Eric Bishop's Webpage

With Tourette Syndrome there is a subject-object relationship between yourself and your tics. You, with Tourette Syndrome, are the nail, and your tics are the hammer. For me, it’s like driving a car while someone in the seat behind you lightly kicks the back of your seat every few seconds. I imagine being around me in public is more like sitting in the passenger seat of that same car; having to listen to the sound of the driver seat constantly getting kicked by an invisible passenger in the back. Clearly no one in this situation is getting more pissed off than the driver, but that person in passenger seat occasionally asks me to stop anyways.

I don’t heavily identify with the involuntary functions of my brain & body. I’m not the one performing my tics, I’m not the “doer” in this situation. These are just some unique, involuntary functions of my brain. I observe them like another person sitting next to me would. So when someone is annoyed by my tics, they sometimes think that they are suffering by being around me, without realizing I have to be around myself all the time.

We’re all at odds not to begin contributing good and bad to the things out of our control. While I do get frustrated with my Tourette’s (and boy do I get frustrated), I can’t curse it in the same way I can’t curse the sun going up and down everyday. You can’t yell at the waves to stop crashing on the beach: insanity.

Whether or not you have some sort of neurological disorder is just another unique aspect of your circumstances. Hardly are you limited in your ability to live a fulfilling life. It’s a cross to bear, and for me it is a manageable one.

Tourette’s is a great reminder of how we are all perfectly unique and a subject of the external struggles we have no control over. You cannot judge people from a place of ignorance when you’re unaware of what sort of individual burden they carry. Tourette’s happened to my buddy Eric.