Tourette’s Isn’t an Excuse: Being Good Isn’t Enough

Tourette’s isn’t an excuse. Being good isn’t enough. Today a phrase came back to me, something I used to hear all the time: “Have you been good?” I don’t even know why it stuck with me, maybe because it was everywhere — at catechism, when I was a kid, pretty much in every environment. And today I asked myself something simple: is being good really enough?

Because when I look at my life, it doesn’t seem that way at all.

As a child, I was the “different” one. The word Tourette wasn’t used the way it is today. There were no clear diagnoses, no labels, no explanations. There was just you. And if you were strange, you were strange. I was the “special” one, and I always hated that word. I never wanted to be special. I wanted to be normal. Instead, I wasn’t invited to parties, I stayed on the margins, always the one who was “a bit off”. The strange thing is that, without a diagnosis, you were in some ways freer. No label, no protection, but no excuse either.

Tourette’s Isn’t an Excuse When Anger Stays Inside

Today it works differently. You have a diagnosis and it almost feels like protection. But then you step into the real world and you realise something very simple: people don’t care.

And that’s when that phrase comes back: “Have you been good?”

We are taught to be. To stay calm, not to get angry, to behave. But anger doesn’t disappear. It stays inside, it builds, it keeps spinning in your head, and sometimes you don’t even know how to let it out. It happens to me. I can hold things in for days, then something small happens and everything explodes. And no one really teaches you how to deal with it. They tell you “stay calm”, “don’t think about it”, but it doesn’t work like that.

Then there are the people around you. They care about you, I know. But sometimes they seem more uncomfortable than you are. They say “I know how you feel”, and you feel like snapping. Because they don’t. Some things you only understand if you live them. That constant thought in your head, every single day. That tension that never really goes away. You learn that on your own.

Understanding Yourself Matters More

Over time you realise something: being good is not enough. You can be the most polite person in the world and still not be invited, not be understood, not be chosen.

I can count my real friends on one hand. Maybe less. Not because I wasn’t good, but because life doesn’t work like that.

At some point you have to stop waiting for others to understand you and start understanding yourself. You have to find your own balance. No one teaches you that — not school, not medication, not other people. Life teaches you, if you’re willing to listen.

You can use Tourette as an excuse. It’s easy. Or you can say: alright, I have it. Now what?

That’s where everything changes. You stop justifying yourself and you start living. Not perfectly, not always calmly, but honestly.

And in the end, that’s what matters.