Hi Everyone!
Turns out summer has negatively affected how much I write. I have been trying to clear out room on my schedule to write.
I recently watched a show called True Life: Embarassing Medical Conditions. Tourette Syndrome was one of the two conditions featured on the show. The girl, Allyssa, was quite an inspiration. She has tics that are more life threatening than mine, including holding her breath, fainting, and choking herself. She takes life a day at a time, and she is quite an inspiration to me. She seemed completely fine with herself and her disorder. She was happy to have her friends laugh at her. I'm not sure why she enjoyed this, but she liked to make a joke of it. Sometimes, I enjoy a few lighthearted jokes with my very close friends, but not all the time. This girl can drive even with her fainting tic! I thought this was amazing.
I always think that I will surely get in a car crash if I get behind a steering wheel. With my rapid and intense blinking tic, I don't think I will ever be able to safely drive. I don't want to risk my life and the lives of the people on the road and in my vehicle. So, for now I stick to not driving. I could have taken Driver's Ed in March, but I decided against it.
Allyssa made me think that maybe I can drive, since her tics are more severe than mine and she drives quite easily. She says she just concentrates really hard on driving. I feel like I would have to have music playing in order to occupy my Tourette's part of the brain. Tourette's is the lack of production of a sufficient amount of dopamine and music increases dopamine, so I guess that is one of the reasons music helps. I always have to listen to music in order to do my homework each night.
If Allyssa ever happens to read this (small chance), I would like to thank her bunches for helping me believe in myself. If you have Tourettes, join in the community, look up our videos, and read our blogs. It's good to know you're not alone.
Lots of love!
Emma<3
You're the best, Emma. Such incredible, purposeful writing. We're going to post this on the Teens4TS blog tomorrow, as usual. We'll tweet it to you!
ReplyDeleteShe sounds really inspirational! I'm sure you'll be able to drive. You definitely are strong enough<3
ReplyDeleteAnd in case you don't know who I am and I seem like a stalker (XD), it's me, Naomi, from AGW and Twitter! XD
I can understand your concerns, but give driving a try. I don't have my eye-rolling tic any more (thank goodness!) but I have others that would appear to interfere with driving. In practice they don't, though.
ReplyDeleteIf in doubt, try it in a large parking lot (devoid of cars, of course!). See how it goes, and go from there.
Do believe in yourself.