2016

It's January 4th, 2017 and i've decided to write a brief post. I just watched a documentary about a man with ALS named Steve Gleason which inspired me to write a post to document my own present. His documentary inspired me to make this post real, and not pretend to be anyone I am not while writing it. I'm not going to try to say anything profound or meaningful, but instead write in a matter of fact way, in a way that depicts the real me. Sticking to the same mindset, i'm not going to go back and edit, or worry about grammar, punctionation, or making complete sense. Instead I'm going to do more of a steam of consciousness style to depict my real current thoughts. Pretending to say something you don't mean isn't worth it. I am me, and life is short. Anyway, I wanted to breifly reflect on 2016 and express my thoughts going into 2017 while I still have the motivation. Since the motivation struck me, i'm going to take advantage of it. I don't often have the motivation to write anymore. Maybe that will change though in the coming years.

2016 has been quite the year. I graduated college, moved into my first apartment, welcomed a furry creature into my life, got my first job, had a major life crisis, got a new job, switched career plans/paths, and got into graduate school. It's a mouthful to say the least. I didn't know how crazy that would sound in one sentence. I'm looking ahead to 2017 with an open mind and an open heart. Standing in my parent's bathroom, my mom read the first page of her daily quotes calendar and it said to pick one word you would like to live by in 2017. My mom choose listen and I ended up choosing growth. If there is anything I have learned from the past year it's that life is a lot better when you try to look at all experiences as an opportunity for growth. Yes, painful experiences will always be painful in the moment and there is nothing you can change about that, but looking back on them feels less painful if I keep the idea of growth in mind. Going forward I hope this idea of growth can help me grow as a person. I want to continue to develop my mind, my personality, my ideals, and my inner self through everything I encounter. When I think about my current work doing ABA , I think about the children that are the most challenging often. Working with these children can be frustrating and trying at times, but I have tried over the past few days to think of my experience with these children as a way to learn how to deal with those patients I may have in the future who I find most difficult to treat and interact with. Even if not talking about patients, there will be frustrating moments, frustrating situations, etc and the more I  encounter them now, the better I will be able to handle these patients/situations in the future.

My favorite moments of 2016:

- Graduating from college. It feels like so long ago already. Loved taking pictures with Natascha, Ruth, and others in front of brookings after the ceremony. the ceremony was in the quad and I sat next to Natascha since we were both PNP majors. Afterwards I went with my family, mom, dad, jacob, grandpa teddy, ellen, grandma marcia out to eat at the cheshire.

-Snuggling with Zeek on my bed in my apartment on Saturday mornings. I love when he curls up next to me, stretches out his paw and lays his little arm on mine. When he flops his head over to ask me to scratch under his chin.

- Getting starbucks with mom and talking about work, graduate school, my future as an OT. The barista's all know my "usual" at the clayton starbucks. Mom talks too much to random strangers, lol but that's my mom for you. I love sitting with her and talking about just about anything. Today she opened up a speech magazine where you could buy different card sets, we talked about her job at Hazlewood and how she loves it, and I talked about why I think OT is the right field for me and how I can make my sessions with the kids creative, interactive, and bring language, cognitive activities, and social skills into our lessons.

- Getting coffee with Gowri at the CWE starbucks and going out of Friday nights/ watching TV and movies at my place. I enjoyed the night when we watched JSTU studio "worst prank ideas", which she loved, and then we walked to get ice cream even though it was freezing cold. Before that we went to Mission taco and she talked about how she never wanted me to be embarrassed to talk about my OCD because she never judges me and she accepts me no matter what. She at the same time understood why it is hard for me to talk about because all that I went through with it in high school.

-Working with a G man and watching him make leaps and bounds in his progress. At the beginning of the year, he barely spoke or communicated with others. Now we consider him the "social butterfly"  of the class! I love how he greets me with his "HI Miss J!" and loves to take me hands and jump.  The first thing he does when he comes into a room that i'm in is run to me and say "Hi Miss J!". Others have said it's like he only sees me in the room, lol. I love our bond, but I also want to see him make this same bond with so many others, like peers.

- Getting into the OTD program, of course!

-Moving into my first apartment and setting up my Ikea furniture with mom and Zeek! Zeek liked jumping on the peices and lounging on them as we set them up.

I'm sure there are many more wonderful moments from 2016 that i'm not thinking of now, but those are the ones that come to mind. I successfully wrote those memories while passing little if any judgement on myself. I'll be the first to say it, one of my flaws is that I judge myself too harshly. I judge myself for not putting myself out there enough, for not having as many friends as I think I should, for not stepping out of my comfort zone, and for choosing the option that feels "safe" more often the not. However, this was the first time in a while I was able to look at my life without judging myself. I know that my TS and all of it's accompanying conditions, particularly my anxiety makes my life at 23 less "typical" than your "average" 23 year old. However, it is so hard for me not to judge myself for this. I feel the need to explain it, even to myself so that I don't feel "bad" about the fact that I don't live my life like my mother did and my brother does. I've never been the life of the party or the person with a wild and free spirit. I am more one to have a small, tight nit group of friends and enjoy spending time with a small group of friends instead of a party. I know my anxiety has prevented me from putting myself in certain social situations, but why can't I be happy with the friends I do have and the life I am living? After all it's the only life I have. They always say your body is your temple and therefore you should love it and treat it with respect. But how about your mind? isn't your mind just as, if not more important? If you aren't at peace with your mind, well all sorts of things can go wrong. So right here i'm making another goal for 2017. Love myself for who I am. Don't judge myself. I must at least try. Treat my mind with the kind of respect I would treat others with. It's not an easy goal, but here it is.

Grow and love myself.

Learning, Healing, and Self-acceptance: A New Roommate's Reaction to Tourette's

After months of not having much to write about in terms of Tourette's, I feel like I could write a novel about the past week! For time's sake, I'll try to write a much more concise version (especially with work early tomorrow morning). Where do I even begin? I moved out of the dorms, graduated college, signed the lease for my very first apartment, moved in, met my new roommate, bonded with my new roommate, and started my first full time job! Whew, quite the mouthful!

What I want to write about tonight is my experience telling my roommate about my tics and beginning to live with her. It's been a year and a half since i've lived with a roommate. My previous suite mates in college all knew about my Tourette's and have been very accepting of it, however it was not something I often talked about with them. Especially for the past year and a half to two years I haven't felt very comfortable talking about my TS with anyone except for one close friend (who I have been friends with for 10 years now) and my camp friends who either have TS themselves or have extensive experience with the disorder. I'm not sure exactly why this is. I think it partially has to do with the pressures to conform that I experienced in greek life. While I greatly value the friendships I have gained from greek life, I never felt comfortable talking about my tics around these friends or letting these friends see the full extent of my tics. Also partially due to the highly damaging things my parents and grandparents have said to me about my tics such as that if my employers knew about my Tourette's then doors would close for me, I would never be hired. That if my friends knew about my tics they would abandon me. And that if I told a person I was dating abut my tics they would break up with me. I've since had so many encounters and experiences that have proved my parents SO wrong, however their words stick with me no matter how hard I try to shake them.

Also during the past two years, when no change or transitions are going on, when things are fairly mundane and routine, and when i'm not particularly excited or stressed about something, my tics can be fairly mild. Barring bad days or bad weeks that is. I have the ability to hold in my tics for a period of time, and even though it can be extremely uncomfortable, I choose to hold in my tics around many of my college friends. That's not saying that I never ticced around them. That's just saying that when I was able to, I chose to suppress the larger tics and let them out when I was alone in the privacy of my dorm room. So it wasn't difficult to go longer periods of time without thinking much about my tics or feeling the need to bring up something about them. Coasting along and ignoring the fact that I have TS becomes normal to me. This isn't a bad thing at all, but it makes it so that it really isn't necessary to talk with certain people about my tics.

However, with a new roommate I knew I would have to tell her about my tics. Going to work all day and then coming home to an environment and having to further suppress my tics was simply not going to be an option long term. I decided I needed to be honest with my roommate about my tics from the start. Before she even made the decision to room with me, I told her about my tics. When she asked me what I was looking for in a roommate situation, I told her that I have involuntary muscle movements and vocal sounds called tics and that I was looking for a person who I could feel comfortable being myself around. I was looking for a person who could help create an environment where I felt comfortable, accepted, and not judged in any way. I can't remember exactly what she said to me when I told her this but it was something along the lines of "of course. I completely understand and I wouldn't judge you for something you can't control". This made me feel comfortable straight away.

I wasn't sure if I would have the courage to go beyond this conversation and talk with her more about my tics. Because of the way I had felt about talking about Tourette's in the past two years, I just wasn't sure. However, I soon began watching Britany's videos. In case you haven't seen britney's videos, you can find them on youtube channel here: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCIsaKWuRuFr4bPcoRyB186A.

Britney talks openly and candidly about her Tourette's in a way that inspired me and gave me the courage to talk with my roommate about my TS in much greater depth. Britney's videos have helped me to feel more confident when it comes to bringing up the topic of my tics and have also helped me to feel less self conscious about my tics in general.  I've always known my tics don't define me, that they're just a part of me but they're certainly not the whole me. They're separate from my personality, my self, and who I am. However, in the past two years I don't think i've felt that this was truly the case very often (even though I knew it intellectually). I was always trying to convince myself that I when I tic around people, they can still see the real me, that they can see me as more than just the girl with Tourette's. I spent much more time trying to convince myself of this than I spent feeling that it was true. I think a combination of watching Britney's videos and coming out from underneath the bubble of college has helped me to truly begin to feel that my tics are just a small part of me and that ticcing in front of others will not change their opinion of who I am.  I could go on and on about how amazing Britney's videos are and how much they have helped me be more confident about the person I am (tics and all!), but I think I better get to the rest of the story. Also check out Britney's amazing blog here: https://writingmyemotions.wordpress.com.

The other thing that has helped me feel more confident about talking about TS and ticcing more in front of others is the experience i've had so far with my new roommate. After watching more of Britney's videos, I felt ready to talk more openly about my TS with my roommate (just in time for her to move in!). When she moved in I began to bring my tics up in conversation a little more. At first it was just a comment, I joking laughed at the fact that our apartment was so echo-y saying that it was not a good thing for vocal tics because I noticed my tics will echo throughout the apartment. My roommate's reaction was to tell me really not to worry about it. Good sign :)

The next day I asked her if she wanted to accompany me to target and Ikea. She was very enthusiastic and all up for it. That's one thing I love about her, she's so friendly, so easy to talk to, loves to talk with me, and is so far always up for a new adventure such as going out together or coming to Sunday dinner with my high school friend and my family (and is genuinely excited for it too!). We sat on the picnic table outside of Home Depot eating hot dogs and I can't remember how it came up but I found a natural point in the conversation to talk in more depth about my tics with her. I told her that my tics may be a little more frequent and noticeable in these first few months because of it being a period of transition for me (lots of excitement about all the new things in my life but also some stress as well!). I told her my tics will be worse when I come back from camp, that people can "pick up" each others tics, so I may come home with new tics (but the new ones are always short lived!), that tics get worse at camp, and probably some other things too that I can't remember right now. She reacted wonderfully to the conversation. She was engaged and interested while also being empathetic. This is when I learned that she actual has a family member who has tics! No wonder she's pretty good about it. She told me her family member doesn't have vocal tics, but this person's motor tics will come out when they're concentrating on a video game or reading a book without noticing it/ really being aware of it. Always makes me happy and feel more comfortable when I hear when someone has prior knowledge of tics! She knew it was genetic too :)

She told me really not to worry about my tics. This was also before she had heard a majority of my vocal tics though, so she told me she wasn't sure why I was warning her about it so much because she really didn't think it was going to be a problem and that it wasn't going to be something that bothered her. I told her for the most part, warning her was more for me. I feel more comfortable when I know the other person understands my tics and the more comfortable I feel, the less i'll tic.

That night I felt more comfortable letting more of my vocal tics out in the apartment. The thing that made me feel so amazing and accepted was on Friday night. On Friday after work I asked her if she wanted to go out and get some dinner. We had a great time talking and bonding and when we got back to the apartment we talked even more. She told me things about herself and I told her more about me and we realized how much we had in common. She was telling me how she's a very honest person and says what she's thinking a lot, and I told her I really like that quality in my friends. Then she brought up my tics. I was very impressed by this because not a lot of people feel comfortable enough to be the one to bring it up. I'm going to try to write down what she said as close to the way she said it, but I know I won't be able to get it 100%. She said something like "Oh and your tics, they're really fine. They don't brother me. They're just a part of you and they make you special and who you are. I don't want you to have to worry about them. I know you mentioned you have to hold them back at work sometimes, and I want this to be a place where you can come back and not feel like you have to hold tics back here too. I want you to fell comfortable here and around me. I know you haven't done your vocal tics in front of me really, but I want you to feel comfortable doing them in front of me. I don't want you to worry about it."

Outside of camp, my roommate is the ONLY person I have ever encountered who has said something like this to me. She went out of her way to bring up this topic and make sure I knew she wanted me to feel comfortable around her and in our apartment. I was pretty much so amazed that she had said this to me at the time that all I could say was "Thank you so much for saying this. I cannot tell you how much I appreciate it and how much it means to me".  I know I will have the opportunity to thank her in the future as well. I know her words are also a large part of the reason I am beginning to truly feel more comfortable about my tics, and has helped me to begin to feel positive about having tics in front of others. It's hard to explain, but in the past, it's been hard for me for me to maintain my dignity and a positive perception of myself when i'm making silly noises, strange facial expressions, and jerking my body in front of others. For the past couple of days, I've felt more positive about my tics and ticcing in front of others than I have in a long time. Thank you from the bottom of my heart to Britney and my new roommate for helping me to begin a process of healing, self-acceptance, and learning. Tourette's is not something I can control. Even if I can hold back my tics short term, they have to come out eventually. If I go about my day ticcing when I need to, I have less tics, significantly less discomfort/ pain, and no painful and extremely frustrating explosion of tics at the end of the day. Simply put, my life is so much better when I feel comfortable enough to tic around the people i'm with. Coming back from camp this year will be amazing. It will be the first year i'm not afraid to come back, not preparing myself for the intense physical and emotional pain that comes with  leaving the only place where I can tic freely and feel 100% normal, loved, and understood.

The Wait is Over! (Well it's been over for a little while now)

The wait is finally over! I have officially been offered and have accepted the research position that I was hoping for. A very exciting milestone. I'm ready to move out of my dorm, get my own apartment and enter the real world. I'm excited, but also a tad nervous which is of course normal. I can't believe my 4 years of college are almost over and that i'll really be entering the real world in a few short months. Hello to two years of paying rent, cooking, working in the professional world, and living the adult life! I'm glad I get these two years to explore myself, my interests, and really enjoy gaining important research knowledge before I apply to PhD programs. I'm super excited because in my new position i'll be getting to work with young kiddos as well as gain valuable research experience! I'll be working in a pretty big lab so another thing i'm excited about is getting to meet the other people and making new friends. I'll also hopefully be living with my close friend from high school (fingers crossed!!!) but if not, I'll probably be attempting to find a different roommate. I think it would be so fun to live with my close friend, but I'm really just hoping that she'll be back in our home state in general. Even if we don't live together, we'll be working in the same general area and we'll get to spend lots of time together. It's been 4 years since we've lived in the same city, and of course I miss her!

I'm so glad I finally have an answer and I know what I'll be doing for the next two years. It feels good to know the path i'm setting out on and have certain ideas of what my life will look like after graduation. It was a but stressful having no idea where I would be or what I would be doing before I had an answer, but now that I do have an answer I can start getting excited about everything that lies ahead. One thing i'm definitely excited about is that I get to start working part time for the lab in just two weeks. I think I would be WAY to excited if I had to wait all the way until graduation to start the training process and start working in the lab. I'm so excited to meet everyone, to work with the kids, and to get even more of an idea of what it will be like to work there. Another plus is that i'll still get to be a counselor at camp this summer, Woo-hoo!!!! I would have been so devastated if I wouldn't have been able to go back for the next two years. Thank goodness I don't have to even think about that!

A Tourette's Story - Living with Tourette Syndrome, A First Draft for My Senior Writing Class

In my senior writing class, we were asked to write a piece on identity. Since it's my senior year and i've now been diagnosed with Tourette Syndrome for 5 years now, I really can't believe it's been that long, I wanted to write my piece on Tourettes and OCD have affected me and my identity. I wanted to come to some sort of conclusion, even if that conclusion was that there is no one solid conclusion I can come to. As I am wrapping up my life as a college student and entering into the real world, I felt like I wanted to do this for myself. Below you can find the first draft of the piece I wrote. I'll be editing it over the next week and the piece will hopefully change to some extent, but here's what I have for now.

Please feel free to comment and let me know what you think! I would really appreciate any and all thoughts, suggestions, or just a comment about how you can relate to my story :)

"Even before I could possibly conceive of the idea of normalcy, it’s strict rules and ideals were pushed upon me without my consent. It was as if the moment I was born, these expectations were written, safely tucked away, in the most primitive parts of my hindbrain, long before I had the chance to weigh in on the matter. The red cherry woman’s exchange dress, the monogramed rattle, the ballet classes: these, among other things, were the staples of a, “normal” childhood where I grew up. Growing up in my family was a strange mixture of privilege and constriction. I was given beautiful dresses,  enough toys to fill my hearts content, a spacious and loving home, and above all I was given the a vast knowledge of the rules that would make me “an exceptional member of society”. At the age of six, I was expected to show proper formal dinner etiquette at the family table, enunciate with clear and correct grammar,  and stand up straight and look adults in the eye when spoken to. I was expected to attend ballet, gymnastics, musical, and etiquette lessons. I was also, of course, expected to put an end to my bad habits and to use my self-control. 

I had a long list of bad habits: sniffing excessively, biting my lips, licking my lips, skipping, compulsively touching objects, and worrying—about everything. I would worry that my mosquito bites had given me West Nile Virus, that the pizza I just eaten had given my food poisoning, that my parents would die in a car crash when they left me home for the night with a babysitter. My mother told me there was nothing wrong with me that a little “self-control” couldn’t fix. She told me I just needed to try harder and I believed her. Each day I practiced using my self control. I tried my best to hide my worries and habits from my classmates, teachers, and friends and although I always knew there was something that set me apart from the other children, I became an expert at passing for normal wherever I went, even in my own home. I never even had to remind myself to behave according to these standards of normalcy. Whenever my bad habits or worries slipped out, my family was right there to remind me to try harder. 

These were the same words my pediatrician used in high school, I simply needed to “try harder”. My doctor was dumfounded when I told her that I was having severe stomach pain because I couldn’t stop swallowing.  For weeks on end, there was an awful feeling in my throat that made me swallow over and over again. It was as if a pulsing electrical wire was tightening around my soft pink windpipe. Every time I swallowed, the wire would loosen, just a few centimeters. A moment of relief. Then the wire would begin to tangle its way around my throat again, strangling me from the inside out. I couldn’t go ten seconds without swallowing large gulps of air. My throat was incredible sore, my stomach felt twisted and full, and I couldn’t describe it as anything else but pure torture. All I knew was that I wanted it to stop. 

My doctor looked in my throat, ran a step test, and when she couldn’t come up with any sort of conclusion she sat me down and said, “I can’t find anything medically wrong with your throat. My suggestion would be that you stop focusing on it and try harder not to swallow so much.” I was enraged. I had come to the doctor for answers, for relief, for at least some support, but had received the answer I had been receiving all my life. I simply needed to try harder to control myself. 

The swallowing spells would last for weeks on end, then they would fade only to return again. In the months that followed, my sniffing “habit” started to act up again, but I also began jerking my head, rolling my eyes, and making squeaking noises. Irrational worries began to invade the inner sanctity of my own thoughts on an hourly basis. One minute I became convinced that killer microbes lived on the inside of my sink and the next I would find myself scrubbing my hands raw, trying desperately to gain some small piece of control over my own  thoughts. I began spending hours trying to combat these irrational thoughts with reality. Nothing seemed to work. No attempt I made to ease the thoughts or to ward off the swallows, jerks, or twitches had any affect. Something so foreign, yet eerily familiar, had decided to hijack my brain to an extent I had never known before. Little swallows turned into barks and screams, little jerks became painful punches to my rib cage, and my worries became an all consuming waking nightmare. I was lost in a body that was so far from something I could even recognize, so far from something that I could call my own. 

Passing for normal was no longer going to be even a slim possibility. My noises garnered so many glances and stares. In the moments where I would lose control of my body, all eyes would turn to me and embarrassment would flood my veins with and quick and sudden jolt. Who was this? Who was this person whose body defied every burning desire to appear as I was—intensely motivated, capable, and passionate about all the things in life I truly cared for? It certainly wasn’t me. It certainly wasn’t  the little girl in the red cherry dress, the young woman who loved life like sweet peach juice dripping on a warm summer morning. It became a daily struggle to try to separate the person I used to be, from this confusing and tangled body. As I sat at my desk jerking my arms, squealing, and barking, I envied my classmates, their still bodies and quiet minds. I envied their ability to blend into the background, to sit through a class or walk down the halls remaining unnoticed. I envied the life I once had. 

When I was officially diagnosed with Tourette Syndrome, you wouldn't have expected my reaction to be one of relief and happiness —but it was. I finally had an answer to why my body refused to listen to me now, and why I my childhood “bad habits” refused to disappear regardless of how much self control I had attempted to use. I even a reason for the constant worrying, and the irrational thoughts that I couldn’t seem to ward off. It turns out, almost everyone who has Tourette Syndrome also has Anxiety and Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD), two disorders that be often be even more distressing that the physical tics themselves. There wasn’t something inherently wrong with my personality; I wasn’t simply a weak or incredibly strange person. There was a physiological cause to my constantly jerking body and the invasive thoughts that accompanied it. 

However, the bliss of this answer was all too temporary. Giving my tics a name didn't put an end to the judgmental glares of the others around me, to the foreign feeling of living in a body that had no choice but to concede to the demands of this powerful disorder. I tried many different medications, and each time I was hopeful that they would dull the intense power that Tourette Syndrome held over me. Some medications made me incredibly tired and moody, and others would help to lessen my symptoms only occasionally. Ultimately, there was no cure. I would go though periods of time where I would think the mediations were finally working, times where my tics and OCD would become barely noticeable. And then, suddenly and without warning, my body would be seized once again, taken back from my control. 

I began to realize that more likely than not, I would be forced to share my brain long term with this demanding and childish disorder. How then would I begin to separate myself from Tourette Syndrome? How then could I share my brain without letting this disorder consume my identity, my sanity? There is no one answer. There is no one single way to protect myself from the daily social and emotional trauma that Tourette attempts to inflict upon me. Instead there are many ways. Many ways to show the world around me that I will not sit back and let a disorder take from me what I hold to be most precious and true. I attempt to look at the skills Tourette Syndrome has given me— the power of empathy, the intense drive to succeed regardless of what obstacles lie in the way, the ability to see the depth and beauty of life in a way some people cannot. Now that is not to say that I do not sometimes feel overpowered, overshadowed. The reality of living with Tourette Syndrome is that some days I will lose my battle to feel secure in my identity. Some days I will feel as if the true reality of myself is hidden, invisible behind the countless tics, twitches, and obsessions that seem to have taken center stage. Some days I will feel as if others see me simply as collection of my symptoms. How do I leave these days behind? Should I? Should I try to forget about those feelings or should I embrace them as a part of living with a complex neurobiological disorder? I cannot say I have an answer. Right now I take life as it comes, try take each experience for what it truly is in that moment, and try to move forward in the best way I know how—by living. "

Waiting in Limbo

Well if there's one thing I can say I safely hate, it's waiting. I hate waiting in line, waiting for something to start, or waiting to leave. These last two weeks have involved some major waiting and I'm not a huge fan of it at all! I've applied to a few different research positions, and have had many interviews over the past few weeks. In total i've had 7 interviews now! Three at my number one choice here in my home town, four with a program fairly close by but in another state, and one with a lab that I probably would not end up taking if they offered it to me for a number of reasons. I'm waiting to hear back from them. All of last week I got up each morning to check my email early in the morning only to see each day that there was no email! Turns out my #1 choice had a delay due to the PI being out of town and a big grant that was due, so now i'm supposed to hear back from them this week. The other lab had some major changes so the job is very different now than it was originally. Rather than working on multiple projects with two different people, now I would just be working on one project and it would be a one year commitment rather than a 2 year. The other position is a 2 year commitment. The potential offers are ever changing, and I currently have no idea what i'll be doing next year (or for the next two years). Hopefully I'll hear back this week with some offers. As of now, i'm waiting in limbo and running as many subjects I can to finish my senior thesis.

It's cold and snowing outside. It snowed all day and the roads were treacherous. I saw two cars that had crashed within 5 min of each other. One was off the road the fireman were trying to pry the doors open. I felt like I was on Chicago Fire or Rescue 911. I drove very slowly after seeing that. Then I met my mom at starbucks and we worked together. She told me about her job and how she doesn't like one of the resource teachers. I showed her the map of where all the care packages that my new organization has made have been sent to so far. Now i'm sitting in bed in my dorm room and I think i'll watch a little of the new episode of Chicago fire before bed. I'll take my melatonin and clonidine before though. I tried to get off clonidine, but it didn't work out so well so I'm back on it now. When I got off it, my tics got bad when lying in bed trying to fall asleep and it was just really unpleasant and not a lot of fun. Now i'm back on the clonidine and all is well with sleep.

New Years Resolution - Exercise

It's a little late, but i've finally decided on my new years resolution! Exercise! Yep, I know i've said it before but this time I mean it for real! Today was my second day following my exercise routine. First and foremost I want it to benefit my heart and give me a long life. I'm also hoping for a decrease in anxiety, OCD symptoms, and Restless leg syndrome symptoms. It's too soon to tell because its only my second day of staying on the routine, but one thing i'm noticing is its not as hard as I thought it was going to be. Its sometimes hard to get myself motivated to do it, but once i'm doing it I feel motivated to try my hardest to get my heart pumping. My goal is to exercise at least 3-4 times a week. Two down for this week, one more to go! Planning on exercising again on Saturday or Sunday. I like doing the cardio routines on youtube. Running hurts my neck and head but so far the cardio routines don't! Woo-hoo!

Excessive Guilt - OCD

Something i've been dealing with lately is excessive guilt. I've dealt with this before and I know it's another symptom of my OCD. It can be very taxing, and like all obsessions it can feel so real. Every time I do something that I, or others around me perceive to be wrong, I cannot shake the feeling of extreme guilt. In the past this has made me "walk on egg shells in the past" because i'm so afraid to do something wrong. I wrong express my true opinions or wont show my personality because i'm afraid of doing something wrong and once again feeling the extreme sense of guilt. It's certainly hard, but I just have to realize its another symptom of my OCD and that I can't let it get in my way or control me.

Also on the more positive side, my interview went so well! I got asked back for a "call back" interview with the head of the lab, so that's obviously a good sign :)

I will be so happy if I get this research position in my home town, but I also know that there are other options out of town as back up options. I just hope that whatever position I get will allow me to take time off for camp. I don't know what I would do without camp. I love being with all the kiddos there and seeing my counselor friends too. Hopefully we'll do another counselor reunion soon :)

Moving Forward

Well i've been avoiding writing this post for a while now. I haven't written in a while as I haven't really felt the need. When I started this blog it was an outlet for me to express my feeling about having Tourete's, and lately I haven't really felt like I need that outlet. For so long Tourette's was such a big part of my life. The tics or the OCD was almost always on my mind in one way or another throughout the day. For the past few months though, Tourette's has been on the back burner. I guess this is a good thing. Since I finished my CBIT treatment, my tics have improved a lot. I rarely have motor tics that are painful anymore and my vocal tics are quiet for the most part (because the one or two loud ones i'll have every now and then). I've been so busy applying for jobs and figuring out my future, and the tics that I still do have haven't been such a big deal lately.

It's nice for a change to have Tourette's on the back burner, but it is a change and it does feel different.   For so long i've been used to Tourette's running my life and now I feel like i'm finally the one in charge. I'm still working on the OCD. I've made so much progress through exposure therapy and now only have a few things left to tackle before I get my owe place. Its crazy to think i'm going to graduate from college in just a few months and that i'll have my own apartment very soon. I'm excited to have my own place, start cooking meals for myself, and have a real job. Its safe to say i'm really growing up.

I have my first real interview on Tuesday. I'm nervous but also excited. My mom's been helping me prep and i've been practicing a lot for it. I even went out shopping today to find the perfect interview outfit. All my friends have been telling me I need a blazer for an interview. No luck funding the perfect outfit today, but hopefully I'll find out tomorrow.

I hate to say it, but I'm not sure how much i'm going to blog anymore. I haven't felt very motivated to write about Tourette's or OCD because I haven't had them on my mind recently. I've been so focused on school, getting a job, friends, and other relationships. That's the way it should be though. It's been 5 years almost since i've been diagnosed with Tourette's. 5 years! It's crazy for me to think about. Tourette's is always going to be a part of me, but from now on i'm hoping it will be a smaller part of me, almost a side note. I feel like Tourette's, OCD, anxiety and everything has taken time away from me, taken experiences away from me. I didn't have anything close to a typical high school or collage experience and I know a lot of that had to do with my Tourette's and its co-occuring conditions. I feel like it robbed me in a way. It robbed me of so much. I'm ready to move forward with my life and stop looking back though. I read a quote the other day that said "Don't look back, you're not going that way" and it's really so true. Instead of being angry about what my disorders have taken from me in the past, I need to move forward without fear. I need to do what scares me and I need to take life by the horns and face it. Another quote: "You must do the thing you cannot do". Eleanor Rosavelt was pretty much a genius. It's so hard for me to do the things I am afraid of, but its important to do them or else my fears and anxiety will rob me of even more. I don't know when I will blog next, but I do know that in the mean time i'm going to do what I think I cannot do, just like Eleanor Roosevelt says.

Basal Ganglia

Cramming for my nerves system course final exam. This time of year is when the tics typically hit hard for those of us with TS. Right now i'm studying about the basal ganglia. How appropriate. Yep, this is definitely one of the brain strucutes that's gone haywire in my brain....

Basal ganglia -

-initiates desired movements and prevents unwanted movements

-consists of the caudate nucleus, putamen, globus palatus, and the amygdala 

-also inhibits unwanted mental activites such as innapropriate utterances and permit selected ones such as proper speech

Emotions

An emotional night tonight. Not because of Tourettes, but because of cancer. Cancer has become a big part of my life recently. While I myself am am so lucky to be healthy, the kids I love and that have touched me more than I can ever express live with the fact that cancer can take their lives every day. I've been working with these kids for about a year now, and for the first time am faced with the fact that one of them may not spend much more time on this earth. My first reaction was anger. It's just not fair that this 6 year old girl has battled brain cancer 2ce only to have run out of treatment options. Now that it's been a few weeks since I've heard this news I'm trying to come to terms with a way I can deal with it. It is something that I'm still working out. There is not one way to deal with something like this, nor is there a right way. 

Tonight I visited with a little girl who I know pretty well. She too has a very serious type of cancer and her doctors are trying all they can to help her beat it. Tonight she was wearing a cute shirt that said "jive, love, hope" and when I asked her what it said she told me to read it to her. Then she asked me "what is hope?". What a tough question to answer for this sweet girl. I had to think about it and try to phrase it in a way a 5 year old might understand. I eventually settled on telling her "hope means you know everything is going to be okay". This is an explanation that I think she can grasp, but was I telling her the truth? For a little girl with a very serious cancer that can claim her life, how can I sit there and tell her everything is going to be okay? Later that night she climbed on my lap and rested her head against me. She picked up several books and "read" them to me by making up stories. We played tea party, taped pictures we colored together on the wall of her hospital room, and pretended to have a sleep over. 

While yes, it is the reality that cancer may take her life, cancer cannot take that night from us. Cancer cannot take my memories of her or her mothers memories of her. Cancer cannot take our relationship away. Yes cancer can take her hair, her hearing, her skills, and it may even take her life, but even with this fact so real and present, there is hope. Not everything will be okay, but regardless of what happens this disease cannot and will not take everything. She is living, right here and right now, and the memories she makes and the lives she touches will last for an eternity because no one and nothing can ever take these things away.

October!

Small update. Not much to report which is always a good thing when it comes to Tourette's! My tics haven't been too bad and i'm just trucking along/ trying to make the most out of my last year of college! Senior trip is next weekend which I can't believe! Going to Chicago with a group of my college friends. Should be fun. Also this week is Tourette's week in my images of disability class. I'm a little nervous/ hesitant to have the whole class viewing TS movies and discussing them, but I'm getting over my nerves because I know how cool it is to have a class of college students become educated about TS because of me smile emoticon

We may not start the TS movie tomorrow because we're finishing up presentations from last week, but I'll update you and let you know how "Tourette's week" goes!

9/16/15

Today was a better day. I have one more exam tomorrow and then my first set of exams will be over. I'm feeling the pressure and stress leveling out as I finish preparing for this last exam. And so too do I feel my anxiety and emotions leveling out as well as my tics.

The first set of exams are rough. They come with heightened anxiety, heightened tics, and heightened emotions. Its rough to feel all of that at once on my shoulders. I'm finally feeling that i'm getting closer to letting out that sigh of relief. In reality though I know this is just the beginning of a very challenging year to come. Since it's my last year of college and i'm applying to greaduate school there are just so many things on my plate. Some of you may ask why I do this to myself if I know it will make my tics and anxiety so much worse. The answer to this question is because I am pursuing my passion and my dream and i'm not going to let my tics stop me from doing that.

This Saturday I get to volunteer at the brain tumor education and awareness event with some of my favorite little kiddos and that's whats going to get me though the rest of tonight and my exam tomorrow.

Missing camp

I am missing camp today. Missing not being the only one ticcing and missing feeling "normal". The number one thing I love about camp is being there for the kids and forming amazing bonds with them. The number two thing I love is forming amazing and lasting relationships with the other counselors. And the number three thing I love is feeling normal. Well these things are all so amazing, I really do hate ranking them. All of things things are really of equal
amazing-ness. 

I try as much as I can to separate my tics from myself and remind myself that Tourette's is a part of me but it doesn't define me. Today though I'm feeling different. I've been having a lot of vocal tics in my classes lately, which I think is the cause of the way i'm feeling. I know that no matter how much I tic, i'm still me, but sometimes I feel the tics are winning and making me very "different" from everyone else. Today that's pretty much how I felt. As I sat in my classroom vocal ticcing away, I looked around at everyone else (who are all used to my vocal tics by this point) and thought about how strange it is that they're all sitting there silently and with their bodies completely under their control, and i'm sitting there jerking my arms, squealing, and barking. I think about how the first day I gave my TS speech in class, they probably went home and told a friend or their mom over the phone that that have someone with Tourette's in one of their classes, and that that person they're talking about is me. 

I feel singled out today, and alone. I feel like other people seem as the girl with Tourette's or they think that having Tourette's makes me this person with a "disability". I don't feel like someone with a disability. I just feel like me. 

I know i'm kind of rambling, but i'm just writing out my thoughts. I know this page is supposed to be a place for other people to come and be encouraged and I know this is not so much an encouraging post. I am realistic though. I want to show the good days and the bad. Just because I have Tourette's doesn't mean I am always positive about it or always feel great about having it. It doesn't mean i'm an inspirational person or that it's inspiring how I deal with so much on a daily basis. I'm just a human on this earth moving forward in life like everyone else, and like everyone else i'm not positive about everything every day. Every day I don't wake up thinking "I have tourettes but tourettes doesnt have me". Today I just feel different. Today I just feel like I don't want to be "the girl with Tourette's". I want people to see me for who I am, not the tics I have.

The dreaded cold means I can't visit my favorite kiddos.

Today officially came down with a cold which I was SOOO dreading and hoping wouldn't happen. Everyone around me seems to be sick and I was feeling it coming on but was so wishing it wouldn't happen. Having a cold means I can't do two of my favorite things. I can't put hope boxes together and I can't visit my favorite little kiddos in the hospital. Both due to the fact that the kids I send my hope boxes to and the kids in the hospital have surpassed immune systems due to chemo and can't be exposed to any risk of getting even the common cold. 

I miss my little kiddos in the hospital! I wasn't able to visit them last week because they weren't in the hospital. I'm so glad they got to spend the week at home, but I always miss seeing them! Now that the two are coming back this week, I'm the one whose not able to come in! Grrr! The little baby I visit (who I almost feel like a second mama to!) will be coming up on a longer stay in the Bone Marrow Transplant unit so even though I don't get to visit him this week, i'll visit him next week. He recently started babbling which makes me so happy to see! He's been all smiles lately and has recently learned to wave as well which I love to see! All the nurses love when I come and visit him and they all see how he lights up when he sees me. He just loves me which makes me feel so great When a little baby with cancer loves you, there's not much more you can ask for in that moment (besides for someone to take away his cancer that is). 

The other little girl I visit is 3 and is too cute for her own good! It amazes me that she isn't trying to be cute! The other week she said "Daddy, if a shark came into my room I would be so brave and I would fight it with my sword! Can you bring me my sword Daddy?" I just about died from the cuteness when she said that! 

Anyway, today I am saying prayers for them that their treatments will work and am also thankful that they are part of my life. People often say to me "You are so incredible for spending your time with these kids when you could be doing other things". What they don't realize is that I benefit just as much if not more than the kids do from spending time with them. They brighten my day so much and I am lucky just to know them and be a part of their lives. I love them more than I can even say. Seeing their brave and smiling faces gives me so much. Can't wait to get rid of this cold so I can go back to visiting and playing with them

The Aftermath of Tics

Today was a better day tic wise, but a much worse day pain wise. 

Because my tics were so bad and the feeling of tic-energy inside my body was so intense I had the sudden urge to run and jump and get all the energy out of my body. So in addition to ticcing like crazy all day and having tons of muscular tics, I decided I could not stand one more second of the way my body felt and that I just had to run and jump and get the energy out. So I decided to try an exercise tape from youtube. 

The only problem was that my body was so hyped up that I put everything I had into tiring my body out. I did the exercise in an incredibly intense and exhaustive way because I didn't care what kind of pain I felt later all I cared about was getting the energy out. So I did jumping jacks, push ups, kicks, running, squatting, leg lifting, etc for a solid 20 minutes or so giving each jumping jack or push up all the energy I had in my body, which was A LOT of energy. 

So today because of the sheer amount of tics I had in the past two days in combination with the intense and exhaustive work out I did, my muscles are incredibly sore and i'm in a pretty significant amount of pain. Putting on pants, moving from a sitting to a standing position or a standing to a sitting position, walking up and down stairs or just walking on a flat surface hurts like you would not imagine. In addition I have a coughing tic and each time I do that tic today I have doubled over and my abdomal muscles have screamed out in pain. 

I didn't know my body was capable of becoming this sore! All I can say is wow and that I really hope my muscles heal quickly because today was pretty miserable. My throat is also sore from the crazy number of vocal tics I've been having. Overall, I just felt sick all day. I skipped my first class this morning because of the pain (it's the first class i've missed so far) and slept in, but that didn't help much. At least my tics were better today! The aftermath is tough though.

Rough day

Today was my first real rough day with my tics of the school year. It's my third week of classes and I have two exams and a paper due next week, so I guess it was time. It's always rough though because it makes me feel so different. It makes me feel like my body is out of my control. I know there are people who deal with this feeling every day, and I feel lucky that I have mild days or mild weeks, but a day like this still hits me hard.

My day consisted of almost constant eye blinking and rolling to the point that most of the time I had to type without the use of my vision (luckily i've become pretty good at that), and was punctuated with many body jerks, squeals, barks, and grunts. It felt like I was in a body that wasn't my own, a body I couldn't control. It's so frustraiting having to do these things that I know look and sound pretty darn crazy and not being able to have the control to stop it.

I am hoping for a better day tomorrow, and am just continuing to tell  myself that i'm just fine. I have Tourette's, but Tourette's doesn't have me.

Two Weeks into my Senior Year

Well i'm two weeks into my senior year and there's not all that much to report! I really like all my professors and classes (besides one) and telling my classes about TS went very smoothly, as expected. After I got settled into my dorm room and told all my classes, my tics have calmed down compared to how they were after camp. They were pretty bad after camp up until I started school because I was nervous about the transition and had also just spent a week being triggered by everyone else's tics. Camp is so worth it though, so I really don't care that my tics get worse there and afterwards.

My stomach punching tic has pretty much disappeared which is fantastic and overall my tics have calmed down. The one thing i'm not a huge fan of right now is that I've had quite a few times while at college when my tics have become more severe during the evening while i'm in my dorm or before bed. Strategies are helping to some extent at night, but i'm still working on trying to find ways to reduce the episodes where my tics act up at night.

I tic quite a bit during the day, but some nights the tics just tend to really wax and I have the feeling of "not being able to get the tic out" where I just feel very unsettled inside and like ticcing isn't helping make this unsettling energy go away for very long. I doesn't feel to great and it's upsetting, so I'm just trying to figure out how to have less of these episodes.

Besides this, all is well. Classes are good, friends are good, research and extracurriculars are good. I went over to a friends apartment last night after my grandma's 80th birthday to watch a movie and have dinner which was fun. Tomorrow is labor day so i'll be going over to my grandpas house to have our annual labor day pool party and to see my cousins.

Wish I had more to say right now, but the heat has made me so worn out! It's been so hot lately which has been making my tics act up a little more these past few days and has been making me so incredibly tired!! It also makes me feel like I just don't want to move at all. Thats all for now.

Counting the Goods - Sept 4th

1. I spoke up in class today for the first time since classes started and shared my ideas not being fearful that I had said the wrong thing.

2.  I get to tic in all my classes and not worry. All my classes know I have TS (my professors are great this year and don't even bat an eye when I tic. Everyone in my classes has gotten pretty used to my vocal tics which tend to happen a lot in class since the classroom is always a trigger for me.

3.  I went to a new student group meeting that i'm excited to get involved with and it sounds like a great opportunity to meet new people

4.  A good friend is being very helpful with my new non-profit and is super excited to be involved. She's got tons of ideas for moving forward with it and fundraising. We're going to study together at her place Monday night which we did last Sunday night and was super fun. I felt welcome at her place.

More Before School Preparations: Senior year!

Today was my second meeting of the semester to talk to my professors about Tourette's! Two down, just one more to go! Both have gone excellently! This year i'm really making an effort not just to give my professors the basics, but also to give them some insight into what it's like for my to live with Tourette's and how they can make me feel more comfortable in the classroom. Sometimes its not all about helping them to understand what a tic is so they can properly ignore it. It's also about making them feel at ease about my tics and helping them to know how to make me feel more at ease about my tics.

One thing I've experienced in the past that makes me feel uncomfortable, is when a professor simply avoids eye contract with me all together for the entire semester pretty much. If i'm ticcing a lot, which I most always am in class, some professors think they will make me uncomfortable if they look at me. I might think they're looking at my tics or staring at me. However, this is not the case. What does make me feel incredible uncomfortable is if a professor avoids eye contact with me all together. This makes me feel different, avoided, and like the professor is ignoring me as a student all together instead of simply ignoring my tics. So this year I'm making sure to mention to my professors that I want them to make eye contact with me like they would with any other student, regardless of if i'm ticcing a lot. I tell them about how other professors in the past have avoided eye contact with me and how that makes me feel. Both professors so far that i've brought this up with have been extremely receptive about it. The more relaxed I am about telling my Professors about my tics and the more open I am about it, the more relaxed they are and the more questions they ask.

I want my professors, and others in general, to be comfortable with me and with my tics. I want them to be comfortable asking questions or bringing it up, instead of being so afraid they will offend me that they tip toe around the subject and avoid me all together. This is the exact opposite of the way I wish to be treated. As Brad Cohen says in Front of the class in response to his Principle's question of what the teachers and school can do, "I just want to be treated like everyone else".

Because I was relaxed and open about my Tourette's, the professor asked me questions and brought up some very interesting topics as well! He had read Oliver Sacks's chapter about the surgeon with Tourette's, which I had heard about but have not read. He told me I should read it and that he finds it fascinating how the surgeon didn't tic during surgery. I told him how I experience a similar thing when I'm focused and engaged with children such as when I volunteer at the hospital. It's like the part of the brain that's responsible for sending out the extra signals is too activated and engaged doing something else that it can't tic. On the other hand, I told him when i'm sitting passively or listening to a lecture or a movie I tend to tic more even if i'm highly focused on what i'm listening to because its a different kind of mental process or engagement. He also brought up that once he had a student in his class with Tourette's who had a tic where he said "Bull shit" and he responded to the students tic by saying "I know! This is bull shit! Even if the other students don't know it!". Hahaha, I laughed and told him I thought that was really funny! I love how relaxed he was about the whole thing. So different from those professors who just stare at me the whole time I'm telling them about Tourette's as if they were afraid of me. I've only had two professors do this, but boy does it make me feel uncomfortable.

On another note, going on campus to meet with my professor was the first time i've been on campus since the end of the school year in May. One part of me was glad to be back on campus and enjoying being in the familiar environment. The campus was beautiful like always and being a senior, it feels like i'm at home on campus. A freshman even asked me where the quad was and I told her I was a senior and don't remember what the quad even is! I also stopped by the starbucks and everyone from last year was there and was glad to see me. The manager was behind the counter and when she looked at my drink she looked up and said "I know this drink!". I told them I was glad to be back on campus but sad as well because this is my last year there. Another part of me felt very nervous. I was having a hard time with my tics and was doing a lot of vocal tics on campus. The feeling I get before I tic and while i'm ticcing was very strong and like that dropping/electrical feeling I get at the base of my stomach surging upward which was making my tics way worse of course. I felt nervous walking around on campus ticcing and tried to avoid walking close to people. A part of me worries that this is what it will be like walking around on campus more frequently this year because of how bad my tics are right now and how much stress I'm going to have this since i'm applying to graduate school.

Also tonight I found out that two of my sorority sisters are going to be in one of my psychology classes this year that I'm planning on speaking to about my Tourette's. This makes me so incredibly nervous because I'm worried they'll think i'm faking. I've never spent time with either of these sisters and the chapter is so big so they haven't seen me ticcing a whole bunch. They haven't been around me when i've had louder vocal tics and i've never had louder vocal tics in chapter events because if it's a day where i'm ticcing a lot I just won't go to chapter or i'll step out of chapter if I can't hold back my tics. Class is a whole different story because I can't hold back my tics in class otherwise I'll miss all the information because i'm focusing on holing my tics back so much. Being in class and fighting back tics the whole time would be useless because I wouln't learn anything or get anything out of being in class. I know they don't know this about Tourette's and i'm worried they will think "Oh well i've never seen her tic like this before so she just be faking". I wish I didn't care what they think so I could just tell the class and not have to be so nervous about it. I know I have to tell the class and I don't really have a choice in the matter if I want to be successful in the class. There's no way I could sit an hour and a half without doing vocal tics and also pay attention to what the professor is saying. If I would plan on doing that I might as well not show up to a single class and just read the text book, which would be a huge waste of my tuition.

I just have to tell myself that I have to tell the class if I want to have a successful semester. The classroom environemnt is a huge trigger for my tics, and I can't simply not tell the class about my Tourette's because i'm worried of what two people will think. Ultimately it doesn't matter what they think. They can think i'm faking all the want, but I have really do have Tourette's and I l really do ive with it every day and whatever they think doesn't change this fact. They don't understand how environment dependent tics are, they don't understand how much I fight back against my tics when i'm in certain social settings and what fighting my tics does to me later on in terms of the rebound effect. They don't understand the concept of being triggered by the environment or the classroom setting, they don't understand the waxing and waning of Tourette's, and they don't have to understand these things. Regardless of if they do or don't understand, I'm the one who has to live with Tourette's every day and i'm the one who has to be in that classroom doing the tics and dealing with the embarrassment, frustration, and other emotions that ticcing brings. I'm the one who will feel 100% better if the class knows about my Tourette's and if i'm able to feel okay about having tics in class rather than stepping out every 20 minutes to let 10x more tics out than I would have had in the first place had I not tried to fight them.

What matters in the end is how I feel. I understand triggering, environment dependency, waxing and waning, holding back/ fighting tics, the rebound effect, and all the other complextites of Tourette's. Regardless of if other people understand these things or not, they are real and they are part of the reality of living with Tourette's. Tourette's isn't just an involuntary movement or sound that happens comply uncorntolably at random intervals. It's so much more than that. It's so much more complicated. While I wish others understood the complexities of Tourette's, I understand that unless you live with it or have a close friend with it you will not understand these things.  I can't let my perception of what others may think control me and control how I live my life. I am making assumptions about these two girls (that they will judge me, that they won't understand, that they will think i'm faking). I'm doing the same thing that I don't want them to do to me,  make judgements and unfounded assumptions. I need to stop making these assumptions and just live my life without judgement of others and what their perceptions may be. Who knows, maybe one of them has a brother with Tourette's, a cousin with Tourette's, a best friend from high school with Tourette's. I just need to stay strong, stand up for myself, and do what is right for me this semester considering how my tics are acting up right now and may stay at this level for a while since this year is going to be a stressful one with grad school applications.

Expanded Reality

Today I met with an amazing professor. She has not only made me feel incredibly welcome in the class, but our interaction is helping me to feel more confident about Tourette's and my tics going into my senior year. I expected her to be understanding since it's a course about how disability is portrayed in the media and in literature, but I didn't expect the incredibly amazing response I got when I sent out my usual introduction email.

This was her initial response to my email ""Thanks for contacting me. I’d love to meet with you. I have some familiarity with Tourette Syndrome and welcome the opportunity to find out more from you and discuss accommodations. If you choose to disclose in the class, it would be a great learning opportunity for everyone. If you choose to maintain privacy, that is entirely fine too. I’m sure you know what works best and is most comfortable for you." 

As I said before, just reading this email helped me to feel like my tics are not a nuisance or annoying, but instead am adding something valuable to the class just by being there. Additionally she has now asked to include a piece about Tourette's (a video clip or a film, either Front of the Class or I have Tourettes but Tourettes doesn't have me) which i'm excited about! Also, she asked me to speak to another class she teaches about disability. 

This is the email she sent to me about that: "Might you be interested in talking with that class about Tourette’s? That class meets 4 to 5:30,  Monday-Wednesday. I think you’d enrich their learning experience tremendously." 

Just these words: "I think you'd enrich their learning experience tremendously" and to hear this from someone older and wiser than me gives me such a great feeling. A feeling of pure acceptance and kindness. 

Today when I met with her she didn't even blink when I did my louder vocal tics. She wanted to do everything she could to help me  in the classroom. She asked questions such as "What can I do to make you feel more comfortable in the classroom?" and I loved it when she agreed that the students would just become used to my tics and told me that they would accept it as their "expanded reality". I like that phrase. It implies that i'm responsible for expanding their world, their minds, and their concept of how things are/should be in the world. 

I think one of my camp friends put it perfectly: "That is freaking awesome. What an amazing response."

Just two more professors to meet with now. Hoping I get two more amazing responses! Although I don't think their responses can even come close to topping this one.