Life in Constant Motion

I have come to the realization that constantly twitching all the time has created a certain "microculture" to my life. That's a dumb word. I'm sure there's a better one, like idiosyncrasies or nuances or something like that... but for now, microculture works fine. Some of these things I've known for a while, and some of them are new to me; I thought it would be interesting to write them all down in one place.

Charlene pointed out the other day that I tend to be rather rough with things in general - I sit in chairs roughly, I put down forks and knives loudly, and so on. Now granted, I have always been one to wear things out quickly and not treat things quite as gently as I could. However I am convinced that this is exacerbated by the fact that my body is always doing crazy things. I'm not graceful by the nature of my disorder - I yank my head so hard that I crack my neck pretty often. About once every couple days I have such a severe tic that I temporarily loose my balance. I think that the violent nature of my involuntary movements carry over to my voluntary ones, in that I'm not as aware of voluntary disruptive behaviors because I am constantly being disrupted by involuntary ones.

Also I've found that I am always doing some kind of continuous motion voluntarily, either slowly shaking my leg or nodding my head or something to that effect. It's so much nicer to be disrupted by a tic while I'm moving a bit than from a dead standstill. Also, if I have some sort of internal rhythm or tempo going on, the timing of the tics are slightly more predictable. This constant movement may give the illusion that I am being particularly ADD (which might also play a part) or bored, when the fact is that I'm just trying to make things easier for myself.

I've known for a long time that I'm not gonna win any staring contests any time soon. Wait around a few seconds and I'll have some tic that either makes me throw my eyes away or close them altogether. It slowly donned on me some time ago that I can't keep eye contact with anybody for very long. Whenever I'm looking somebody in the eye (I've experimented) and I have a tic, by the time I get back to where they are their eyes have left and are somewhere else. This is predictable, but still slightly distressing all the same.

In my Chem 102 class last semester, I used to sit in the front row of the class. I had introduced myself to the professor previously, and he would make eye contact with me often during his lecture. Sometimes he would look at me for a few seconds, sometimes more. I started doing secret tests to see what caused him to look away. Sometimes I would wait as long as I could before twitching, and he would hold eye contact for ten to fifteen seconds. The times I would fake a twitch almost as soon as he looked at me, and he would look away immediately.

This has nothing to do with him as an individual, it just goes to show how much my tics affect normal life. Eye contact is a very important thing, especially in close conversations, yet I physically can't keep it for very long. Times that I have been able to hold it for what I normally think of as a normal, reasonable amount of time for eye contact, I've felt uncomfortable. I wish I could keep eye contact, because I think that's very important when you're trying to discuss something important.

Lastly, I tend to point things out about other people perhaps more often than I should. I'm not sure if I see them more, or if I just say them. For example, I'll point somebody out to a friend and say "look at how that person is walking, kind of pigeon toed," or even "that person has a big face." Now obviously this is not anything I would tell anybody directly (and would only say to close friends like Charlene), just an observation about somebody else's body that happened to catch my eye and interest me. I am totally aware that physical characteristics have no indication about a person's character, and I'm sure there's probably a very logical explanation in many cases. Charlene and others have told me not to point such things out before, and have said "look at that kid twitching," as if to give me perspective. But the fact is, people do say "look at that kid twitching," and I am fully aware of that. I am also comfortable enough with myself to know that I am more than a twitch and that if I were to get to know those people, they would learn to accept me based on my personality and not my Tourette's. People that would judge based on my TS, well, I don't want to be their friend anyway. That is why I feel comfortable saying "that person has a very thin nose" and know that I am not judging that person. But, other people do not have that same comfort so I ought to be more careful.

That's it for now. It's interesting to see how a disorder can cause indirect effects on a person psychologically. I wish I could see myself from a third-person point of view to get a better view of these things.... oh well!