"But once you wake up."

I had a this dream the other night. It wasn't the first time I've had a dream like this. It's been a while, though. I don't even remember the last time. In the dream, my Tourettes went away temporarily. Some guy gave me this scotch to drink and it made my TS go away. It wasn't quite a lucid dream but it almost was. I was waking up and it was one of those dreams where you're half awake and kind of aware you're dreaming but not totally. I remember reveling in the sensation. It was so incredible to just be. I mean, to be conscious and not have any urge to tic. No compulsion whatsoever. To just be. Once I awoke, I lay there for a while, perhaps unsure if it was real or not. And then the tics came. And the the disappointment. My TS has been especially bad lately. Probably the worst it's been in years. I have been under a great deal of stress for a variety of reasons and I'm sure that's the culprit. But this dream. It was so nice. To just be. To be and not feel bothered or tortured by something I cannot control. It is an ineffable sensation. There was nothing. That's the best I can do to describe it. Just nothing.
I used to have lucid dreams all the time. I did a bunch of research on them and discovered you can pretty easily induce them. It is a little bit of conscious work and effort, though. I used to have several lucid dreams a week. I rarely have them anymore. I stopped doing the work. I would like to start having them again. I would like to have them and experience that feeling of not having to tic. In a lucid dream, you can control the dream when you get good at it. I used to be pretty good at it after some practice.
That feeling, in my dream the other night, was the most amazing feeling I have ever experienced. Isn't that something? The feeling only lasted less than a minute. It's what most people know as waking life consciousnesses. Their everyday, miserable lives. I just want it for one more minute. What it would be if that magic, dream-scotch elixir was not pretend.

"Breakdowns come and breakdowns go."

It's been a while since I've cried.  I'm not talking about tearing up during Forrest Gump or Piano Man.  I mean sobbed.   I don't cry often and the few times I do it generally gets reported back here.  I was feeling a little under the weather.  I had really bad poison ivy.  My arms, legs, chest and stomach itched.  Itched and itched.  And I was done with the scratching.  I was really trying to refrain from scratching.  My baby was crying.  And there was so much clutter!  Papers piled up.  Pens scattered about.  The whole world started closing in on me all at once.  When I am sick, OCD gets nasty.  It plays dirty.  I felt like I was in the fetal position, getting the living shit beaten out of me by 5 men in combat boots.  I couldn't handle it.  I toyed with the idea of storming out of the house, leaving my wife to deal with our crying baby.  But I didn't move.  I sat in an armchair, head in hands, itching.  I couldn't move.  I was stuck.  Reason kept me there.  Responsibility and love for my family grounded me.  I had visions of grabbing something like a chair or computer and tossing it against a wall.  I felt dirty.  Sweaty! I couldn't stand the clutter around me.  It all had to be cleaned up and organized right then!  I wanted to wash my hands and my face. I wanted to run scalding, hot water over the poison ivy.  I wanted to scream!  When I finally did get up, I ran upstairs and sat on the bed.  My wife and child remained downstairs.  I started to cry.  And then it was a sob.  Through this sob I repeated, "I don't want it.  I don't want it anymore.  Take it.  Take it away."  I don't know who I was talking to or why it even came out aloud but I needed to hear the words.  The tears just erupted.  I couldn't control them nor did I try. And then just as suddenly as the tears had started, they stopped.  So, I sat there, quietly.  It's not as if the ordeal was over.  I didn't feel better.  I just felt nothing.  The world still wanted to crush me.  But I am a grown man.  I am bigger than this.  So, I let it go.  And there it went.  I stood up, went downstairs and the family got dressed to leave the house together.  We went to the park.  We let the dogs chase squirrels and laughed at our baby's 9 month old smile, giggles and babble.  I let it go.  I let it go somewhere deeper inside my head.  Deeper but not gone.
I remember a day when I would actually press a random payphone receiver up against my ear.  I remember when I would hold onto poles in the subway for balance without giving it a second thought. I remember reaching for the door knob in a public bathroom without a care.  Is it age that has progressed my OCD?  Is it just time collecting my experiences, presenting them to me in a big, pile of germ infested clutter for me to sort through with gloves on and hand sanitizer in my pocket?  "Take all of this bullshit that drives you insane and slowly lose your mind."  What happened to the little child who would absentmindedly put money in his mouth?  I remember slapping hundreds of hands a day in high school.  Now, I'm hand sanitizing my knuckles after an awkward fist bump.  I can't even open the bathroom door in my own damn bathroom in my own damn house without a tissue.  What is this torture to be when I'm 60?  Worse?  Will I live in a bubble?  Will I wear gloves all the time?
I must resolve not to let that happen.  Every once in a while I need to sob.  I need the OCD and the TS to crush me a little bit.  I need to take a beating.  This, too is experience.  Experience is all we've got.  I am bigger than this.  I will take my beatings and I will survive.

"The choice is for us to say. Completely change or fade away."

My life has changed so much over the course of the last year.  It is amazing how comfortable we get in our routines.  And then one day our routines are no longer a part of our daily existence.  Something gets in the way and new routines develop.  New life experiences.  We're uncomfortable.  Out of our element.  But the storm subsides and we get into the flow with the new shit.
I got married.   I went on a 5 week honeymoon to Europe.  I quit my job.  I moved back to NY.  I left the house that I bought and spent the last two years renovating.  I put all of my shit in storage.  I started a business with my brother.  I worked endless hours.  My wife got pregnant.
We started that business in February.  9 months later, we have a successful business.
Things have changed.
I am having a baby.  There is a living being moving around inside my wife's womb.  I had something to do with that.  I helped create that being.  I ignored the fear and the uncertainty.  That being will be my child.  That child is change.  That is new!  I do not want to be stuck in a routine.  I will find newness and power in life.  I will increase.  I will grow.  I will change.

New tics

Most of my tics are the same tics I have had since I was young.  Some go away, some never leave and then there are old friends that come back for a visit after being absent for years.  They just randomly come and go, these tics.  So, it is interesting whenever new tics show up.  Man, I must have so many tics in my repertoire.  I am sure there are plenty I have even forgotten about.  It's a regular reunion when we get reacquainted.
Whenever I notice a new tic arriving, I try not to pay it much mind.  I don't want it to develop into a major tic that dominates the competition.  There is usually one or two tics that control the game for the most part for a few weeks or months.  Lately, it's been the neck shake and wide open eyes/eyebrow raise.  Relatively mild ones, actually.  They are being accompanied by the back arch and lip curl over tooth slide but those two are just minor players, right now.
I have, however noticed a new, never before seen tic show up on the scene.  It's hard to explain.  It's sort of a fight between my tongue and my lower lip.  My tongue pushes out against my lip as my lip pushes back against my tongue.  It's that "perfect" feeling pressure we're aiming for, here.  It's actually a pretty satisfying tic.  It's one of those tics that's easy to appease.  Once I get the feeling right, I can move on for a little bit.  And it is not that hard to get it "right."
So, now the tricky part is not letting this tic get too much play.  If I pay it lots of attention, which I am doing right now by writing about it, I will be thinking about it more and it will make its way to the forefront of my tic roll.  Sometimes, new tics will show up and then disappear shortly after.  Hopefully that will be the case, here. We shall wait and see.

SFW

My wedding is coming up.  I will be getting married in August.  I will be standing in front of everyone I know during the ceremony.  I will be on display.  There will not be a  moment when I know no one is looking and I can sneak a tic or two.  Every second that I am standing up there, at least one person will be looking at me.  So, I will hold the tics back, naturally.  But am I that good?  I wonder what tics will slip through my veil of camouflage.  Maybe I should practice hiding tics.  Or maybe this will be the day it all comes out.  All those who never caught a tic and all those who were not sure if they saw what they think they saw and all those who know my tics all too well will get to see the show.  The Tic show.  It comes with a meal, drinks and dancing.  

To be honest I am not really stressed about it.  I am pretty goddamn good at hiding my tics.  This shall be a nice test of my skills.  I figure if I think about it, I will stress about it.  So, I will not think about it.  It will be what it will be.  So, I'll tic.  So fucking what?

"Turn around, now. You know your home's back there."

I have noticed that my OCD has gotten much worse in the past few years.  It is starting to take over.  It's the very reason I don't post more often.  I can't just sit down and bang out a quick blog post.  It doesn't work that way.  I often have ideas of things I would like to write about.  The act of sitting down and writing about what's going on in my head is not so easy.  I have to write and rewrite and rewrite everything.  I review and edit.  I review again.  And then again.  Everything must be perfect.  If I am not happy with my grammar I will rewrite whole paragraphs.
That is really the tip of the iceberg, though.  The hand washing has gotten really bad.  I wash my hands all the time.  I've always been that way to a degree but it has become an absolute hindrance to whatever I am doing.  I want to wash them right now.  And I know they are clean.  When I cook or prepare food, which is all the time because I am obsessed with what I put in my body, I find myself washing my hands over and over.
I was just upstairs trying to study Spanish.  I could not concentrate because I was constantly dusting my desk and the various things on it.  I was rearranging everything on the desk again and again.  I could not get out of that part of my head.  It drove me to stop studying, altogether.  I feel like there is a layer of dust on my fingers from wiping the desk down.  I still feel like it is there.  I keep rubbing my fingertips together to disperse the dust.  And there's no fucking dust!  Despite knowing this I will continue to try to release my skin from this nonexistent dust.
I always feel like my house is cluttered.  It is not, really.  In fact, we just cleaned the whole thing.  There will always be clutter!  Unless I am living in a stainless steel box that is wiped free of dust and dirt every 5 minutes there will always be clutter.
And in these moments when I am overwhelmed, instead of losing control of myself, I regroup.  I know there is nothing I can do about it.  I refrain from going crazy.  Images of myself rocking back and forth in agony flash through my head.  I am scared I can end up that bad some day.  I can lose all control over my compulsions, OCD or TS driven.  I can see myself crawling into my head and huddling as close to myself as I possibly can, desperately wanting to be put out of misery but ill equipped to ever make that happen.
Last week, I hit a very low point.  My fiancee and I drove from Colorado to California for a wedding.  Half way into the drive we stayed at a motel.  She made a very strong effort before we retired for the night to find a good place to get some breakfast the next morning.  She spent an hour looking for places online.  She knows how picky I am when it comes to nutrition.  She found a place.  In the morning we went there and couldn't get in because of the wait.  I said we can eat wherever she wants to.  I was trying so hard not be  a pain in the ass.  I was trying to make her life easier.  I was bottling up my frustration and resigned myself to dealing with the situation, the reality that I would have to sacrifice and eat crap food.  Eating crappy food is not OK with me.  I will be tortured for days over what went into my body that I did not approve of.  But I was trying not to bring all of that shit to the forefront.
We ended up going to a Starbucks drivethru.  She got coffee and an egg sandwich.  I got nothing.  We had some almonds in the car.  I snacked on those.  As the ride continued she insisted I needed to get something to eat.  This turned into a fight.
And then I completely lost control.  Any restraint I possessed disappeared.  I just couldn't take hiding all of my craziness anymore.  All of the frustration I feel from battling and hiding my OCD and TS took over.  I cried hysterically for a long time.  I wanted to die.  I really wanted to just die.  I remember saying, "I just want to be normal.  I don't want to live like this anymore."  At that moment I absolutely felt that way.  I was so defeated by Tourettes and OCD.  I was against the ropes and getting the shit beaten out of me.  I was devoid of all my strength.  I cried and cried.  I hated that my fiancee knew about any of my bullshit.  I don't think she realizes how bad the OCD is.  I told her about the TS but never really went into how bad the OCD is.  I felt I was better off when she didn't have any inkling as to why I may be crazy.  It was better when my "craziness" seemed like a bi product of my intelligence or eccentricity.  But here we are.  She now knows where it all comes from.  In that car, at that moment I felt naked.  I couldn't look at her.  She was driving and I sat in the passenger seat sobbing into the window.  I craved death.  I wanted to no longer coexist with the demon in my body and brain.  He won't leave.  I felt like it was me who needed to go.  I haven't felt that broken by the demon in a long time.  I just ceased to care about anything.
I am alone now.  I flew back to Colorado and left her there, as was originally planned.  She has work to do out there.  She has our two dogs and I have the solitude of an empty house.  Honestly, I think I need this time away from the three of them.   I need some space.  I need some time to regain the strength I used to command in order to get me through this constant battle.  For that is what it is.  A battle.
If eating breakfast can draw so much conflict inside of me, imagine what other battles exist inside my brain on an hourly basis.  OCD pushed me close to my limit last week.  It brought me down.  And all the while, the tics were kicking me on the ground.  TS and OCD are in cahoots.  They work together.  Bullies.  When one pushes, the other pushes harder.
I am still here.  I am still fighting the good fight.  Waiting for the bell...

Stunt my growth

Facial Hair.
     I hate shaving.  I think most men do.  Some men go through their entire lives shaving every single day.  They never even let it grow out more than a few days on their vacations.  Some men never shave.
I subscribe to both approaches.  I go through lengthy periods of time when I shave every day and I also go through stages in which I don't shave at all.  As of late, I have been wearing a beard.  It is a trimmed, short beard but a beard nonetheless.
     I once grew my beard out for 6 months without so much as a trim.  People I knew for years didn't recognize me.  I liked that.  I felt like a different person.  I felt like I was wearing a permanent disguise.
Men get to indulge in the playful enjoyment of face grooming.  We can grow a mustache or a goatee.  We can grow a full beard or sideburns.  As much as we all hate shaving, it is something we must do in our society.  And a  lot of us do enjoy playing around with our facial hair options.
     When my father was post-op in the hospital, I convinced him to grow a beard; since it was hard for him to lift his weak arms to his face, let alone shave.  He hadn't worn a beard since the early seventies.  As long as I've known him he has shaved every day.  Maybe he'll let a day go by but never more than that.  In the hospital,  he let it go a few days, then went nuts and had to shave.  He wobbled over to the bathroom in his gown, using his walker and spent 3 razors shaving.  The man has a thick mane.  He couldn't take it.  It bothered him to have that growth on his face much in the same vain as it bothers me to feel the wool of a sweater on my arm skin.  Who knows if it is OCD or not but he could not have it.  He had to have it removed.  And much to his credit, he did just that.  He struggled past his post surgical limitations and made sure that beard left his face.
     I love growing beards.  I hate having the hair on my face as much as I relish in it growing there.  I obsess over it.  If I know I am growing a beard, I think about it all the time.  I lie awake in bed and imagine the little hairs flourishing.  I think about the crop the new day will bring when I awaken.
     And then I have a beard.  I have this bushel of hair on my face.  And once it is there, I lick.  I cannot help but to play with that hair.  I play with my tongue.  I put the mustache hair in my mouth. I am constantly working my tongue all over my beard, as far as it will reach.  It is an obsessive compulsion.  Then, I grab my bottom lip with my teeth, pull it into my mouth and grab a hold of the lower beard hair.  I suck it into my mouth.  I have to feel the individual hairs in my mouth.  If I can work one, single hair between my two front teeth...oooh, that's heaven.  Or hell.  I'm not sure.  I have to run the individual hairs through the gaps in my teeth.  I will do this over and over until it feels right.  And it never does.  I will use my hands to push the sides of my mustache into my mouth so that my tongue can grab it and feel it inside my mouth.  I am not satisfied until my tongue feels the individual hairs.
     Years ago, I had a very long goatee.  It was probably 5 or 6 inches off my chin.  I used to just grab that whole bushel of hair and shove it in my mouth.  It was such relief to have that chunk of hair in my mouth.  In fact, as I type this I long for that feeling.  It is frustrating the shit out of me to not be able to do that, being as my beard is not long enough.  All I can do is force the short "soul patch" beard hairs into my mouth in a repetitive attempt to get one between my top two front teeth.  This is what I am doing now.  Over and over.  Obsessively!
     I have often tried to get my father to grow his beard.  I think his beard would look pretty cool, considering it is most certainly all gray.  I took advantage of his sedentary state when he was hospitalized.  But that was not the first or last time I made the suggestion.  A comment he made once stays with me.  He said the reason he doesn't grow it anymore is because he ends up playing with it too much with his tongue.
     Wow.  Is that just something he does because it is there and so close to his tongue?  Maybe.  I think a lot of people with beards do that.  But do they obsess over it? Is it all they think about?  Do they lie awake in bed at night, thinking about all the hairs they will be able to stroke with their tongues the next day as I do?  Probably not.
     I still wonder if my dad did.  If he obsessed over his beard.  My father.  My flesh.  My blood.  His beard. The beard he refuses to grow because his tongue traveled its established design too much.  Who knows?  I am not about to ask.
My beard will continue on.  I shall grow it and shave it.  And I shall obsess over its growth and lack thereof.

"...Is sometimes what you need"

I don't cry often.  Almost never, in fact.  It's interesting when you think about how little adults cry.  I mean, we've all cried in our lives.  As babies, of course.  Then up through adolescence.  After puberty, a bit less.  A touch here and there in high school.  Maybe some in college.  Then, we become adults.  We stop crying.  Perhaps this is not the same story for most women.  I don't know.  Regardless adult women cry less than little girls do.  That has to be true.
I am sitting here trying to think of all the times I have cried in the last ten years.  Not too many times.  I cried after my grandmother died; not right away I might add.  It took me a few days.  I cried when my dog died.  I sobbed, to be honest.  I teared up during a recent fight my fiancee and I got into.
I probably cried five or six other times in the last decade.  I have my moments when depression overwhelms me.  I usually don't let it get to the point of tears but it can go there.
The night I told my fiancee about my TS, I cried in bed.
I also cried the next night when we were talking about my not wanting her to see my tics.  I felt so alone and not alone at the same time.  I wanted to curl up into a ball and just cry by myself.  But she didn't let that happen and I am glad for that.  I sobbed in her arms.  I couldn't control it.  I felt like I wanted to run and hide on an island of despair as I had so many times before.  But I couldn't.  I couldn't hide because she knows of my secret.  There was nowhere to hide.
This was a good feeling.  It is a good feeling to know that when I run away, looking for a place to hide someone is right behind me, making sure I am OK.  She gives me space, which I need.  But I know she is hanging back with worry in her heart.
The morning after I told her about this awful pain I've been hiding in my head for all these years, I caught her crying.  It is not an uncommon sight to see my fiancee cry.  Yet, this was different.  I opened the bathroom door to see her in tears.  I asked her what was wrong.  She said, "I hurt."
I thought she meant physically.  I thought maybe she had a bad headache or cramps or something.  She said, "I hurt in my heart."
She preceded to tell me how much it hurt her to not know about my pain and to not be able to help me.  The thing is she has helped me immensely over our courtship.  Just her being in my life makes it easier to deal with the demon.  And maybe now that she is aware of my pain, it will be even easier.  That remains to be seen.
I wish I could cry that easily, sometimes.  But I cannot.  It is not machismo that prevents the tears.  Maybe it is the strength I have built for myself over the years that keeps them at bay.  Whatever the reason...I seldom cry.  But I do know how good it can feel.

"...a warm safe place, where as a child I'd hide."

I am taking a Spanish class.  I haven't been in a classroom setting in 12 years.  I have class once a week for three hours.  I have been wanting to take a Spanish class for a while.  It finally worked out with my schedule so I jumped on it.  It's exciting.  It's a very different feeling taking a class at my age than it was when I went to college.  Even the classes I really liked back then didn't ever get me excited about attending them.  But I am excited to go to class, now.  That being said, I find myself in an uncomfortable situation.
I am back in school.  I sit at a desk in a room full of other people.  It has been a long time since I had to deal with TS in that setting.  It brings back memories.  The good 'ol days when I fought to suppress tics for hours at a time.  It brings back memories of taunting and bullying.  Classrooms are tough, even for an expert tic suppressor like myself.
The urge to belt out a big, fat vocal tic is incredible.  It still makes its way out there but in a much quieter fashion than it would like to have been heard.  I don't care as much as I used to about being noticed.  And in a room full of adults, most of them my age or thereabout, they probably don't give a shit what I am up to.  I am, however, aware of the eyes that may or may not be on me.  I can feel them looking, watching, observing.  So, no matter how comfortable I may be I still fear being caught.  I am always scared of "them" seeing me.
And as long as "they" are out there watching, I'll be hiding.  

"Even if things end up a bit too heavy..."

I find myself living within a new set of rules.  I catch myself hiding my tics when I know I don't need to.  And once caught I laugh at myself and let the tics fly (to an extent).  The vocal tics are a bit louder, now.  Before the confession, I would always be conscious of where she was in the house.  Is she in the next room?  How loud can I be right now?  Is she going to walk in on me while I am having an apparent conversation with the wall?
But things are different, now.  Although I don't want her to see any of it, there is no legitimate reason to hide it.  She already knows.  So, in baby steps I am letting go a bit.
The funny thing is I find I am more comfortable with my TS.  Everywhere.  Not just in the house.  I am less afraid to let strangers see it than I used to be.  Maybe it's because my fiancee knows about it and that is way more important than any stranger's observations.  I am not saying it is a ticcing free-for-all out there in the world but I have unconsciously let go of the reigns a tiny bit.  It is a new realm for me.  I am existing in a new frame of mind that will only evolve into something new.  We shall just have to wait and see where it takes us.  All of us.  I feel naive and late to the party.  My reluctance to "step out" for so long has put me in a box.  I was a child.  I shall rise above that, now.  I don't know how quickly or to where exactly I am rising but something new is happening.
I just hope I don't float away.

Guest Post: Tic's fiancee.

So, its been four and a half hours since I heard the news.  Since then, I've read all the blog posts and had a bit of an emotional break down because I tried to write a response comment to all of what I read.  As soon as I hit the button to publish, all was lost due to an error.  So, I will make an attempt to recapture all of what I had written there.

As I was listening to this confession (about 4 and 1/2 years overdue), I felt myself sinking into myself, looking out two little windows at him...  a little dizzy... "Am I really sitting here on this couch?"
What does this mean? What is this alternate identity I was unaware of? I said: "Are you sure you have it?" "Who told you that?" In a response to some of the comment posts: Either he is really THAT good at hiding it, or I am a total moron.  But who really does look at the one they love and think "Why does he do that?... Maybe I should google it."  Later I asked him if he googles any of the things that I do.

I know that he makes noises- Everyone does some little thing that comforts them....
I know that he smells books- I really think it's adorable. Hell, I've even done it cause he makes it look so enjoyable. I think I kind of like the smell of books, too. I think its cute; the way he thinks I'm cute when I lick jars, spoons, lids and any other surface with food dripping down it (why waste a perfectly good paper towel?).  I know that he clicks the mouse incessantly sometimes- I just honestly thought he was entertaining himself, the way he does when he repeats things he hears on the radio and tv.
I honestly don't mind any of it. Nor did I think it any more strange than some of the things other people do.

In conversation with a friend during my recent trip out of town, I was asked if I felt there was anything missing from my life. I realized, as I said it out-loud, that I DO have everything I need. That is because of the man I love. He works very hard to pay the bills (when I can't), he does the dishes every night (when I make a mess in the kitchen), he makes breakfast for me most mornings (when I am too lazy to get up earlier), and he pretty much sees to it that my life is easy. Who could ask for more? Hopefully, that it is not because of his tics that he feels he has to do these things.

No one ever wants to find out that the person they love is tormented daily by something that they cannot control.  The biggest problem I have with his TS is that I cannot carry any part of this burden that he bears... that I can't really do anything to stop it.
He apologized after telling me. I am the one who is sorry. Sorry for not being aware. Sorry that I thought nothing of it when he told me something "bothered" him. It is much easier to break my stupid little habits than for him to fight these overbearing urges. This is a new step into our life together.

I really am in shock a little...
There really is so much I don't know.
I blame it on the "love goggles" I've been wearing ever since the first weekend I spent with him. They have never come off since, and something like this has no chance of changing that. I have a wonderful man, who makes me happy. I only wish that someday I can make his life a little easier.
I really don't know if I believe it still. Guess I need time to process.
Thanks to everyone for all the support and kind words over the years. I wish I could have helped him too.
I love you, Tic.

Soon to be, Mrs. Tic

"Onward and upward."

I made a decision. I am going to tell my fiancee all about my TS. I actually made this decision quite a while ago. The opportune time has just not presented itself. She works days and I work nights. When we see each other one of us is usually too tired for that sort of a conversation. We haven't shared a day off together in a while. She is out of town and has been for almost three weeks. She will return on Sunday. And then we have a house guest coming into town for a few weeks on Monday night. I am not sure if it is a good idea to tell here before he gets here. Maybe it is too much to throw on her and then not have time to discuss it further considering we will be entertaining.

I figure I will tell her I have TS, explain what that really means and then let her read my blog. Honestly, I probably convey my struggle better in this blog than I could in a conversation.

I have reservations about telling her but then I realize it is silly to keep hiding it. We are getting married in a year. We bought a house together. We plan on spending the rest of this life with one another. I might as well let her in.

So, that's it. I have resigned myself to this decision. In a few days our relationship will be different. She will know more about me and I will change the way I act around her. She will be watching me with a different set of eyes. Everything will be different. Every time I make a noise she will wonder if that is the TS or not. Every time I tic I will wonder if she caught it. I can finally explain to her why I repeat the shit I hear on the radio or t.v.

What scares me is I am not sure how comfortable I can be around her with my TS. I know I will still hide it. It is not about her not knowing about it anymore. It is about me not wanting her to see my disease. I don't want to see it. I can't imagine she would want to see it, either.

Oh, well. Let's see how this goes...

Bus stopping

I was waiting for the bus. I had a "green" shopping bag filled with a bottle of vodka, bottle of coke and dog food. I placed it in the snow bank. As I waited for the bus I paced and strayed from the bag. But there was an undeniable connection to the bag. I then thought about someone in a similar situation who might have seen their approaching bus, boarded and shipped off. Easily this person could have left their bag of alcohol and dog food behind. But not me. I feel a connection. It's almost as if a string is tied to my arm and also to the bag. We are connected. There is no way I could see the bus approaching and board without an irresistible urge to drag my bag along. And if I did board said bus without my bag I would go crazy. I mean, I imagine myself getting on the bus; sitting down, watching the doors close and speeding off. I imagine myself very quickly decomposing. I don't know what would happen. I might lose it. I NEED that bag. I cannot leave it and if I did I would lose my shit. The need to have it with me and the fact that it cannot be would fuck me up. And to what extent that would happen I do not know because I would never let that happen. A touretter would not watch the bag disappear. It would never happen. That bag is mentally connected to me in a way that no "normal" can understand.

From whence we came...

It seems I am at the tail end of a rough patch.  The tics are calming down.  They were very bad a couple of weeks ago.  I didn't even notice that they got better but here we are.  So, I'll enjoy this period of relative calm.  And of course I will be back where I was once again, in the future.  That's just the way it works.  I'm 32 years old.  I think I've got this thing down, by now.

When we think of diseases, sicknesses, syndromes; often there is an end to them.  People get better.  People beat cancer.  People get over the flu.  I was watching this HBO series on Alzheimer's.  There was an interview with a child of about ten years old.  He said something like: "My grandfather will have Alzheimer's until...until...he'll always have it."  This kid knows what Alzheimer's is.  He knows it will never go away but for a moment we could see him still grasping onto the fantasy that it will.

I totally relate to that glitch in acknowledgement of the reality of disease with my TS.  I often experience similar moments in which I almost forget that TS is here to stay.  For a second or two I look forward to its end.  And then of course I snap out of it and view the situation from an adult point of view.  There are moments of doubt, disbelief and hope.  It's amazing that I can still feel this way, if for only a moment, this late in the game.

TS does go away.  It will leave me with my last breath.  I will have Tourette Syndrome for as long as I am alive.  Death is the only relief.  And what a bitter reality that is.  For it will take death, where cognition and lucidity are no longer extant, to rid me of the suffering I feel in life.  It is in death (the very absence of everything we need to experience pain) when the suffering will finally take a bow.

Click, click, click boom!

The mouse. Right and left click.

I cannot just click the left. I cannot just click the right. I Have to do both over and over... Over and over. Click right, click left. NO!

It's no joke!

I'm on the goddamn computer all the fucking time and I have my hand on that mouse...

You know what I am talking about. That mouse...

Hand on it.

Left button. Right button. I am just Waiting for a goddamn reason to click! A fuckin click! Goddamn right to fuckin left! Ohhhh, and it doesn't fuckin matter cause it's always left....

and the the floodgate's open.

I click back and forth. Left, right, left, right, left, right, left, right...... etc.... and it goes on. Have to grab that goddamn mouse and go on and on and on and on...

I cannot control it. I can't even view a page.

I have to cick!

I have to go lkeft, right, left, roght, left, rigfht, etc...

I have to!

"From fossil to fossil, Dust to dust, I'll see you all in the earthy crust."

My grandmother died today.  I feel the same as I did yesterday.  I mean it wasn't a surprise. Even so...

I live 2,000 miles away.  I visited a couple of weeks ago.  I saw her right before she died,  I knew when I left that it was the last time I would ever see her.  

My girlfriend left at 9 AM for Cali this morning.  After she left I logged onto my computer and my sister in law sent me an I.M.  She said : "Are you OK?  Are you coming in?"  I knew right then that my grandmother was dead.   I immediately called my mother and it was confirmed.  

So, here I am alone with this.  I am actually calm.  My TS has been at its worst lately.  But not now.  I am calm.  No sounds and no one to here them, regardless.  Apparently, the passing of a life does not stress me out.  It does the opposite.  I have been very stressed lately.  I lost my job and am not seeing a new one on the horizon. Yet...Grandma dies and I am more calm than I have been.  Maybe I am relieved.  I went to NY to visit .  I had a week off from work and I knew she was in bad shape so I visited.  The day I saw her in her apartment in Queens freaked me out.  She looked really bad.  The last time I saw her a few months before she was walking and talking and joking.

I stood outside her apartment building and her nurse pulled up with grandma in a wheelchair, head down and hair gray.  I had no idea she looked so bad.

The next day as I was driving in to Queens to see her, I called and the nurse told me she just called an ambulance.  The next three visits were in the hospital.  I said goodbye and left.

I am alone in my house.  I am not as sad as one would think.  I don't know how to be.  My tics were so bad this week.  I mean, to the point where I didn't give a fuck who heard them.  I was ticcing it up.  

My girlfriend and I had a friend over last week.  We were sitting on the couch, watching T.V. and said friend said to me: "Are you aware of the sounds you're making?"

My heart sank.

Fuck!  I thought I was being quiet.  Hell, I was trying hard to be so. OK.  So, she heard me.  Big deal.  I said, "Of course."  That drives me nuts.  I mean, if someone notices your tics; fine.  But to insinuate that you are unaware of the noises your are making for all to hear, including yourself, is insulting!  Yes! I know I am making noises.  Do you not think I can hear them, too?  I am closer to them than you are!

Gladly, it ended there.  I don't mean the vocal tics.  I mean the comments on them from the gallery.  

And as the week went on, the vocals got worse.  I was just letting them fly around my girlfriend. More so than ever before.  She says nothing, though.  She knows I am doing something.  I am not sure she knows what.  Maybe I should just tell her.  She should know.

And so that was last week.  I fly to NY tomorrow and the funeral is the next day.  I can almost guarantee my tics will be on full display.  We'll see.

Nothing a little Listerine can't cure.

I went to the dentist a few months ago.  The hygienist was cleaning my teeth and asked me if I knew that I grinded my teeth.  I told her, "I do now."  This was news to me.

When the dentist came out of his hole to do his exam, he said the same thing.  I told him I was unaware of this new discovery his team has stumbled upon.  Dr. Toothenberg said, "You may be doing it while you're sleeping."  Then as he glanced at my arms hanging out of my tank top he added, "You may be doing it when you're lifting weights and not realizing it."  These were both very good theories.  But I knew right away what the true cause was and is.

I don't grind my teeth in the conventional headgear requiring sense of the term.  I have a tic that involves my teeth.  Actually it's not just one tic.  It's a whole gang of them.  

So, when I got home from the dental fiasco I took a long look in the mirror.  It's amazing I hadn't noticed this before.   The dentist said I had done considerable damage to my teeth.  He told me I have already worn away quite a bit of the tooth and its enamel.  He suggested I be aware of the grinding and put an end to it.  Easier said than done, doc.   And the mirror that cannot lie clearly pointed out that my front teeth are a mess.  At a glance, they look fine but upon closeup, mirror-type  inspection it's all right there to see.

Basically years and years of tooth tics are ruining my teeth.  I go through phases, of course. Sometimes I don't bother with my teeth at all.  And sometimes I chop away at them.  Needless to say after that visit to the dentist chair the demon within decided it best that we choose a nice selection of teeth grinding tics to concentrate on for the next few days.  Man, I went at these teeth hard, too.  

I even invented a few new tics just for fun.  I attacked my teeth so badly in the next few days that I had trouble opening my mouth to talk or eat.  My jaw ached so badly.

Serves me right for going to the dentist.  I should know better.

"Please concoct me some pill I can take"

I have been very stressed, lately.  I have been looking for a job and have no money.  Not to mention my grandmother is in bad shape.  This has of course caused my tics to increase in intensity and frequency.  Some old favorites have come back.  I am riding a strong vocal tic wave, right now.  It's all saliva, throat and breathing stuff.  Not as many facial tics as usual.  But they'll be back.  

I might have found a job today.  This will cause my tics to calm down a bit.  But not, yet.  It doesn't work that way.  It doesn't just get shut off.  I have to wait for it.  It's as if I have a splitting headache and just took two Tylenol.  Now I am just waiting for the pills to kick in.

It's amazing how clear the connection between my stress levels and tic frequency is.  

But if it's not stress it's something else.  There are a million cause and effect scenarios I could list.  It doesn't really matter, I guess.  Knowing what caused this particular increase in intensity is not important.  It's not like once I figure it out I can stop.  

Stress is temporary.  TS is not.

"Another one bites the dust."

I saw George Carlin perform in Vegas a week before he died. I saw one of his last shows. I think he did three more after I saw him. The whole first half of his act was about death. In fact, his set was incredibly morbid. So much so, that it had me thinking about death the whole next week. The man was so well spoken when it came to his point of view. He really got me thinking. So, last Sunday I went to bed thinking about death. I got really bummed out. I was thinking about George's act and the things he said.
I awoke the next morning and reached for my phone to shut off that horrible buzzing sound it was making. After the alarm was disarmed, I read a text message from my mother telling me Carlin died. My parents saw the Carlin show with me, the week before.
Wow. After he sparked so much thought about my own mortality through joking about his; he kicked the bucket. It kind of freaked me out.
I always thought George carlin had a tic. He was a blinker. There was no doubt about that. He blinked on camera compulsively. Was it TS? I don't know. It could have been his contacts. Maybe he had minor TS and was unaware of it for his 71 years of life. Or maybe he knew. Or maybe it was something else. The point is I noticed it years ago.
When I saw him a week before he died, he did a TS joke. Fuck if I could remember the joke... All I know is it involved the words: Tourette Syndrome. It wasn't particularly funny. But it wasn't poking fun, either. It was a joke that used TS as a device to get to the punchline. I felt awkward beacuse my girlfriend was seated next to me and I never want any flags risen. I can see the light bulb going off over her head as if we were in a bugs bunny cartoon. "Tourettes? Hmmmm.... Eureka!" Other than that I let it slide.
There are lots of famous people who have TS. This must be true. There are too many of us out there and so many varying degrees of the syndrome for it not to be. I have suspected many people over the years of it as I watched them make money on my tv screen.
What if they all came clean? That would be something...

Speculation

The other day, my girlfriend was telling me about something that happened at work. She had an argument with a coworker about allergies. The interesting thing is how the argument started. The guy was sniffing repeatedly. She suggested to him that he may be allergic to something. He immediately got very defensive and said he was sure he was not. My girlfriend insisted that he may be and not know it. This is when they started arguing about whether we are born with our allergies or if they can develop over time. That's really what her story was about. What I got out of it was a very different one.
Now, I only received a second hand account of that conversation but I couldn't help thinking that this guy she works with may have TS. He's a "sniffer." That could be why he became so defensive and why he adamantly denied the possibility that he could be allergic to something. In my girlfriend's defense, she doesn't know much about TS. Even if she is aware of my affliction on some level, I'm pretty sure she has not assigned it the label Tourette Syndrome.
She was innocently trying to help this fellow. But if in fact he is a touretter, he knows all too well, that allergies are not his problem.
It was awkward hearing this story. I didn't say much about it. I let it go. I never like drawing any attention to anyone else's TS for it might turn the focus to me. But I wonder if my girlfriend is in the loop about what is really up with me; how that conversation with her coworker may have been different...