Ed's Tourette's

This is not a Breaking Bad-adjacent post. I've always loved science and I've also always been terrible at it. I started struggling with it in the seventh grade or so. I just could not for the life of me be bothered to pay attention to anything my teacher was saying. I was so inattentive that I legit studied the wrong part of my science book for a test. I studied, with my dad's patient help, about animal digestion. The test, it turned out, was about plant digestion and photosynthesis and that stuff. Oops. Sorry, Pop. By tenth grade chemistry, I was totally lost. I could not for the life of me wrap my head around the math and theory of something so abstract. I could run and record the results of experiments, but that science indicated by the results eluded me. I do, however, remember learning about the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle. I'm sure the definition has "Telephoned" to something that barely resembles what I originally heard, but I think it said that ...

     I've alluded in previous posts to a bad experience with the one medicine I've tried using to control my tics. My first appointment with my neurologist was December 11, 2017. I checked in, sat for a while, and she came to get me. Diagnosing me with Tourette's Syndrome was easy. After talking for a few minutes about my experiences from childhood until now and explaining my tics and their frequency and development, we started talking drugs. She recommended I start on clonidine, though we talked anti-seizure and anti-anxiety meds as well. We decided that since I'd made it to 37 as a mostly functional adult, clonidine and its minimal side effects (in comparison to the other options) was probably the best way to start. We talked about a titration schedule to ease me onto the drug. Clondine is primarily a medicine to treat high blood pressure, so taking a full dose right off the bat can push a fella's blood pressure mad low mad quick. My full initial dose after titrat...

     It's easy to think a person with neurological/psychological conditions is just weaker than you. "You could control it if you wanted to". "I also drift off in class but I don't use it as an excuse." "I worry about things too, but I don't let it rule my life." If I could control my tics, or if I could really pay attention like an average person, or if I could control my obsessive thoughts, trust me: I would. I was always taught that a person claiming to have ADHD was just a person looking for an excuse to be lazy. If that person would just bother to pull himself up by his psychological bootstraps, he would be fine. Not so, true believer! Your neurotypical brain is not something you achieved, and my neurodiverse brain is not a judgment on my character. That's just how the Plinko chips fell, and though I struggle a lot of days, I'll happily take my headspace over yours.       That's the sort of denouement that normally pops up at ...

     I hope I never come off as trying to speak for anyone else with Tourette's Syndrome. I'm trying to tell my unique story of life with TS, and I know from  Twitter  and from listening to the excellent  Tourette's Podcast  that everyone experiences this condition differently. One common thread I've noticed, however, is the sense of isolation that Tourette's can cause. I'm no stranger to this feeling, so I figured I'd talk a little about it tonight. I'm going to try not to be a huge Debbie Downer on this subject, since I don't want to add to any negative feelings anyone reading this may already have. If you DO feel this way before, during, or after reading this, tweet to me! We can talk about it! The best way to not feel alone is to not be alone.      I may have said something like this before, but I feel like I've always felt a little different in the brain, as if I was having a slightly different experience of being alive and perceiv...

     I've tried writing this post once before and I couldn't figure out what I wanted to say. I'm just going to let my fingers sort it out for me. Otherwise I'll be up till the wee hours and that practically guarantees a bad tic day tomorrow.      For as long as I can remember, I've loved to read. My folks were super diligent about reading to me from a very young age, and I still remember some of the details of Herbie the Ice Cream Man, a story my dad made up. As a little kid, my favorite book was  "My Teacher is an Alien" . I must have read it twenty times. By the time I was finished, I think the book's spine was held together entirely by my fondness for it. My copy of  "Ender's Game"  suffers the same malady from repeated reading and lending out. My high school girlfriend got me into fantasy books like  "Wizard's First Rule"  and  "The Ruins of Ambrai"  (funny note about that last one: the author wrote the first...

    I first encountered the word ableism a few months ago when a relative posted about it on Facebook. I didn't give it much thought at the time. Joining TS communities on Facebook and Twitter has forced me to take a hard look at what the term means to me, how I have engaged in ableist behavior over the course of my life, and how I can change my outlook and my actions. I want to put it out there that I haven't couched myself in the vocabulary of disability/ableism and my opinions regarding these issues are not at all refined and may be inappropriate. I am sorry for that. I'm trying to learn and to change my behaviors, so please point out areas where I have room to grow. I have a feeling I may not feel too great about myself by the end of this one.      The Google-able definition of ableism is "discrimination in favor of able-bodied people". I'm ashamed to say that as of a few months ago, that is not an idea I had ever considered. I'm fully aware that peop...

     In between posts, I keep having weird one-off thoughts that make me think, "Hey, I should put this in the blog!" before promptly forgetting them. One of these days I'll get around to carrying a notepad in my pocket to jot these down before the next shiny object grabs my attention. One of these days I'll also get around to making this blog look less like a LiveJournal.      I've been thinking lately about how identity is the sum of the interplay between internal belief about oneself, internal and external challenges to that belief, and changes to that belief that arise as a result of those challenges. The cycle repeats over and over. Nine months after my Tourette's diagnosis, I'm still going through smaller, daily versions of this cycle while experiencing a longer, overarching version of it that is slowly making changes to how I view myself and how I view others.      The small daily cycles mostly have to do with my relationships at hom...

     I mentioned in a previous  post  that a big reason I wanted to get a TS diagnosis from a neurologist is because my wife and I had a newborn son. My online research (read: Googling) suggested that while there's no comprehensive understanding of what causes Tourette's Syndrome, there's evidence that there are significant genetic factors included in having TS. I wanted to be sure I knew what I was dealing with so my wife and I could be on the lookout for early symptoms in our son.     So now we wait.     I think the worst/funniest part of this fear is that he's only 13 months old and I'm already analyzing his movements for tics. Every time he makes a sound over and over my gut reaction is, "Oh man, this is it! I passed on the curse!" Then I remember that he's 13 months old and he's probably just enjoying knowing how to make a new sound. He's been kind of growling like a really serious monster the last two or three days and not making any ...