Teaching Noah | √

001

OKAY, SO HEAR me out.

Are hugs really just handshakes for the boobs?

... No, that didn't make any sense.

"I know that look," Simon chuckled. "Mind if I hear this one?"

I thought for a while, "No, you're going to kick me out of your office."

"How are you, Riley?" He laughed, leaning back into his seat as he rested a finger against his chin. He had a smile on his face now, and the side of his eyes crinkled.

I eyed him for a while, leaning back in my seat too. Simon was my neurologist and therapist, and he could read me like a book.

I was only seven when I experienced my first tic. I was having dinner with my parents and older siblings when I started to feel a very strong urge to blink, so I blinked. I tried to stop it, but it felt like a bad itch that I had to end up scratching. I felt tension build behind my eyes that blinking again was inevitable. It was like a force. A control over me that I couldn't stop, and I could only feel better when  I expressed the tic.

I was diagnosed with Tourette's Syndrome only when I was eight. It hadn't been a cause for alarm at first, because it happens that some tics go on their own after a while. Mine didn't go away after days, or months. I was starting to show unusual behaviors, like striving to arrange my items in a particular order before feeling satisfied. If it didn't go how I wanted, I would start all over again. It was at this point I had to visit a pediatrician, and we would later find out that some people with Tourette's Syndrome end up having some other disorders on the side like OCD or even ADHD, though these leave after a while.

I get the feeling you're a bit lost, so I'll slow down—  or rather, tell you what it means to have Tourette's Syndrome.

Close your eyes and imagine yourself reading your favorite book. Now, imagine feeling the sudden urge to sniff repeatedly. Or grunt. Or yell out something random.

Do it.

Tourette's Syndrome is a neurological disorder that causes you to have sudden and uncontrollable movements. These movements are called tics, and they could include eye blinking, shoulder shrugging, grimacing, grunting, snorting, tongue clicking... and many more.

Now, there is no exact cause of Tourette's Syndrome, but Simon told me that research says that it happens when there is a problem with how the nerves communicate with certain areas of the brain.

David Beckham. Caspar Lee. Billie Eilish.

These are a few celebrities who have the Tourette's Syndrome, but I promise you, the syndrome isn't as cool as the people I just mentioned. Some people tried to make it seem cute. The media loved to use it for the aesthetics, but just as I mentioned before, it was like a force. An urge to do something you typically wouldn't do. And the worst part of it was, you had to do it. You wouldn't feel good if you tried to suppress the tic or hold it in.

"I'm good," I finally answered Simon. "I feel really good today."

"I can feel it," his eyes sparkled. "When last did you have a tic?"

I threw a quick glance at my mom who sat quietly beside me, "Yesterday night. Right before I went to bed."

Mom nodded, "Snorts. It lasted about two minutes."

"Okay..." Simon's voice trailed off as he looked down at my file. "And the day before, just three tics throughout the day, is that right?"

"Yep," I nodded. "They were kinda really short and very spaced out."