since she was little. Now, she’s ready to start speaking regularly again.
She’s 41 and has a 17-year-old daughter named Ceci with her husband, Ray. When Ceci was a baby, she would have outbursts and meltdowns whenever she heard certain sounds. This included the sound of her voice, which was scary for her as her mother.
At first, she and her husband thought Ceci was on the spectrum, but after meeting with a doctor, they were told she might have misophonia, which is a disorder where people find certain sounds can trigger emotional or physiological responses.
“Her anger was always instant and at its worst whenever I made any noises, so to keep it to a minimum, we formed a plan that I would not speak in her presence, ever,” she explained.
“Instead, I use ASL, texting, text to speech, or Ray will be a messenger. [I use] anything but my mouth, pretty much. I even have to be careful just clearing my throat or making sure she can’t hear me from another room so she isn’t triggered.”
She’s been using these methods for the last six years, and in the meantime, her daughter has been making some improvements by going to therapy and taking classes with an online, specialized school. Unfortunately, she still gets highly triggered by her voice and freaks out if she even hears a peep.
But now that Ceci is almost 18, she and Ray realize it’s finally time to make a change.
“She’ll be starting senior year soon, and Ray and I decided that once she became an adult, I would not be mute anymore,” she said.
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