There's puppy on the plane!

I haven't been able to write for the past week or so because things have been pretty crazy since i've been back from camp. My mental obsessions and compulsions have really been acting up and i've had to implement a lot of strategies to help them calm down. I've also been very busy with work, extracurriculars, and studying for the GRE/ preparing to apply to graduate school. This is the first time i've been feeling ready to write and it's 12:40pm. 

I didn't want to write about too much tonight, but since i'm in the mood I wanted to tell a light hearted story. After camp I hung out with my camp family in Atlanta. We all stayed together in a suite and had the absolute best time. Even though my tics were pretty bad (worse than they have been in a while) and even though my anxiety and OCD were pretty bad as well, I felt so supported and loved. I will definitely write more about the weekend later! There are SO many fun stories, but for tonight I wanted to tell the story of the plane ride back home because its cute and quick. 

My vocal tics had been acting up A LOT during the week of camp and even though they had started to calm down near the end of my time in Atlanta, they were still kind of bad. So on the plane I knew I was going to educate the person sitting next to me about Tourette's even though I was going to try to sleep most of the way. The man who sat down next to me on the plane was speaking in spanish on his phone, so I pulled up the spanish version of "What is Tourette Syndrome" from the TSA website on my phone in case he didn't speak english (http://www.tsa-usa.org/imaganw/What_is_TS_English.pdf). They also have this brochure in Chinese, Vietname, Korean, and Japanese in case you need it which i've found comforting, particularly on planes, even though I've never needed to use it. 

When he got off the phone I introduced myself and asked him if he spoke english. He said he did, so I didn't need to use the brochure. I then told him I just wanted to let him know that I have a condition which make me twitch and make noises that I can't control. I had been ticcing while he was on the phone, and his immediate reaction was to smile and told me he understood and that it was no problem. He then, however proceeded to ask me if I had smuggled a puppy on the airplane in my backpack!! Hahahaha. I laughed and told him no, that was was just me, and that that's a noise I make because of my tics. I'm not sure if he understood what I was saying because he kind of still looked confused! I think it was either the language barrier or that he didn't believe me and actually thought I was trying to make up an excuse to hide the fact that I hiding a puppy in my backpack! 

I had a good laugh and texted my camp friends after the flight telling them the story. They said they were proud of me for telling the person on the plane about my TS (although for me that's really no big deal! I do it all the time, even if sometimes I am nervous initially). I also think they got a good kick out of the whole puppy confusion!