TOCSD

I have trouble remembering tics from when I was very young. I think they were there. I guess I remember them but I am having trouble putting a date to the memories. I do, however remember many examples of OCD from my very early years.
I have this one memory from kindergarten. I remember seeing this kid in my class who was wearing his father's watch. It was huge on his wrist. It wouldn't sit right on his little 5 yr old arm. The clock face would just slide down and end up on the wrong side of his wrist. I wanted to leap across the desk and fix it. I couldn't stand that the watch was upside down.
This is something that still bothers me. It always has. When I see people wearing their watches with the face on the inside of their wrist it drives me nuts. I want to grab it and flip it around. But I can't. I can't just go grabbing at people's wrists on subways and bank lines.
I remember when I was a teenager, I had some friends that would wear their watches this way. We were friends and comfortable enough with each other that I could "fix" their watches. And I would. I did it all the time. It got to the point that one friend would turn her watch around on her wrist whenever she saw me coming. I would see her doing it as we approached one another.
Wow. What a feeling. The feeling of elation I get from something as ridiculous as another person adjusting the way they wear their watch to the way I liked it to be worn is otherworldly.
While we're on the subject, when I was a child I could not stand when a girl's hair would fall down in front of her shoulders. Ya know, when just some of it is in front and some in back. It "had to" be back behind her shoulders. I couldn't stand looking at a girl or an adult for that matter and see her hair not behind her shoulders and down along her back. It drove me nuts and this was another one of those situations wherein I could not just go around flicking stranger's hair behind their shoulders.
Come to think of it. This went on during my college years, too. I remember being with a girlfriend of mine and always putting her hair behind her. Oh and another thing. Their hair has to be behind their ears. I hate when it just hangs down in front of their ears. I still tuck my girlfriend's hair behind her ears all the time.
So, back to OCD in my youth. I can remember when I was in elementary school...I would find myself spinning around. See, if I turned to my left for example, I could not keep going to the left in order to face front again. I would have to go back the way I came. And if I did make a full turn in one direction, I would then turn back the other way to correct it. I always imagined I had wires attached to me. And I would be untangling them by spinning back the other way. I was a spinning fool, as a child. It got so bad that I sometimes could barely function unless I twirled around this way and that way for minutes at a time. I never told anyone about the wires attached to me. Not until just now have I ever really let that out of my head.
Today, I am obsessed with flips. I have to flip. I can do a standing back flip and have done flips on skis and off of ocean cliffs and diving boards. There's something about completing the rotation that needs to be done. It's almost like untangling the wires. It needs to be a complete rotation.
I don't just flip myself. I flip everything that is in my hands. I flip glass bottles in stores before I purchase them. I flip wine bottles and snapple bottles. I flip my cell phone all the time. I used to have this job which required me to have a walkie-talkie on me at all times. I would obsessively flip it. Over and over again.
The list goes on and on. I have severe OCD. And yet, I am way more concerned with my TS. As a child, I did not know I had OCD. I did not know I had TS, either. I diagnosed myself with TS when I was about 12 or so. Maybe earlier. I always thought of my obsessions and compulsions as a part of my TS. It was when I got older and everyone and their mother suddenly had OCD and it was ok to have OCD, that I realized I indeed have OCD. But to me my OCD will always be my TS. They are one and the same. I do not believe you can have TS without having OCD.
Some people make that argument and I believe they are naive. TS is an extension of OCD. It is merely a rare symptom of OCD. Much like copralalia is a rare symptom of TS. Not all people with OCD have TS. And not all people with TS have copralalia.
But it is my strong belief that all touretters have OCD.
Deal with it.

It neeeeeds to feeeeeeeeeeel right.

What makes a tic "feel right?" When is it ok to move on? There really are no set of rules on this. Sometimes I will do something over and over until it feels right. But then it felt so right that I have to recreate that perfect tic and so I start the cycle all over again until it "feels right" again.
Yesterday, I found myself saying something I was thinking out loud, repeatedly. I started to analyze the process. It's the way the words feel when they pass through my mouth that needs to be done just right. The way my mouth feels when I say the letter L, for example. The way my tongue feels as it catches the spot where my teeth meet the roof of my mouth. Sometimes I hold that L for a time extended past the appropriate accepted length. No one notices. It's a split second. But I am savoring the feeling of my tongue pushing hard against that tiny space between the back of my front teeth and the roof of my mouth. I press hard.
Sometimes if it didn't feel hard enough I will reach into my mouth and stab the spot with my fingernail to emphasise the feeling that is still lingering in that spot from the recent L that has just been uttered. I also sometimes stick my knuckle, because it is calloused and hard, in my mouth, into that spot for the same reason.
When I hear a breathy sound, like that of an AH or OH exit my mouth, it needs to pass through my mouth hard. I need to feel the sound push through my lungs, throat, mouth and lips. And after I speak these sounds they need to be repeated. They need to be said again with much more care than when they were spoken in mere conversation. Upon repetition there will be careful attention payed to the way they feel as they exit my body and enter the world.
W. This is an interesting sound, too. That fucking W does some funky shit to my lips. They have to be pursed just right when I repeat this sound. The top lip has to be nice and wrinkled up and pushing it self out hard. I have to "feel it." Over and over and over again. And I may be caught making a bonobo-esque face, uttering hard and concentrated W sounds. Then those W sounds evolve into some other throaty sound that is a whole other vocal tic, altogether. And suddenly I am onto a series of vocal tics that had nothing to with said W in the first place. But don't worry, I will get back to the W. Once I am done here, I will return to my prior engagement. No tic will be left behind.
I will get to you all, my dears. I can promise that. There are so many sounds to repeat. Don't even get me started on the S sound. You don't want to hear that one. Not unless you like hearing me whistle in a really high pitch.

Quit it.

I am extremely obsessive. I know, this is no shocker. I have Tourettes. And where goes Tourettes follows Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. I am often heard saying that I have an addictive personality. And to accompany that statement you will hear that I have tremendous will power. And this is, somewhat, true. But that seems like such a moronic way to explain obsessiveness. I latch on to things. I was a total pot head at one time. I was also a raging alcoholic. I go to the gym every single day. I am a huge skier, so much so that I quit my well paying job and left the city of my birth to ski the Rockies full time.
I quit smoking pot. Just stopped one day. I used to smoke 7 times a day, every day. One day I decided not to do it anymore and I stopped. I did the same thing with drinking. And I was drinking 7 days a week. I just quit. That lasted 5 years. But I have never returned to the drunk lifestyle I once led. I never smoke pot anymore, either. This is the will power.
The truth is I do not have an "addictive personality" or amazing "will power." I have Tourettes Syndrome. It annoys me when people say, "you're obsessed with the gym" or "you're obsessed with skiing" or "I don't have the will power you have." These obsessions take hold of me. I cannot rest. I think about them constantly. And when it is set in my head how things are gonna be, then that's how it's gonna be. When I decided to quit smoking pot; I did. It is not an amazing display of will power. I will just mentally fall apart if I go against what the demon has decided I do. If I do not eat right or work out I will feel "off." And in OCD or TS terms that is not a good thing to feel. It will only result in much trouble for me.
The point is I have to keep myself in line or else I will pay for it. I will pay either in tic form or an indescribable feeling I am sure other touretters can relate to.
I wish I could skip a day at the gym. I wish I could feel comfortable or at rest without meeting my skiing quota. I wish I could but I can only do this when I am told to do so by the demon that lives within.
It is true I am easily addicted to things. And it is true I can easily quit them. But it is a constant struggle within my physical being that I dare not try to explain to those around me. It is simply interpreted as strength.
Maybe one day I will actually be the strong person I am thought to be and thus tell of how much a weakness my apparent strength truly is.

"All the live long day."

I have a new job. I am the new guy. No one knows my story. No one knows I have TS. The vocal tics have been bad at times but I am an expert at hiding them. And the nature of my work environment makes it easy for others not to notice.
I was thinking about what I would say if someone called me on the sounds I was making. The funny thing is that after all these years I don't have a bullshit answer. I mean I should have some answer I can throw at people. "Clearing my throat" or something. But I have nothing. I laughed out loud at the thought. I have no answers.
When people have said something in the past I either ignored them or shrugged my shoulders, saying, "I dunno." Once, in college, this guy who was sitting next to me in class asked me why I was making all those noises. I said, "what, you don't make noises?" Playing it off as if it were normal activity to be taking part in during English Lit 101. That stumped him. "Ask me questions, will ya?"
I am sure he just thought I was weird. Which is not incorrect. I am weird. Weird people do things like make frog noises in class and a face like they just bit into the world's largest lemon while in line at the bank. Yet, there is no frog. And I sure as shit ain't holding any lemon. Yeah, that's what weirdos do.
OK, so I am weird. What am I gonna say? "No, I am not weird. I have Tourette's Syndrome." That's fucking weird. People who go around telling strangers in supermarkets about their syndromes are weird.
So, to sum up. New job. New people. No one knows how weird I am, yet.