The corner of my mind

Two memories.
I have a memory of my mother being very patient with me when I was a little boy. I had this tic that I actually still have. It is a vocal tic of sorts. I don't know how to explain it. But the point is that I could not speak until I got the tic out right. This could take minutes. I would be doing it over and over and would not be able to say a word. It got so bad that I just didn't speak for days. I have much more control over it, now. I have learned to modify this tic so that it is similar enough to the old one that the demon is satisfied and lets me get away with it.
We were in the kitchen of our old house and I could not speak. She, very patiently and considerately, said: "I know it's hard. It's ok. Just write it down." I was so fragile at that young age. No one understood what this insane battle going on inside me was. And the person I needed the most was right there to lend me an understanding hand. I am sure there were other moments like that one but this is the one I remember.
Fast forward to about 15 yrs later. I was living with my parents during one of my many short stays when I was between homes (I move a lot). My mother and I were in that same kitchen. In the same exact spot, actually. We were having a random, casual conversation about drugs. Nothing too heavy. It was pretty jocular in nature. Then she said: "maybe that's why you do all those weird things." She was referring to my high school recreational drug use (nothing major. Just typical experimentation). I said: "What things?" I knew what she was getting at but wanted to make sure. Then she mimicked me. She made some awful jerking motion. It was a terrible imitation, if you ask me. She wasn't even close. But I got the point.
I honestly don't remember what I said or if I even said anything. But I do remember going up to my old bedroom and crying. A grown man crying in his childhood bedroom. It tore me apart; watching my mother make those gestures. Did she forget the horror of my childhood? Did she block it out of her memory? Does she not remember that day in the very same kitchen when she mustered up all of her motherly love, through what must have been a very difficult child rearing process, and made me feel ultimately safe and secure? Does she really think that smoking pot in high school caused my TS? How could she say that?
After all we'd been through. Her as a mother of a child with Tourette's Syndrome. And me as that child. She wants to blame me. She wants it to be my fault. I caused it. She wants to wash her hands clean.
I never fuckin blamed her gene pool. I never pointed the finger at her. I kept it all inside. I never talked about it with her past my adolescence. I dealt with it on my own. And I am sure, looking back that it was probably not the best way to do it. But it has made me the man I am today. I faced this disorder by myself with no support group save for that one goddamn memory of my mother in a kitchen when I was a little boy.
It broke my heart when she said those things to me as a grown man.
A big, grown, baby, crying man.