When I was a little girl, I joined Girl Scouts (Brownies) in the first grade. I have always loved hiking, exploring, making crafts, etc. So, this was a good fit for me. It was only a couple years later that my tics became full blown and I was diagnosed with Tourette Syndrome. I had many motor tics, most of which consisted of shaking and jerking my upper body or my legs. Back then, however, my vocal tics were aplenty and became more frequent if I got excited. I would do the "girl-scream", talk in an escalated tone, squeak, whistle, and make bird noises. All of this seemed "normal" to me, but to my friends, it could be quite startling at times.
I remember being on a weekend camping trip when I had just entered Juniors. It was cold and rainy and we slept in tents that were not entirely unexposed to the outdoors (which meant bugs). Every few minutes or seconds I would let loose with one of my vocal tics and a couple of the girls asked me to stop. I looked at them slightly confused as to why they would ask me such a thing. I was never a quiet person and, as I said, ticcing was a natural thing to me. One of my friends stepped forward and said, "She can't help it."
"Yes, she can." Retorted one girl with her arms crossed. She wore her hair in a ponytail and seemed to speak for the others who had objected. "Yeah, why can't you stop?" snapped a girl in pigtails behind her.
Glad to have someone on my side and wanting these girls to leave me alone, I finally spoke up. "It's a tic, I have Tourettes." I shrugged and launched into the 9 year old's version of what TS is.
This was just one instance where I've encountered social insensitivity. There are always consequences to that kind of behavior. I'm not going to say it didn't sting or hurt, but over the years I've learned that many times when people say things like that it's due to a lack of knowledge or that thing in your brain that makes you think before you speak, i.e. discernment. The trick is to learn to ignore their comments and even encourage questions. That let's people know that you're okay with having TS, even though it can be a challenge. Also, it's important to learn to be comfortable in your own skin and ticcing in public, because if people don't accept you AND your Tourettes, they're probably not the kind of people you want to hang around anyway.
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