| Paulina Loffe (10)

Ever since I was diagnosed with Tourette Syndrome one of the hardest struggles I’ve had to face, is the amount of ignorance I have faced towards my disorder and the constant shame I bring upon myself when I do my tics. I was diagnosed with Tics at the age of 4, and although my tics were not vocal at the time, I always felt different but in a bad way. I never knew as to  why I had to blink my eyes really hard until it felt good? Or why I had to roll my eyes in the back of my head? And why am I the only kid that has these tics? Nobody knew I had tics though. Even when my tics were not vocal, I felt judged by my tics even when kids wouldn’t even notice I had tics in the first place, but I still continued to have anxiety about kids making fun of my tics and the sense of loneliness never went away. Just my luck, my freshman year of high school I started developing vocal tics. When I first started experiencing them, I felt very ashamed because many kids and adults would (and continue to) glare at me or give me wierd looks. In fact, many times I have heard snickering from other people, especially from one kid in my Spanish class. Just within one year of having vocal tics, I have already experienced so much ignorance from other people. Not only have I received dirty looks from people, but I even had someone tell me that my tics were annoying (knowing that I had Tourette Syndrome)  and I had someone imitate my tics in front of me. After my first few months of experiencing my vocal tics, during summer break I had constant nightmares about school and would wake up in a cold sweat. Not only did I have nightmares, I also had daydreams with a hundred different scenarios of kids making fun of me. My heart would start to pound thinking back on those daydreams and my mind kept circling I even felt as though I could hear laughter coming from other kids. I took a deep breath. And thought to myself Paulina, you’re just overthinking about it. It’s not going to happen, or at least anytime soon. That’s what I continued to tell myself over and over again. Until my first day of sophomore year, I walked into the building with high hopes as I knew how to cope with some of my vocal tics by going to Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, I walked into my 2nd period class and excitedly sat next to my best friend. After the teacher explained the class syllabus, my tics started popping up. The tenseness in my body began. A kid turned to me and said “can you stop doing it, it’s like every three  seconds.” My heart started racing. And my worst fear came true, he started imitating my tics by going “MMHH MMMHHH MMMHH” while moving his neck back and forth like a chicken. I was absolutely mortified. I was frozen. I glanced around the room and started seeing kids look my way, I mustered up the courage to say “stop,” he kept doing it. then I said “can you please stop” he proceeded. I said “look, I can’t help it” he kept doing it. Then finally mustered up  the courage to say “I have Tourette Syndrome, I can’t help it.”