Roychang was treated at Yes We Can Youth Clinics for her depression and anxiety disorder. Today, she is doing very well. We are grateful that she choose to share her life story and review of Yes We Can Youth Clinics.
“I had given up completely. I spent every second of the day thinking about how I could end things”
I grew up with a Thai mother and a Dutch father. I was bilingual and grew up in a household with two cultures. My dad worked full time and my mom stayed at home, which meant that I was actually always with my mom. I had a very good relationship with my mother and we also did a lot of things together.
Things actually started going wrong from the moment I went to preschool, which was when I was two-and-a-half years old. I told my parents that I didn't belong there and that I didn't want to go there anymore. My parents didn't understand this since I was just a toddler and they believed that toddlers belonged in preschools. That was until they came to the preschool themselves. They immediately realised that I was very different from the other kids. Where other children still babbled, crying about everything and understanding nothing about life, I was able to chat easily with adults, using full sentences, understanding more about life than one would expect from a child of my age. At that age I stopped talking. It turned out that I was afflicted with selective mutism, an anxiety disorder that occurs in children who are afraid of speaking in certain settings. I only spoke at home, but no longer at preschool, or later on at school either.
We moved house when I was in Group 2, so I ended up in a new school. Despite 'not talking', I quickly made new friends. I had no trouble making contact and I was able to show my friends what I needed. This school recommended that I take an IQ test, which subsequently showed that I was gifted. It then became clear to my teachers at school that I was perfectly able to talk, but that I was just too afraid to do so.
From that moment on, while I was still in Group 2, they focused on getting me to talk. I started seeing an internal counsellor on a regular basis. We played special games that were specifically geared at getting me to talk eventually. That didn’t always go well because often, I realised what they were doing and did not want to cooperate.
Just as I was about to go to Group 3, it became necessary for me to talk. The school and my parents discussed the option of special education and, being a child, I also picked up on this. I saw the disappointment in those around me, and that was not at all what I wanted. So, I promised my mother that I would talk when I was five years old. My mother didn't really take this seriously at first, since an anxiety disorder such as this doesn't normally go away overnight, but it did!
Precisely on my 5th birthday, I started talking to everyone again, both at school and outside of it. To everyone else, this step seemed like a great breakthrough for me and for my self-development, because I could now show everyone what I knew and what I could do, but to me, this was the first big moment of adjusting myself to make others happy.
The rest of my years at primary school went well. I had quite a few friends, my results were good, and I also came across as a happy child. School was not challenging enough for me though, so I needed many other extramural activities.
I had many hobbies, including ballet, piano, gymnastics, drawing, swimming, and reading. At one point, I also started volunteering at a petting zoo. After school, I often stayed behind for a bit to help the teacher tidy up or mark some work. I had a very busy schedule for a child aged 8-10, but I enjoyed being able to do so much and that's why I was so grateful that this was possible.
