EDITOR’S NOTE: Every Tuesday, noted Tourette Syndrome advocate Troye Evers shares his “52 Weeks of TS” blog journal with the TSParentsOnline community. In cased you missed the first 12 weeks, you can read them here. For more information about Troye, please click on his name or visit his website.
Me: I can’t breathe, not sure if I want to scream, or cry. Oh, hello panic attack, nice of you to stop by.
Panic Attack: No problem, I thought I’d stop by and stand on your chest.
Can that sum up my week? Yeah, somewhat. I have a problem saying no, I say yes too much. Sometimes I think I am a super hero, and I’m able to do everything, but I can’t, and I have to face the fact that I need to learn how to say no for my own sanity. I keep on saying yes to different people for different things that I end up giving myself a panic attack.
Why do we find it so hard to say no? It has one less letter than yes, so you think it would be easier. At least I’m not blaming any, or everyone else. I know it’s my own fault, but every time I say yes to something I feel like it’s a whole other planning process. More for my screwed up mind to organize and I get to a point where I feel like my head is going to explode.
I think that’s another one of my problems, organization, it’s one of my OCD’s. No matter how organized something is, it’s not organized enough. I organize everything, time, bills, events, clients, work, books, and food. Oh the list can go on. The problem is that there is no time to rest. That annoying OCD works 24/7, I’m tired and all I want to do is rest, but my mind won’t let me.
This is where the good old chain reaction comes in. The OCD triggers the anxiety, and the anxiety triggers the tics. Round and round the wheel spins. STOP!!! I want to get off this ride. But wait a second, why do I say yes? I say yes because I want to, I want to bring happiness to others however I can.
So yes, I will come out to Brooklyn and do your hair, yes I will design the hair for a show in two weeks, and why not? Sure I can do the TSA national walk, and yes I’m going to continue writing about my life every week, letting you into my life with TS!
If I really look at it, there are definitely things I can stop saying, but why stop saying yes? Yes is a positive word and no is negative. I don’t want to be a negative person. What I really need to stop saying is sorry. I paid close attention to how much I say sorry about my tics, mostly in public, or social setting, but I apologize for my tics all the time. Why do I do this? I’m not sorry!
My brain is telling my body to do these things and I shouldn’t have to apologize, or feel ashamed for it. Do you apologize when you blink, or you every time your heart beats? I didn’t think so. Ok, I think we’re good now. We have a yes for yes and a no for sorry. :-)
Deep down inside, I am well aware of what I’m capable of, I’m not going to commit myself to something I can’t do.
I just need to learn to relax a little bit, and stop stressing about every little thing. It’s all going to work out somehow, whether it’s good or bad, it will work out. However, with my great organization skills, (thanks TS) how could anything I do, not turn out well? Not to toot my own horn, but we do everything we do for a reason, or reasons. I do hair to bring a smile to my client’s face. That smile makes me happy.
I’m writing this to educate people and because I love to write. Recognition of this makes me happy. I was actually recognized as the featured member of the month for the TSA-NYC, which makes me happy. Once again, I’m tooting my own horn.
I’m excited for this up coming week. I finally have my appointment to see a TS specialist at Columbia University. It took three months to get the appointment and now the day has arrived. I’m not sure what to expect, but at least I will be in the hands of someone who knows what they are talking about, and knows what I’m going through.
There has been a great deal of anticipation leading up to this day and I’m excited it is finally here. I haven’t been to a specialist since I was eighteen, which was almost twenty years ago. I really shouldn’t be neglecting my body this way. I do go to my general practitioner on a regular basis, but he is not properly educated to deal with TS.
I’m glad to go to a doctor that can tell me if I am actually taking the proper medication, but nervous about the cocktail of medication we might experiment with. I have heard a lot of nightmare stories about different TS medications out there and I’m not sure if there are more pros than cons with experimenting with the different medications. I guess we will see.
I wanted to end this week with something funny that happened to me this week. One morning I was on the train on my way to work. When we got to 59th street, six women got on the subway. They were obviously tourists, it was just written all over them. I sat there trying to suppress my tics and then I saw it. I realized all six of the women had these really nice Lysol gift bags.
I spent the rest of the ride trying to peek at what it was filled with. It was all Lysol cleaning supplies. I have never wanted to mug someone in my life, but I wanted to mug these women for their cleaning supplies. I just kept thinking they must have just gone to some talk show or something. Which one could it have been, and how come I wasn’t invited? Lol. Imagine if I did mug them for their cleaning supplies? It could only happen in NYC. (I would never do that.)
Well, until next week, remember, we do everything for a reason, and we would never say yes to something we could not handle. This week I’m going to make sure I take some well deserved me time.
Until next week, “I’ll tic to you later.”
