I hope this is the right place for this as it doesn't directly tie into a particular relationships but I didn't see another place for it and if not, I'm assuming people can probably move it to the appropriate forum?

This is something that's been bothering me for a long time, mostly because I have no way to relay how it feels to others in a way that other people can understand. It's worth noting I did spend a significant portion of my life with Selective Mutism as it might tie into this I suppose. I dissociate as well and I don't know if this ties into it. I physically can't have conversations with people. At all. It doesn't feel like shyness, I just physically can't. The worst thing is everyone just tells me to stop saying 'I can't' as if I'm actively preventing myself from doing so by saying that but I don't know how else to explain that I am physically incapable of communicating with people for reasons beyond my understanding. People talk to me, joke around with me and tell me stories and even if I have a response to it in my head I just end up responding with 'ok' or 'yeah' and that's it. If people ask me questions that I clearly know the answer to and have opinions on I usually respond with 'I don't know'. It's automatic and happens beyond my control. It's killing me to not be able to talk to people.at all because I don't have friends and would very much like to have relationships with people that I can let down those barriers around and be real with. I'm just hoping maybe someone here might know what this is or what I can do to fix it beyond people telling me to 'not care what people think' or 'just say it no matter how scared I am' as if that were the problem at all. I just can't. Oftentimes when I'm around people, I'll be running through what I want to say in my head and just trying to say it but I just don't and the minute I walk out of the room by myself, I start rattling off out loud all the things that I was thinking about saying as if I were actually talking to people. I feel like I've exhausted all my options.