Life with Tourette's: Different is OK'

Chapter 1 : Tough Times

Hi there! I'm Shane, just an ordinary teenager living life in this crazy and uncertain world. I live just like any teenager would. Always up to something!

My life hasn't always been as nice and glamorous as it is these days.
You can say that I'm a bit different...
At the age of 7 my parents went through a serious divorce. I was confused. I didn't know what to think of the situation. my head was flooded with emotions; stress, anxiousness, anxiety etc.

A couple days after my father had left, I started sniffling. Similar to having a cold. I didn't think much of it first. Thought it was just allergies.

After a while, it started turning into scrunching my nose such as a rabbit would. It felt as if I had no control over what my face was doing. It was almost like it had a mind of its own.

A couple of days later, my mother had taken me to see a doctor. He didn't think much if. He said that it was just a form of stress trying to make it's way out of the body.

Again, we didn't think much of it until I reached the age of 8.

When that time came around, I knew something wasn't right. I eventually started body tics or motor tics if you will. I kept twitching my neck and hips and had no control over them.

My mother and I both started getting a bit worried as to what was causing these "motor tics".

The next morning after my 8th birthday, my mother took me to see a psychiatrist. Little did I know that from that day I would be diagnosed with Tourette's syndrome.

The psychiatrist asked me many questions such as "is there anything bothering you?" or "have you been under any major stress lately?". Both questions were answered with a formal "Yes."

He then proceeded to ask me about these so called "Tics" like, "can you describe the feeling of when these tics come along?".

At first I didn't know how to answer that, but what I told him was "It feels like something's pushing my chest, like a ball of stress/strain".
He immediately knew that it was indeed Tourette's syndrome.

I had no idea how to retain this me information. My life had completely stopped. I felt saddened and alone, like I was the only person on earth that felt this way, but most of all, I was confused. But most of all I was scared.