The Elephant in The Room

Let's face it; Tourette Syndrome is a rather visible disorder. What makes it so difficult to live with is not so much that it's painful or harmful, but that it's embarrassing and awkward. It can be particularly difficult in groups of new people, and different based on if the majority of the new group already knows each other (such as transferring to a new class) or if everybody in the group is new to each other.

In the RA training that started yesterday, I've been in the latter situation where everybody is new to the group. There are twenty people on my staff, and I've mentioned my Tourette's to some of them here and there, but as a group it hasn't been brought up. I felt like it was a 400 pound elephant in the room that everybody was wondering about but weren't comfortable talking about. I grabbed the bull by the horns and found a way to bring it up in front of the whole group.

As an "icebreaker" game, our staff tosses around a beach ball with questions written on it. You read out the question that your right thumb is touching and answer it to the group. Today when the ball was thrown to me, I faked a question that would let me open up to the group.

"What is your greatest fear?" I pretended to read off the ball. Fulfulling the ball's inquiry by telling everybody wether I was a dog or cat person would have to wait.

"Well...." I said, pretending to pick my brain for fears and phobias. "I'd have to say that my biggest fear is more of a smaller, constant fear. I have Tourette Syndrome, which is a disorder that makes me twitch and what not. I'm always nervous that it will cause a particuarly awkward situation or make me do something that's hard to explain." Then I departed from pretending to answer the question, and went straight for self advocacy: "I'm really open about it, and I don't mind answering questions about it."

And with that, I felt more at ease and I sensed that the group was more at ease. Whether they really were or not I don't know, but I can relax now and twitch comfortably. I trust that everyone feels comfortable coming up to me and asking questions about my Tourette's - and that's what it's all about.