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.