Tourette’s wasn’t the problem: the problem was the people around me
Growing up with Tourette’s means realizing very early on that the outside world is afraid of what it can’t control. Tics, in and of themselves, are movements or sounds the body makes to release internal tension. For those who experience them, they are a physical trait one learns to live with on a daily basis. The real obstacle—the one that cuts the deepest— is almost always the way people react to those movements.
The suffering that doesn’t stem from the tic itself comes from the echo that tic creates in the room. It comes from the whispers, the stifled laughter, and the judgments voiced by those who claim to be polite. It takes years to understand that Tourette’s is merely a neurological condition, while others’ lack of understanding is a cultural limitation. Retracing these steps is essential to shift the burden of responsibility back onto those who failed to look beyond the symptom.
“Stop doing that”: the phrase every person with Tourette’s knows
This phrase is repeated endlessly by parents, teachers, or passersby who think it’s a bad habit. From a scientific standpoint, asking a person with Tourette’s to stop a tic is the biological equivalent of asking an asthmatic not to cough. This command generates an immediate surge of anxiety that accelerates dopamine production in the motor circuits. The result is inevitable: the more you’re told to stop, the more the nervous system overheats and the urge to act becomes more urgent.
When even adults made the tics worse
Many adults, who should have been there to protect and understand, instead became the main amplifiers of the syndrome. Punishments, scoldings, or disapproving glances from authority figures create deep relational trauma. The child perceives that their own body is a source of disappointment for the people they love. This chronic emotional stress wears down the prefrontal cortex, further weakening its natural ability to filter and manage impulses.
The Burden of Always Feeling Watched
Feeling constantly under a magnifying glass activates the amygdala, the brain center that manages fear and alarm. Living with the certainty of being watched transforms every public space into a potential battlefield. This hyper-vigilance prevents the autonomic nervous system from entering rest mode, keeping the muscles in a state of perpetual tension. The invisible pressure of others’ eyes consumes more energy than it takes to perform a hundred consecutive tics.
True friends and those who vanished immediately
Tourette’s acts as a ruthless but highly effective filter on social relationships. There are people who walk away at the first strange sound, unable to handle the public embarrassment of difference. Others, however, develop a selective blindness toward the tics, focusing solely on the person behind the symptom. Finding friends capable of normalizing the situation eliminates social anxiety and, consequently, biologically reduces the frequency of motor outbursts.
Realizing, years later, that you weren’t the one who was wrong
The real therapeutic and psychological breakthrough occurs when you stop apologizing for the simple fact of existing. Recognizing, as an adult, that the blame for isolation lay with others’ ignorance and not with your own biology heals the traumas of the past. The brain finally learns to relax when it stops seeing itself as “defective” or broken. Tourette’s is just a different way of processing the mind’s electrical energy; the real problem has always been the lack of empathetic filters in those around you.
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