School Days Flash Back

    These past few months, I've been taking classes at the local college studying Phlebotomy aka "hospital vampires". LOL Some evenings, especially if I've had a busy day, by the time I get to class at 6pm that night I'm worn out and stressed. This, of course, starts a barrage of tics consisting mostly of grunting, upper body shakes, head snapping, leg jerking, and hand spasms. On this particular evening it was especially bad and I ended up having to take some medication to get me through the class. As we all know, meds take a few minutes to actually kick in, so in the mean time I was left with the anxious task of keeping enough control to where I could focus on my class and yet let my tics out as needed.
    This brings me back to my home-schooling days after my tics came on full force and sitting for any period of time without some extreme mental focus was torture. Fortunately, my mother was a patient, understanding teacher who helped me work through my school days and helped me come up with numerous coping mechanisms such as frequent breaks to stand up, stretch, and get a drink which helped to break up the monotony of staring at textbooks and word problems that my very distracted brain often had trouble concentrating on. Twitching and squeaking or screeching every few seconds or minutes isn't exactly helpful to the learning process.
    Often, during the peak of my tic cycle, my tics would become so frequent and jarring that I was forced to come up with alternative methods to get myself through my lessons. These were the days before I even know about about pressure therapy and weighted blankets.What I would end up doing was scrunching myself down in my chair and pushing my body up against the table as snugly as possible. This served to provide some relief and comfort to the storm going on inside my body.
    Anyway, during this particularly difficult evening of class I was desperately trying to think of something to get me through it, because I was determined to make it through the entire session. Suddenly, it came to me. All those years of sitting at home doing lessons had prepared me for just this sort of occasion. So I scrunched myself down in my chair and scooted it up against the table as close as I could without hampering my ability to take notes and within a minute I began to experience some relief.
    In conclusion, when we become adults, we put away a lot of the things we used to do as children. However it's important to remember that some of those things had a valuable purpose and that doesn't necessarily go away just because we "grow-up".
 

Jazzercise

Good afternoon everyone!
    It's been a great morning. My mum and I spent the morning making carrot scones, cream of carrot soup, and eggy bagels. Mmmm, the house smells so good and everything came out so well. My first cream soup all on my own. :D Yay!
    So this week I started a new workout routine. During this time of year my anxiety levels are higher and in succession, so are my tics. I've been experiencing lots of grimacing, eye crossing, and muscle clenching tics. We had been look for a place for me for while. Something that would be interactive, easy on the knees, and had multiple classes a week. We found Jazzercise. It combines Jazz, aerobics, kick boxing, and yoga to make sure you get to work all your muscles. There are ladies in my classes ranging from their teens to their eighties - no joke! Each class is a little different so that you don't get bored and the instructors are fully licensed and tell you how to do it so that you don't injure yourself or if you have a sensitive area. So, far I've experienced minimal soreness the following days and I always feel good afterwards. I definitely don't have to worry about ticcing during Jazzercise. I'm going to keep it up and see how things go. I will let you know in a two weeks how it's going, so make sure you come back for an update! I'm off to peruse the isles of Books-A-Million (BAM).