Tourette's Story time! Yay! Today my best friend Tie Dye wanted to tell me a funny story after school. She told me that she was in art class and a girl came in singing the part of the "Fergalicious" song that goes like "Woo-eee". Tie Dye was talking to her art teacher and somehow the "Woo-eee" got stuck in her head and while she was talking to her art teacher she randomly out of no where said "woo-eee" really loudly. She had no idea why she did this but said it must have gotten stuck in her head unconsciously and it just popped out. A brain blip. Everyone in the class started laughing and she turned really red.
Once she was done telling the story, I laughed a bit and then said "welcome to my world". Tie Dye was quiet for a few seconds then said "Oh, right. I guess so. Maybe I understand a bit more now".
After she got dressed into her sports outfit for her tennis, she came out of the stall and said "I feel bad now because I realize how much I don't understand about what it's like for you". I told her not to feel bad, and we got into a heart-to-heart but at the same time casual conversation about my TS. I told her about people's usual reactions and about how some people stare but some people ask me "what was that?". She asked me how I usually respond to this and I told her it depends on the situation. If its someone who is important to me or someone who I may be spending more time with in the future and I think should know then I just explain it to them and tell them not to be concerned and that its not a huge deal or anything. If its someone who I don't know like someone from a lower grade who I don't think I will ever know to well I usually just play it off, don't really respond with much, and don't really go into a long explanation or an explanation at all. Sometimes people think I am sneezing and I just say "thanks" and let them think that I was just sneezing in an odd high pitched way.
We then got talking about staring. I told her it bothered me the most when people don't ask and just stare really obviously. I told her about earlier today when a girl just turned towards me and stared for like a solid thirty seconds in a really obvious way. I told her about how this is sometimes hard for me, and Tie Dye was so great to listen and talk with me. We gave the girl who stared a me a funny nick name "Gawker" which happens to be kind of similar to her last name. This made me feel better.
Anyway, I just loved how I was able to talk about it so openly with Tie Dye. She listened to me, helped me feel better about earlier that day when I was being stared at, and truly wanted to really understand more about what it's like to live with Tourette's. She will never cease to amaze me with her incredible compassion. The other day she told me she was listening to a sad song and started crying really hard because it reminded her about how much she is going to miss me when we go our separate ways to college. Of course we will still be friends, but we won't see each other every day like we do now. I can only hope that I meet people like her in college who I can become friends with.
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