When I was little, I had severe apraxia of speech. Apraxia of speech is a disability where a child mislearns how to form sounds with their mouth. For example, when I would sound out words, I would add extra letters and miss others because my brain and mouth weren’t synced up like most people naturally learn to do.

   The only solution to apraxia of speech is to retrain the brain and the mouth to sync up. In my case, this required seven years of speech therapy alongside special reading classes that my elementary school provided. I don’t have many memories of speech therapy but I do know that the experience has stuck with me because of my silent community.

   I first learned of my silent community when I was in middle school. One of my teachers pulled me aside one day to ask about an assignment. Somehow, the conversation moved to talking about finding ways to get around words I didn’t know how to spell. My teacher recognized that I was using a set of synonyms and writing tricks to accommodate for my disability because she also had a speech disability that impacted her writing. Realizing that other people had gone through similar experiences and were able to spot each other created this silent community in my mind. I’ve since met more people in my silent community who were going through similar difficulties, giving me the motivation to work even harder on my communication skills.

How to meet your silent community?

   Finding your silent community can be difficult. First, you must define what your silent community is. My silent community has become a group of people who have gone through similar experiences and whom I know I can talk to about apraxia of speech. This includes others with similar disabilities, experts and family who have supported me. Second, to find your silent community, you have to be ready to talk about your struggles. For example, if you try to find a silent community but aren’t ready to talk about your experiences, you might not find the community that best suits you. Instead, be open, take risks and put yourself out there. You don’t have to start the conversation but you can’t expect to find your silent community if you shut down every conversation. This doesn’t mean you have to engage in every conversation either; sometimes you don’t feel like having that conversation that day or the person you’re talking to is insensitive. Remember you can and should be picky with who you want to let into your silent community. Third, be patient. None of us will find our silent communities in the next five minutes, that’s unrealistic. Reveling in this desire may feel miserable until you have that community, even if you feel ready to talk about your struggles. At this point, the best thing you can do is be ready for your silent community to present itself but also not dwell on its arrival.

*Special thank you to everyone in my silent community and all the specialists who helped me throughout my experiences.