Stepping out of anxiety - Selective Mutism edition

My life after school: I took an ADHD test

For a while now I've been wondering ... could I be ADD? Or maybe even a learning disability that went undiagnosed, because doctors and psychologists were too busy figuring out why I was mute as a kid.

I'm in my 20's, and ever since graduation - I've been all over the place. My friends all knew what they wanted - enrolling for Uni, getting jobs (or so they appeared, because I've been told 100 times a lot of young people don't know what they want to do with their life after graduating) I didn't even look at Uni.

I've done a few Tafe courses (And if you're American – I've decided to refer to it as Australian community college), beauty school, admin, admin again, and again, animal studies, hair dressing. I dropped out of a few of them, particularly the admin courses.

And I felt ... lost. I mean, I still hope to develop a makeup business eventually. But above all, my biggest dream was always to sing and create music ofc.

For some time when I was fresh out of High School - I was unemployed and open to any decent job, not to mention severely depressed after being allowed for a trial off my antidepressants for half a year, plus being bored at my Tafe course.

It made me realise how hard it was to find a job.

A year after my Make up Diploma (which I wish I left after the certificate considering it was the biggest waste of time. Then again, what was I going to be doing anyways? The whole point of enrolling was because I was bored at home making no income) - I tried to become a hairdresser. I ended up doing an apprenticeship at two hair salons. Work and get paid while you study (did it before enrolling for Tafe).

It was a disaster.

No, I never reached the stage for cutting peoples hair. I swept the floors, gave people hair washes and head massages. For some time I was praised for it and felt confident in these things I was doing

Other times I would look around the hair salon and think "this is what I'm meant to be doing" then anxiety would get the best of me and I'd stop and wonder "Can i really do a job that requires talking to people all the time? Constant customer service and being fake all the time?"

I was kicked out of my first hair salon (it was a high end salon in the city). my boss gave me so many warnings:

1. No more accidentally wetting people at the basin

2. Later discovered: Accidentally Ruining foils

3. Failure to follow instructions.

I mean, it's not my fault one of the girls asked me to hold something for her while I was waiting for my client under the treatment machine. In all honesty it probably would've lasted longer if I had that as an excuse, but it wouldn't make much of a difference...

Apparently I would stop and think about things, and my boss would remind me I was a mature age apprentice - not 12. Yes, I'm aware. And on my last day she'd ask, "Is there something about you I need to know?"

And I didn't tell her. It lasted for six months.

Looking back, I wish I said something about having anxiety.

At a young age I was diagnosed with a severe case of anxiety, so many times. It was called Selective Mutism. I used to find comments on the internet calling it social anxiety on steroids.

And at my second salon despite working with some decent people that gave me free hair services. The feedback I got before I took myself out included:

Customer complaints (to rough, once in a while wetting customers, brushing some ones ear, accidentally finding colour on peoples clothes, which is pretty embarrassing), not washing off colour completely, and as I've been told so many times "you're not paying attention or listening." Things to do with common sense. And in my last moments there: that I needed to speak up. Ofc I didn't tell them my backstory. And looking back, I wish I did.