The Bad Things
First, let me apologize for last Thursday's non-post. It was Thanksgiving here in the states, and I was lucky enough to spend the last four days with my family and friends, eating good food and sharing lots of love. I also got to spend last Wednesday night in NYC with a friend seeing my favorite band.It turns out that as a 38 year old husband and father, I am, in fact, wayyyyy too effing old to stay out till 3:30 AM the morning of Thanksgiving and still feel human when I wake up a few hours later. Luckily, my wife's family was kind enough to snap me out of my daze by way of our traditional full contact football game. I am the oldest non-QB playing, and boy oh boy does it show. This was my eighth year playing with them, and it's a blast every year. That game is a good opportunity to take stock of how much a person's life changes year over year. Since my first year playing, the family has had three more weddings, three more grandkids, three new houses, a host of new degrees and jobs, and even a new small business. I am an exceptionally lucky guy to be a part of this family. I also got to see my parents and some other family Thursday night and got to do a whole bunch of other fun stuff during the remainder of the break.
But maaaaaaaan, my tics were on fire this whole weekend!!! Even Wednesday afternoon as I was preparing for the train ride from NJ to NYC, I was a hot mess. I don't always venture out comfortably. That might read as a weird sentence, but honestly it's pretty spot-on. I'm not sure if I have a higher-than-normal level of anxiety about things, but I do know that my anxiety manifests itself in my tics. My face was ticcing pretty hard and my head was stuck in bad thought loops about horrible things happening like train accidents, terrorist attacks while I'm in the city, and missing the last train home and being stranded in an ice-cold New York City overnight. Also I was sick as a dog, which sucked. It was bad enough that I almost bailed a couple times but decided not to. I've only recently realized that in my head, I almost always bail on everything. I have to force myself to go out and be a part of the world because otherwise I would happily, happily, happily stay at home with my wife and my son and my dog and my stuff and avoid anything that might trigger a bad tic day/experience. This is one of The Bad Things about having Tourette's, at least for me.
Another one is jealousy. I know it's bad and not really TS-affirming to wish I had a more typical brain, but gosh darnit I just can't help it sometimes. Lately, I've found myself looking at strangers in public for like 10-20 seconds just to see if they make any involuntary movements. They don't, of course, because what's the likelihood that a person I'ma randomly look at in public happens to be another person who openly displays symptoms of Tourette's? Pretty close to zero. But yeah, that person never tics and I just feel this quick wave of jealousy where I'm like, "I wonder if this person knows how amazing it is to have total control over your own body all the time!!!" Because man, that'd be the bomb-diggity! I hate feeling jealous and it's a garbage way to spend time, but sometimes I just can't help it. I want that calmness so bad.
Ooh, and another one is how tics can interrupt my entertainment experiences. I've been reading a really great book for the last few days, but my tics have been pretty distracting as I've made my way through. I've mentioned before that I have a context-sensitive tic where if I'm holding a book/smart device, I'll wave it in front of my nose and breathe in at the exact moment when the breeze from waving book hits my nose. It is a pain. It's been pretty bad the last few weeks, and it's been taking a toll on my enjoyment of the book, which sucks, because there are RACECARS DRIVEN BY WIZARDS IN IT. It's a dream of mine to write a great sci-fi or fantasy book one day, but if every other author gets to these amazing ideas before I do, it's a lost cause. My wife and I also watched Ant-Man and the Wasp two weeks ago, and my tics were pretty bad towards the end of the movie. I have this weird one that forces me to look away from the TV/movie screen during climactic moments during movies and TV shows, like my TS is almost actively trying to diminish my enjoyment of these things I love. It's minor and I rarely miss anything consequential, but it'd be nice to just be able to really lose myself in these fictions without the distractions TS brings to the table.
I don't want to be ultra-negative, but I also think it's sort of BS when people tell me I should just embrace all of this and be happy with how strong Tourette's makes me and whatnot. Yeah, that's all well and good, but sometimes it just sucks. I'm gonna acknowledge that and feel it and process it because after those things, I can just move on and wonder if the wizard race car driver is gonna really be able to make it work with the space ship's wizard mechanic. Because yes, this book also has a wizard space ship mechanic.
But maaaaaaaan, my tics were on fire this whole weekend!!! Even Wednesday afternoon as I was preparing for the train ride from NJ to NYC, I was a hot mess. I don't always venture out comfortably. That might read as a weird sentence, but honestly it's pretty spot-on. I'm not sure if I have a higher-than-normal level of anxiety about things, but I do know that my anxiety manifests itself in my tics. My face was ticcing pretty hard and my head was stuck in bad thought loops about horrible things happening like train accidents, terrorist attacks while I'm in the city, and missing the last train home and being stranded in an ice-cold New York City overnight. Also I was sick as a dog, which sucked. It was bad enough that I almost bailed a couple times but decided not to. I've only recently realized that in my head, I almost always bail on everything. I have to force myself to go out and be a part of the world because otherwise I would happily, happily, happily stay at home with my wife and my son and my dog and my stuff and avoid anything that might trigger a bad tic day/experience. This is one of The Bad Things about having Tourette's, at least for me.
Another one is jealousy. I know it's bad and not really TS-affirming to wish I had a more typical brain, but gosh darnit I just can't help it sometimes. Lately, I've found myself looking at strangers in public for like 10-20 seconds just to see if they make any involuntary movements. They don't, of course, because what's the likelihood that a person I'ma randomly look at in public happens to be another person who openly displays symptoms of Tourette's? Pretty close to zero. But yeah, that person never tics and I just feel this quick wave of jealousy where I'm like, "I wonder if this person knows how amazing it is to have total control over your own body all the time!!!" Because man, that'd be the bomb-diggity! I hate feeling jealous and it's a garbage way to spend time, but sometimes I just can't help it. I want that calmness so bad.
Ooh, and another one is how tics can interrupt my entertainment experiences. I've been reading a really great book for the last few days, but my tics have been pretty distracting as I've made my way through. I've mentioned before that I have a context-sensitive tic where if I'm holding a book/smart device, I'll wave it in front of my nose and breathe in at the exact moment when the breeze from waving book hits my nose. It is a pain. It's been pretty bad the last few weeks, and it's been taking a toll on my enjoyment of the book, which sucks, because there are RACECARS DRIVEN BY WIZARDS IN IT. It's a dream of mine to write a great sci-fi or fantasy book one day, but if every other author gets to these amazing ideas before I do, it's a lost cause. My wife and I also watched Ant-Man and the Wasp two weeks ago, and my tics were pretty bad towards the end of the movie. I have this weird one that forces me to look away from the TV/movie screen during climactic moments during movies and TV shows, like my TS is almost actively trying to diminish my enjoyment of these things I love. It's minor and I rarely miss anything consequential, but it'd be nice to just be able to really lose myself in these fictions without the distractions TS brings to the table.
I don't want to be ultra-negative, but I also think it's sort of BS when people tell me I should just embrace all of this and be happy with how strong Tourette's makes me and whatnot. Yeah, that's all well and good, but sometimes it just sucks. I'm gonna acknowledge that and feel it and process it because after those things, I can just move on and wonder if the wizard race car driver is gonna really be able to make it work with the space ship's wizard mechanic. Because yes, this book also has a wizard space ship mechanic.
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