Bradford doctor’s fight to overcome selective mutism

While studying child psychology during his medical training at Hull York Medical School, he came across a passage in a textbook.

“It perfectly described me as a child,” he says.

“It was a very small paragraph, maybe six or seven lines. But when I read it, I knew that was me.”

The condition was selective mutism, external, an anxiety-related disorder in which somebody who can speak in some situations finds it impossible to do so in others, often inducing a freeze response, anxiety and panic.

The discovery brought relief, but also painful questions. There had been no support during his childhood and he was not aware of anything available to him as an adult.

He pushed it, as he puts it, “under the carpet”.

But it never really left him, despite academic and professional success.

Working in medicine gave him little choice but to use his voice.

“I see nearly 20 patients a day, so you can imagine if I decided not to speak, it would be quite difficult.”

Yet he still avoided situations where he may have to address strangers and was content to “just get on” with his job.

Then two things happened which changed his relationship with his voice entirely.

Firstly, his own five-year-old daughter began showing signs that she may have the same condition.

Ahmed remembers a teacher questioning why she did not speak, saying there must be something wrong with her.

“I had no words,” he says.

“It kind of triggered me and for that brief moment, I became a five-year-old again, standing next to my daughter and holding her hand.”

Ahmed secured speech and language therapy for his daughter Aminah and she is now flourishing without the challenges he faced, he says.