New dropping to my knee's tic....ehhhh its not fun.

Since Monday night I have been dealing with a new and incredibly difficult tic. I basically have to tighten all the muscles in my legs, drop to my knees, and have my knees hit the floor to cause a certain pain level. This tic is just awful. I get the feeling and urge to drop to the floor all over my body and it just overwhelms me to such a great extent. The worst thing is that sitting down doesn't even help because my body just needs to do the tic to its full extent. I have dropped to the floor many times since Monday but so far have been trying my best to hold it back while around people at school because it is just so embarrassing. It also hurts my knees really badly so my strategy for now is to just avoid doing it for as long as possible until I just have to. I also don't want to worry my friends or freak them out. Of course they all know I have Tourette's, but regardless of that, seeing someone suddenly drop to their knees would still be reason for concern. They are used to my squeals, squeaks, yelps, facial tics, and my other motor tics like arm tics and head tics but they have never really seen a motor tic this severe from me.

Yesterday near the end of the day, the urge of needing to drop got really bad and I was just doing everything in my power to stop it from happening. My amazing friend Tie Dye noticed that something was up. She asked me if I was okay and said that I looked really uptight. I hesitated for a moment but then decided to tell her the truth because after all she pretty much my best friend and always understands. So I told her about my new tic and how I was trying to suppress it the best I could. She then replied that I should just do it if I need to and asked me what it looked like. I told her that it looked like I was just basically dropping to the floor, that it was really embarrassing and that at least for now I was going to try to suppress it for as long as possible. She was so great and really understood me the best anyone can who doesn't live with Tourette's.  She is the best friend I could ever really ask for. 

After I was safe and alone,  I dropped to my knees many times. It was such a relief to let it go, but it really hurt my knees to do it so many times in a row even though it was on a carpeted floor. 

Today yet again I am battling with the tic. I have been suppressing it pretty much all day every time I feel the need to do it, but of course I am doing all my other usual tics. Tie Dye was great today yet again when she asked "Can I ask you about how your new tic is? Is that okay?". She is such a caring friend to have asked about it to make sure I am okay and of course I told her that it was totally okay to ask me about it, and that it was really sweet of her to ask. I told her that the tic has been okay for a majority of the morning and she kind of laughed and said "the 'majority'" of the morning. I told her that it was nice to talk about it sometimes for me because it makes me feel better to talk about it with those who care. I told her that my new tic is embarrassing and that my strategy for now was just to avoid doing it as long as possible until I have to. She told me that she had run across the phrase "I have Tourette's, but Tourette's doesn't have me" and wanted to know if I had heard it. I told her it was from a great documentary and that I love that phrase!!!   

A rough couple of days with this new tic, but I am dealing with it the best I can. I don't know how long I will be able to suppress it in front of my friends like this, but we will see. Tonight I am going to my cousin Twitch's house for a Passover sader. I will be super glad to see my cousins Twitch, Kitty, and Lipstick again this week! I already saw them once this week because my little cousins were in town this week and now I get to see them again! I am especially excited to see Twitch because we had the best heart-to-heart over text about Tourette's the other night. She is an amazing person to reach out to when I am having really hard times with Tourette's like this. She basically said that she cares about me so much and feels really protective towards me. She said that we have this amazing bond because we both have Tourette's and that out of everyone in the family she feels she is closest to me. Twitch and I have never been this close before but I can tell you for sure that it made me feel so fantastic to hear her say these things. I feel like we do have this amazing bond because of Tourette's. You can talk about how crazy that party was last night with just about anyone, but you can't talk about how painful it is to suppress tics or how it feels to not want to go to school when your tics get really bad with everyone and have the other person completely 100% understand. It means so much to me that I have a member of my family who is my age and who has Tourette's. She not only has helped me so much to feel more confident about my Tourette's, but also whenever I am having a rough time with tics I know I can reach out to her and talk about it so that I feel i'm not so alone. When I talk to her, I feel like I am not the only person who has to deal with this. Gosh I just do not know what I would do without her throughout all this.