Our house was seventies suburban, solid hardwood floors but with drywall so thin I once punched a dent in it during an uninspired attempt to show my dad a bit of emotion. Each morning my father awoke early for work. He started every day with a shower. Everyone else had an extra hour to sleep, but that thin drywall, man, the plumbing with no soundproofing rattled the whole house. I guess what I’m trying to say is sound carried.
My parents entertained often. Usually boozy weekend bridge games while my brothers and I huddled upstairs watching my parent’s black and white TV. Barney Miller, Chico and the Man, shows like that. When primetime ended, we launched directly into Twilight Zone reruns, or better, Saturday Night Live.
One outlier occasion springs to mind: my parents had another couple over to visit one afternoon. Thinking back from my adult perspective, I assume it must have been a business-y sort of get together. Friends, but trying to achieve something specific. My brothers were out. I sat in our family room shrieking.
My father let me take the bowl of pistachio nuts the adults had worked on earlier in their meeting. “How many can I have?” Pistachio nuts were rationed in my house.
“I don’t know, maybe a thousand.” I misheard him. I later learned he said a dozen. We had a good laugh, sort of, about me finishing the bowl. I cracked a nut and popped it in my mouth.
My method of eating nuts hasn’t changed since childhood. I separate the nut into halves with my teeth. I stash one half under my upper lip, out of the way, while I work on the other half with my front teeth. My side-to-side motion reduces the nut to pulp, and then I start in on the other half. After each pistachio, I let loose my shriek—a guttural back-of-the-throat hum that traveled a couple of octaves in a continuous arc to finish off in a high-pitched squeak. Sort of like a slide whistle, but without the musicality.
I only made this sound when I was alone, but I always did it when I was alone. Knowing that my parents entertained in the next room might, I would think, cause me to keep quite—it would today—but I can’t remember that part of my life so well. What I do remember is that at some point during the afternoon, I heard my parent’s male visitor say with some annoyance, “What is that sound?”
My father responded “SHHH, mumble, mumble.” I couldn’t catch what he said. But I know I was interested in it. I had no idea why I shrieked all the time.
Given the sound characteristics of our house, I’m certain everyone in my family heard me shrieking. Once my friend Joel slept over, and we stayed up late into the night, my door closed, whispering about which girls in our class we wanted to get busy with. The next day, my mom told me the whole family heard every word we said.
When I laid in my bed or sat at my desk, shrieking, I felt like I was in a world of my own. In truth, I essentially had a piece of cardboard between my room and my brothers.
I still do this today. I don’t shriek anymore, it’s more of a grunt, or maybe a purr. Possibly the sound of an outboard motor failing to start. This evening, I sat in my family room. Susan went to our bedroom to change clothes for a fitness walk. I forgot our son was home. I grunted absentmindedly over and over as I scrolled Facebook reels. Suddenly, I heard Eli walk into the adjoining room. I have no idea what he heard, or what he thinks when he hears it. In general, we ignore my sounds and movements. I’m self-conscious of them all the time, but there’s no point in discussing them.
I spent today interviewing candidates for the administrative assistant position at my work. This employee sits directly outside my office, about ten feet away from me. After we make a selection and they start, I’ll have the conversation. “I want you to know that I have Tourette Syndrome. You may hear me making weird sounds or see me making strange faces. Sorry to dump this on you. I think it’s easier if I just tell you about it up front.”
Tourette Syndrome Awareness Month runs from May 15 through June 15. During this time, I try to offer a sense of what it’s like to live with Tourette.
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Previously Published on jefftcann.com and is republished on Medium.
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Photo credit: iStock