Trying to explain all of it's side effects.

The hardest thing I find about living wtih Tourette Syndrome (TS) is not actually the tics, the involuntary body part movements, but trying to explain all the side effects and conditions that come with having Tourette Syndrome. Ok, most of us have OCD, and Anxiety or depression. ADHD is also in about 60% of us who have TS, I'm likely to have never been diagnose with ADHD.

I have other conditions that I contribute to TS, like hair pulling and the need to feel the pain over and over again from a sore. Impulsiveness is another condition that I have and have to guard it closely or else I will shoot my mouth off and tell people what I actuallty think in the most improper moment.

For a long time, if I had something to say to someone, I would basically slow down or even stop what I was doing till I released that urge. It would not be released till I talked or wrote out my ideas to that person. It's one of the reason I am so guard with whom I'm friends with or have attraction too. Currently I am on medicine that helps me control my impulsiveness.

It has made me unique in the fact that I take the initative with my work and projects, trying to do the best that I can and also do a complete job and not some half ass job. I enjoy figuring things out and determine how they can be beneficial to whom I am working for.

Another condition that I have is not really TS related but recovering is. I have what you could call an allergy to tomatoes and other acidity types of foods, that couse my stomach to revolt. This effects all the parts of my body that is connected to my stomach, like my tongue. A very bad case of heartburn, but upped to the ninth degree. This also effets my tongue by making it very sensitive to the touch and develops sores along the edge from my rubbing it against my teeth.

Now, this is where my TS comes to play. It takes me longer to heal and get over the heartburn, because my tongue is still on firer. It takes about a week for me to stop sucking and touching my tongue against anything. I persopnally think its my need to feel a repeateing pain from the injury. I don't know the offical medical term for conditions like this, but I feel that some people with TS, like to do self harm, because they like to feel the pain.

Another issue that I had was sleep disorder, I had a problem keeping asleep and staying awake during the day. Since college, I would only get about forty-five minutes sleep then I would awake up. I would go back to sleep, sometimes,and wake up again in about forty-five minutes. I was able to sleep on a dime, fall asleep at any time. I did this for years, till one day I went to a new neurologist, he recommended a medicine called risperidone.

Resperidone is heavy duty and I take it will several other medicines to help me control my TS and OCD. I have to say at this point, don't go my what I say, but listen to your neurologist. Just because it works for me to control my TS and sleep habits, doesn't mean it will work for you. I'm no doctor and only been studing TS and all it's side effects because I actually have them.

Whom ever said Tourette Syndrome isn't painful, never had it.

It’s not the individual twitching, but from a series of tics and twitches. You try to hid those tics from others by controlling those burst of energy, it becomes tiring, sore and painful. It’s not just physically painful but mentally tiring from a day of controlling your Tourette’s. So is Tourette’s painful, I say yes.

My repetitive coughing, leads to couching up phlegm and people think you have Covid. My leg, arm, neck twitching make people ask if I’m ok, but try to explain what you got, and they don’t want to hear. Some people will watch you carefully to try and prove that you don’t really have what you say you have.

One traveling partner decided that I didn’t have what I said because, well I was sleeping on the train, I didn’t twitch during my sleep. So he decided that I was me looking for attention and I didn’t have what I said I have.

Some people will just not react that I twitch and act like it doesn’t happen. So because they don’t accept it then their most not have any pain associated with it. But I do have to say that the people I work with are cool about it. As long as I can do my job, then they accept it, as long as it’s not to weird.

I’m don’t have much vocal tics, but I do cough, blowing and puffing my lips, clicking my fingers sometimes. Some times my puffing makes my lips chapped. Which leads me to my tic’s for causing my mouth sores worst. So I dread getting colds, and I think cold meds make my twitching worst.

So far my mental tics havn’t been over blown, I seem with medicine to control those, but if I don’t take my meds, I can become very obsessive with my ideas. Sometimes that not a bad thing.

So what do I do to keep the pain down, take pain killers or keep my head and neck still while I am in my bed. Sometimes, I find a private place and just start twitching.

What does Tourette"s mean to me.

Well, I am reminded each day that I have Tourette’s. Specially when I am alone, driving home from work, or right after I get home from work. It just all comes out, as they say. Neck shakes, arm jerks, leg jerks, the jaw grind. Starts simple and then becomes hard going through a set pattern till my evening medicines kick ins. The rest of the time I’m twitching, but I’m good at hiding it.  I twitch, motor and vocal all the time. I once had an attorney ask me a question about how long does my twitching affects my normal daily routine. I really didn’t have an answer, because I feel my twitch all the time. I’m surprise most people don’t even see it or notice them. I think it’s, if I say nothing, it will go away.
 When I’m working out a problem, or taking pictures, I can forget that I’m doing it. People tell me to reduce the stress in my life. They think I must be overly worried and stressing out over something and that why I have multiple tics. Well, I hate to tell them, stress doesn’t bother me.
 I’ve been working at a stress for job for over thirty-seven years, I’m used to it. Hey when I was five, I must have been stressing life too much, because I was ticking back then. We didn’t know what it was. That was way back in the 6o’s and few people know what Tourette Syndrome actually was.  Tourette’s to me is who I am. It made me pay attention to details, develop an interest into the arts. It made me know I can survive this world by myself, to explore different things, to look for the unique. But it has also held me back from approaching people and try to be close. Because it worried me, they would not accept me. Till this day, I’m great at developing a story, on paper or with images, but try to get me in front of an audience, then I clamp shut.
 What made me overcome this fear was my camera. With a camera, I can do something, like take pictures, I had a purpose there. People would only see the camera and not the tics. I became the lay back guy around the office, mostly to protect me from people that would turn my tics around against me.
 My career as a photographer has its up and down. Some people that I worked with haven’t been on my side, but that’s Ok, they were not my friend. But overall, my agency has been good.

Holding myself back!

I’m not sure if it’s part of my Tourette’s or the OCD, but I sometimes feel I am holding myself back from the career that I want. I have a full-time job where I work in photography and computers, not always the subject that I want to photography, but isn’t that the same with any other job. Could it be that I am sabotaging my career because I don’t want to hear or explain about my twitching to a new group of people?

I know now. More people know what Tourette’s basically is. Then when I was growing up. It hasn’t really stopped me from learning and developing my photography, art or computer skills. But it has made me more shy in some ways. Now, people who know me will say I’m not shy. But I feel shy and unless I really have to go up to new people and make nice. I rather stay home with my dog, then met new people.

I guess I’m worried that my plans won’t turn out how I want, that it will pass me by as I get older. Co-workers are going the extra mile and getting the photography that they want. Even getting noticed by others or at least talked about. Maybe because I play the down low, laid back kind of person, people don’t think I could use some praised or even care.

Yes, I have Tourette Syndrome and I am a photographer

This blog will be about being a photographer and having Tourette Syndrome. I will try to discuss what it is like living with Tourette’s and the choices that I made as a photographer. I hope to connect to my fellow photographers that have Tourette’s and build a community where we can all help each other. I am in the process of setting up a Flickr page to show our work to each other. Where we can comment on each other’s images in a safe environment.

A little about me. At the time of this writing, I am fifty-nine years old, and a professional photographer. Ever since I was given my first camera back when I was only eight years old, I have been hooked on photography. Always into the arts, drawing, watercolor, but after the first camera, I was pulled into photography. I didn’t want to do anything else with my life.

My Tourette’s started at an even earlier age, my family and I did not know exactly what it was, but they new I had a problem. As I grew older, we expected it was Tourette Syndrome, but no doctor would confirm the condition. It wasn’t till I was working in a forensic photography studio a couple of years, did I finally get my confirmation that my repetitive movements and unwanted thoughts and sounds, also called tics, was actually Tourette Syndrome.

My blog will explore what Tourette Syndrome is and how it affected my career and choices as a photographer. I hope to learn from others about this condition as I hope to teach others about my condition.