Opening the Door/Operating System
Sometimes I'll think of things that I know would be one half of an interesting blog entry. Nothing revelatory, nothing deeply meaningful. Just stuff that might be interesting to talk about but nothing so in-depth that it could be its own whole entry. Here are two of them. My Tourette's is primarily a pain in my ass, but it is secondarily a curiosity to me. I think about it a whole lot, as you can probably tell by the fact that I'm writing lengthy(ish) essays about it twice a week for around two months now. Thinking about it, though, opens the door for more tics to get in and SEGWAAAAAAYYYYYY!!!!
So yeah, I think it's super weird that my tics get worse the more I think about, ponder, and worry about them. I have a friend who has OCD and she says that it's the same way with that. I'd love to see someone research why that happens. Are our brains wired to encourage negative feedback loops the way another person's brain is wired to encourage positive feedback loops? I guess to label a tic as "negative" is self-defeating. A tic is a tic. Our reactions to them and the reactions of the people around us lead us to labeling them as negative. Anyway, I digress. If I'm using a ten point scale, I think on a normal day my tics are around a five. Noticeable, but also background-able. If I'm really involved in work or playing with my kid or reading a good book, either I'm not ticcing or I'm not noticing. The funny thing is that if for some reason I'm at a 5.1, I feel like it starts an inexorable climb to the 8-10 range. I don't know what strange mechanism causes it, but it's a near 100% certainty once the climb starts. I'll go from moderate eyebrow and mouth and jaw tics to full Jim Carrey/Ace Ventura facial acrobatics. My right arm will start flicking out and my right middle finger (which was on FIRE today at work) will start saying hello to unsuspecting passersby. One thing that I'd bet some of you can relate to (again, I'm hesitant to speak for anyone else, but there are some parts of TS that I can't help but think are commonly shared among a lot of us) is that talking to other TS patients online or watching those kickass kids on "Raising Tourette's" turns me into a mad ticcer. I think TS is unique in that it's like a dog eating your table scraps: it will take literally whatever you give it. Trying not to think about it is kind of pointless. I know that over the course of my day, my TS will get into my awareness a bunch of times and I'll have to deal with increased tics until my brain decides to let its ACTUAL OWNER regain a measure of control. I think I'm headed closer to self-acceptance, so I hope these instances will become less frustrating as time goes on.
Secondly tonight, I've been thinking lately of my brain as a computer's operating system. There's memory, there's a portion dedicated to performing tasks, there's random garbage in the recycling bin, there's a whole lot of songs from the 90's, and there's TS. I've been wondering just what percentage of my operating system is taken up with Tourette's. Never mind the physical and psychological toll that it takes on a day to day basis. I'm just wondering about how much more I could accomplish if I didn't have this shit weighing on my operating system all the time. One of the most frustrating/interesting things about dealing with a neurological condition is not knowing what a baseline brain feels like. If I had a broken leg, I'd be able to compare life with a bad leg to my experiences with two good legs. So if I didn't have TS, what percentage of my useable brain would I get back? Would my brain even be recognizably mine without the Tourette's?
So yeah, I think it's super weird that my tics get worse the more I think about, ponder, and worry about them. I have a friend who has OCD and she says that it's the same way with that. I'd love to see someone research why that happens. Are our brains wired to encourage negative feedback loops the way another person's brain is wired to encourage positive feedback loops? I guess to label a tic as "negative" is self-defeating. A tic is a tic. Our reactions to them and the reactions of the people around us lead us to labeling them as negative. Anyway, I digress. If I'm using a ten point scale, I think on a normal day my tics are around a five. Noticeable, but also background-able. If I'm really involved in work or playing with my kid or reading a good book, either I'm not ticcing or I'm not noticing. The funny thing is that if for some reason I'm at a 5.1, I feel like it starts an inexorable climb to the 8-10 range. I don't know what strange mechanism causes it, but it's a near 100% certainty once the climb starts. I'll go from moderate eyebrow and mouth and jaw tics to full Jim Carrey/Ace Ventura facial acrobatics. My right arm will start flicking out and my right middle finger (which was on FIRE today at work) will start saying hello to unsuspecting passersby. One thing that I'd bet some of you can relate to (again, I'm hesitant to speak for anyone else, but there are some parts of TS that I can't help but think are commonly shared among a lot of us) is that talking to other TS patients online or watching those kickass kids on "Raising Tourette's" turns me into a mad ticcer. I think TS is unique in that it's like a dog eating your table scraps: it will take literally whatever you give it. Trying not to think about it is kind of pointless. I know that over the course of my day, my TS will get into my awareness a bunch of times and I'll have to deal with increased tics until my brain decides to let its ACTUAL OWNER regain a measure of control. I think I'm headed closer to self-acceptance, so I hope these instances will become less frustrating as time goes on.
Secondly tonight, I've been thinking lately of my brain as a computer's operating system. There's memory, there's a portion dedicated to performing tasks, there's random garbage in the recycling bin, there's a whole lot of songs from the 90's, and there's TS. I've been wondering just what percentage of my operating system is taken up with Tourette's. Never mind the physical and psychological toll that it takes on a day to day basis. I'm just wondering about how much more I could accomplish if I didn't have this shit weighing on my operating system all the time. One of the most frustrating/interesting things about dealing with a neurological condition is not knowing what a baseline brain feels like. If I had a broken leg, I'd be able to compare life with a bad leg to my experiences with two good legs. So if I didn't have TS, what percentage of my useable brain would I get back? Would my brain even be recognizably mine without the Tourette's?
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