Comorbidly We Go Along
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 the end of my posts, but it just kind of worked there. I've only actually been diagnosed with Tourette's. I know that as of now most of my readers are other people with TS, but I'm hopeful that one day (when the site looks less like a LiveJournal) I'll have the time and energy to work on expanding my audience. I've spent most of my first ten or so posts talking about things I've learned about myself, my condition, and the TS community, and it's been awesome. I also don't want to forget that in my first post, I talked about wanting to inform people about Tourette's Syndrome. My TS doesn't prevent me from having a fairly typical life, but other people struggle with a day-to-day existence because of the symptoms of Tourette's and a whole host of other conditions and disabilities (side note here, and an important one: it's usually not because of the symptoms of these conditions. Rather, it's how society reacts to/fails to accommodate those conditions).
In my early online research into TS, I learned that a couple of other conditions exist co-morbidly (my nonexistent understanding of Latin makes me think that word means "dead with") with Tourette's Syndrome. The ones I see listed most frequently are ADHD, OCD, anxiety, and depression. I was briefly on meds for depression in my mid twenties and my neurologist put me on Clonidine after my diagnosis last December. The Clonidine was allegedly supposed to treat the symptoms of TS, ADHD, and OCD. I'll talk about that experience in another post; it didn't go well and I'm still not sure of my feelings re: medicating. Let me state again that I've only ever officially been diagnosed with TS, but I know I hit every box for ADHD and a bunch for OCD. Getting officially diagnosed by a doctor (Psychologist? Psychiatrist?) would be kind of like my wedding. I already know I have those conditions, and I already knew I was going to love my wife forever no matter what. I'm not sure if there would be any benefit of confirming what I already know, especially since I have no desire to try new meds.
The ADHD I think just makes my head feel like a blender. Some people joke about going into a room and forgetting what they're doing there and my thought is something like, "Wait, there are times when you DO remember what you're doing in a room?" That must be great! I can barely pay attention to a conversation that lasts more than a minute, which I know has to be frustrating as hell for my friends and family. This of course excludes my wife, who, by virtue of her blistering intellect and sunshine-like beauty, has my full attention whenever we're in the same room. I hate finishing up the last few details of a task/project. I'm usually reading three or four different books at a time because I need changes of pace so frequently. The real kicker is that my job requires me to perform slight variations on a hyper-repetitive task a few hundred times a day and man, is it torture. By the time I'm done with a work day my brain feels like the water in a water balloon in the millisecond after a needle punctures it. It's a real struggle some days, and I often wonder if the ADHD hasn't actually had a more negative effect in my life than the TS.
I don't have a psychologist's grip on the OCD spectrum, but I know I struggle with obsessive thought a lot of the time. If it's Monday and I know I have to make a drive on Saturday with a particularly bad left turn that I hate having to make, it is GAME ON in my brain. I will obsess and worry over having to make that turn for a freaking week. There's also this one left turn I have to make (it's perfectly safe) every Monday with my son in the car that scares the shit out of me. The most ridiculous part is that I could take another way, but rigid thought! I have a seriously hard time with changes to my routine and I think that would actually be worse. On the side, I think I struggle with rigid though and I dislike changing my routine because when you have a neurological condition that sometimes takes control of your body, I think you're inclined to viciously seize control of anything else you can. I also obsessively (compulsively?) check the news on my phone all day. I must check CNN, Huffington Post, and Breitbart twenty times a day each. I even check them when I wake up in the middle of the night. I wish I could explain the deep, dark need I have to do this. I'll cycle through them over and over, seeing the same headlines a bunch of times and not really feeling like I've met the compulsion. The worst part of it is that it all pisses me off! Nothing I see in the news gets me all like, "Yeah, that really gives me hope for humanity's future!" It's all just terrible! As soon as my current phone is paid off, I'm going back to a flip phone. I think maybe less stimulation is better for me.
That's the sort of denouement that normally pops up at the end of my posts, but it just kind of worked there. I've only actually been diagnosed with Tourette's. I know that as of now most of my readers are other people with TS, but I'm hopeful that one day (when the site looks less like a LiveJournal) I'll have the time and energy to work on expanding my audience. I've spent most of my first ten or so posts talking about things I've learned about myself, my condition, and the TS community, and it's been awesome. I also don't want to forget that in my first post, I talked about wanting to inform people about Tourette's Syndrome. My TS doesn't prevent me from having a fairly typical life, but other people struggle with a day-to-day existence because of the symptoms of Tourette's and a whole host of other conditions and disabilities (side note here, and an important one: it's usually not because of the symptoms of these conditions. Rather, it's how society reacts to/fails to accommodate those conditions).
In my early online research into TS, I learned that a couple of other conditions exist co-morbidly (my nonexistent understanding of Latin makes me think that word means "dead with") with Tourette's Syndrome. The ones I see listed most frequently are ADHD, OCD, anxiety, and depression. I was briefly on meds for depression in my mid twenties and my neurologist put me on Clonidine after my diagnosis last December. The Clonidine was allegedly supposed to treat the symptoms of TS, ADHD, and OCD. I'll talk about that experience in another post; it didn't go well and I'm still not sure of my feelings re: medicating. Let me state again that I've only ever officially been diagnosed with TS, but I know I hit every box for ADHD and a bunch for OCD. Getting officially diagnosed by a doctor (Psychologist? Psychiatrist?) would be kind of like my wedding. I already know I have those conditions, and I already knew I was going to love my wife forever no matter what. I'm not sure if there would be any benefit of confirming what I already know, especially since I have no desire to try new meds.
The ADHD I think just makes my head feel like a blender. Some people joke about going into a room and forgetting what they're doing there and my thought is something like, "Wait, there are times when you DO remember what you're doing in a room?" That must be great! I can barely pay attention to a conversation that lasts more than a minute, which I know has to be frustrating as hell for my friends and family. This of course excludes my wife, who, by virtue of her blistering intellect and sunshine-like beauty, has my full attention whenever we're in the same room. I hate finishing up the last few details of a task/project. I'm usually reading three or four different books at a time because I need changes of pace so frequently. The real kicker is that my job requires me to perform slight variations on a hyper-repetitive task a few hundred times a day and man, is it torture. By the time I'm done with a work day my brain feels like the water in a water balloon in the millisecond after a needle punctures it. It's a real struggle some days, and I often wonder if the ADHD hasn't actually had a more negative effect in my life than the TS.
I don't have a psychologist's grip on the OCD spectrum, but I know I struggle with obsessive thought a lot of the time. If it's Monday and I know I have to make a drive on Saturday with a particularly bad left turn that I hate having to make, it is GAME ON in my brain. I will obsess and worry over having to make that turn for a freaking week. There's also this one left turn I have to make (it's perfectly safe) every Monday with my son in the car that scares the shit out of me. The most ridiculous part is that I could take another way, but rigid thought! I have a seriously hard time with changes to my routine and I think that would actually be worse. On the side, I think I struggle with rigid though and I dislike changing my routine because when you have a neurological condition that sometimes takes control of your body, I think you're inclined to viciously seize control of anything else you can. I also obsessively (compulsively?) check the news on my phone all day. I must check CNN, Huffington Post, and Breitbart twenty times a day each. I even check them when I wake up in the middle of the night. I wish I could explain the deep, dark need I have to do this. I'll cycle through them over and over, seeing the same headlines a bunch of times and not really feeling like I've met the compulsion. The worst part of it is that it all pisses me off! Nothing I see in the news gets me all like, "Yeah, that really gives me hope for humanity's future!" It's all just terrible! As soon as my current phone is paid off, I'm going back to a flip phone. I think maybe less stimulation is better for me.
Great post. This past year I was diagnosed with TS, OCD, ADHD and severe anxiety. As I was reading your post my heart started racing. I know exactly what you feel when you talk about that constant thought about the left turn or the need to know everything going on around the world. My therapist told me that unlike Tourette’s, OCD can be managed. One way to help control it is to give it a name. My OCD is named Data (Star Trek référence), anytime I have obsessive thoughts or need to check the news i have to talk to Data out loud and say “no I don’t need to do this right now data” it’s not an easy task Lol I’m still working on it. Hope that can help.
ReplyDeleteDanielle
I shall call mine Wesley Crusher, since it's clearly the most annoying member of my bridge crew.
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