Hi, im a 14 year old girl who was just diagnosed with tourettes but i have been ticcing for a year now. I experience swearing, yelling tics, rude gestures, but also some very minor, hardly noticeable tics, (blinking, shrugging, breathing)
I wanted to spread awareness for tourettes syndrome but also for its related issues (anxiety, depression, ect.) In this post i wanted to talk about my experience at home with tourettes. I would also like to say, this is myb personal experience. Not everyone with tourettes syndrome will have the same experience.
Before being diagnosed with tourettes i was quite suicidal and depressed, and since i was 9 i had been experiencing social anxiety. I remember thinking to myself, whilst on a vacation to see my family in New York, that i will never see them again because i will for sure kill myself, but i was actually wrong. for some reason, i had an idea in my head that what i was going through was not something that was happening to me, but it was apart of me, and would be forever, because i had been struggling for so long. For anybody out there who is struggling with something similar, you are not alone and there is nothing wrong with you.
But exactly a year ago, after i finnaly was starting to see a future for myself i started twitching my head and making a small kind of sqeak-gasp noise, this continued and i was told that it was unlikely tourettes as it was quite minor and it is actually somewhat common to develop tics, but it just escalated and escalated until around the foru month mark, i developed a tic where i would make an innapropriate gesture (the middle finger).
My mother did not take it well. She didnt fully understand what was going on with me because nobody in her family had ever had tics before and we didnt know what they were until i started experiencing them. Keep in mind that most of the time tourettes has a very slow build up, for me this was all happening quite suddenly.
Around the six month mark I was having incredibly innapropriate tics, (F*** off, f*** you, p** on me, ect.) I was also picking up multiple tics from an influencer named Rachel Chaleff on tiktok, as when i first started having tics i would look at alot of her videos because they made me feel understood. Alot of my tics sound similar to hers because of this, which has led to alot of fake - claiming. It is incredibly hard for me to deal with.
My mother is still getting used to the innapropriate tics, but so far so good, nobody else in my personal life seems to have a problem with it.
My brother always laughs whenever i have a swewaring tic tho. I mean, sometimes i laugh too, but its like… ALL THE TIME!!!!
At home my mom and dad were quite supportive I think my mother, who is incredibly close to me, thinks of it as slightly annoying and actually in my control.
I remember when it was getting quite bad, and i had to be put on antipsychotics to treat the tics, my mom sat me down and begged me if there was anything i could do to make it stop. I carry that really deep in my chest up to this day.
Im sorry for getting all dark and venty about this but i think its important to me that people know that tourettes syndrome is not just making noises and swearing. There is so much to TS that you cannot see.
-Sierra
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