Meet Cameron! Cameron's Bio for the Documentary!

Meet Cameron! She will be featured in our upcoming documentary! She is a competitive dancer and loves to dance! 

"Cameron is 8 years old. We live in the Carolinas.

She started showing symptoms at the age of four.... it started with eye squinching. 

Her tics are constantly morphing from one thing to another. There is not one tic in particular that she has had the entire time.

They have been as small as eye rolling or nose twitching, all the way to popping her shoulders out of socket (which is what she is dealing with right now).

The other one that was the worst was she would just drop down into a squat and bounce up and down... this could get really dangerous, especially if we were crossing a busy road..."

Meet Megan! Megan's Bio for the Documentary!

Meet Megan! Megan will be featured in our upcoming documentary! 

"My name is Megan. I live in NC. I'm eleven years old. 

I had Tourette's since second grade. 

I love to draw and play outside.

I would want to tell tell others that TS is nothing contagious and severe , it just makes me do funny things or noises.

Some of my tics are saying whoo, shaking my head, gagging and shrieking.

The hardest part of TS is living with it at home or school when people get annoyed."

Meet Sam! Sam's Bio for the Documentary!

Meet Sam! Sam will be featured in our upcoming documentary. 

"My name is Sam, I am 13 and I live in Watertown, New York. 

I have had TS since third grade.. I believe I was 7 or 8 years old when the tics began.

I have many tics right now. My most common tic is to crack my elbows and shoulders and also stretch my back..I gag when something is gross but the gag has to make a certain sound to be just right. I have had tics that I hardly notice and ones that are severe.
When I go in public I get body tics and begin to bend at the waist. I crack almost every bone and I also bite my tongue.

The physical and emotional pain, that is the hardest part about having TS.. tics cause physical pain and the people who don't understand cause the emotional pain.

I am a kind person and I love playing volleyball, art, music - playing guitar and I also love laughing.. I'm a great big sister and friend. 

I just wish people knew that I do struggle with TS even if I dont show it, but you have to live life and I do my best to live my life happy. Its not easy when others do not understand ts and judge me or assume things. I am a lot like those without TS, I have passions and dreams except sometimes I work a little harder to go after what I want... and sometimes no matter how hard I try someone gets in my way or ts does."

Meet Megan! Megan's Bio for the Documentary!

Meet Megan! Megan will be featured in our upcoming Tourette's documentary. 

"My name is Megan Romeo. I am 18 years old and currently attending Texas A&M University! 

I have had TS for about 10 years now. My neck jerks, my eyes blink rapidly, my stomach contracts, my head shakes and my OCD is...well, it's OCD.

The hardest part of living with TS has honestly been coming to terms with the fact that it may never get better or go away. I've had tics for over half of my life, and I don't remember my life without them. 

I feel like one of my biggest strengths is leadership, which has been really helpful when it comes to talking/sharing with people about my TS. I love to work with children, and hope to one day become a teacher. I would love to make an impact (even if only on one child) through my story with TS. 

I believe everybody should know that TS isn't something to pity. Yes, it's a terrible, uncomfortable and embarrassing disorder. But I believe that it has helped to form who we all are as people, and it has made us in to the strongest, tightest, most supportive group I have ever met. I would like everybody who sees this documentary to know that I have been blessed by my Father, and He has a plan for me and my Tourettes!! Jeremiah 29:11 "

Answering some questions about Tourette's!

"Hi I'm Ruthie! I am one of the producers of the upcoming documentary about Tourette's Syndrome. I am 18 years old and I am a Freshman in college.

I've had Tourette's Syndrome since I was three years old, but I wasn't officially diagnosed until my Junior year of high school. My tics have changed a lot since I was younger, but I have a few tics that have always stayed the same. Some of the tics right now are head and neck jerking, eye rolling, arm jerking, grimacing, picking and biting my lips, repeating words/phrases that I hear, making a yelping or a squeaking sound, saying the word "ouch", and whistling. I also have OCD which at times has been harder for me to deal with than the tics.

For me, I'd say it would be nearly impossible to pick one single hardest part of having Tourette's. There are just to many challenges that come with having Tourette's and just too many ways it has affected me throughout the years. As a child, the hardest part was not knowing why I couldn't stop my body from doing certain things or why I was different than the other kids. As I've gotten older, I've had to come to terms with the fact that my tics and OCD may never get better or go away. I've had to deal with stares, the judgments of others, and my own judgments of myself. I have amazing friends who support me through everything though, and that sometimes can make all the difference.

I'm a PNP (Philosophy-Neuroscience-Psychology) major with a minor in Creative Writing. My goal is to get a masters and a PHD in PNP and go on to do neruo-imaging research to study neurological disorders and neuropsychiatric disorders. I love to write fiction and poetry, blog, and advocate for Tourette's and it's associated conditions. I also love animals, especially my new Goldendoodle named Brandy :)

I think other people should know that having Tourette's doesn't make us all that different. Underneath our tics and obsessions, we are just like everybody else. We're just a regular people who happen to have tics. Having Tourette's is a part of who we are, but it doesn’t define who we are."

OCD in the science lab

Yesterday I had to leave class because of my OCD for the first time in a long long time. My Imaging sciences professor didn't tell us ahead of time that we were going to take a tour of a wet lab on campus. I thought I would be okay if I just didn't touch anything and kept my distance, but my OCD went crazy when we got to the lab and there were signs everywhere saying "toxic hazardous chemicals use

d here". I stuck with it though even after this because I thought well everyone else is here, I'll be fine if I just don't touch anything. I still started planning an excuse that would get me out of there if need be. It was just too much for me when the lab director opened up a jar of fruit flies that started flying everywhere. My OCD jumped into action even more, making me think of how the flies could land on these toxic chemicals then come over and land on me. So I used my excuse, told the teacher I had a migraine, and I got out of that lab as fast as I could. I'm a little upset that I had to leave class, but mostly I'm just relieved that I got out of there before a fly landed on me. That would have most likely resulted in hours of ritualizing.....Since my summer intensive treatment I have not needed to ritualize to this extent and I am glad I avoided having too. I think it's safe to say I will not be working in a wet lab in my career.

A Very Special Call From A Very Special Friend

Last weekend, one of my best friends from high school gave me a call. She is the friend who I have referred to as Tie Dye in previous posts. This call really made my day and made me appreciate how much friendships can truly mean even more. She asked me about my day (because she always genuinely cares) and asked me about my plans for the weekend. I asked her about her day and her plans for the weekend as well. She wanted to make sure I was still enjoying college and having a fun time and I told her all about how I was still loving college! We started talking about big lecture classes and then the part that really got to me and made me so grateful to have friends like her though was the part of the conversation that went something mostly like this:

Tie Dye: "So this might be a little bit of a sensitive topic to talk about if you're next to people, but how are your big lecture classes, with your tics I mean?"
Me: "They're pretty good actually. Not as bad as I thought they would be. The people in front of me sometimes turn around and look at me because they're probably wondering 'what is she doing?' but then they pretty much ignore me and I ignore them. Thanks for asking."
Tie Dye: "That's really great. Oh and how are your friends about it? Are they understanding?"
Me: Oh yeah, they're great about it.
Tie Dye: "Good because if they weren't, they'd have to answer to me!"

Then Tie Dye started talking about how her friend at college started volunteering with young kids who have Tourette's and how she wants to go with her sometime to volunteer with them too.

Awww, the whole conversation made me really really happy. Tie Dye and I have been friends since 6th grade, and she knows me so well. She is comfortable with my TS and I love when she asks me about it because I know she really cares and wants to know how I am. She understands that TS is a part of my life that effects me, she understands that sometimes people aren't as understanding as they could be, and she understands that saying something like "Good because if you're friends weren't understanding and supportive, they'd have to answer to me" would make me feel safe and accepted by her which would make my day even though she is on the opposite side of the country.

The interesting thing though is that although the conversation made my day and let me know that no matter what I have a friend who understands and accepts my Tourette's, it made me kind of upset at the same time. I realized how much I missed her and how things would never be the same as they were in high school. It also made me think about how none of my friends at college have yet to reach the stage of comfort about my Tourette's that they would be willing to bring it up themselves and ask me how I was with my tics. I know relationship building takes time, but I'm not a very patient person sometimes about these kinds of things. I want my friends at college to have complete comfort and understand about my Tourette's like my friends in high school did. I know however, that this kind of comfort, understand, and habituation takes time. I'll get there with my friends; I just have to wait.  That night though, I really didn't feel like waiting. I pretty much just went back to my room and felt sorry for myself.

The next morning when I woke up though, everything was back to normal and I felt better. In the long term the conversation helped me realize that with time my new friends at college will reach the level of understanding, support, and comfort with my Tourette's that my friends in high school had, it will just take time.