Step, step, step, torque. I twist my torso, a jerking motion, hoping for a violent stretch. Looking for a pop. A release, like a knuckle crack, like that crunching sound my son Eli makes with his neck when he drops his head to the side.
I torque the bottom of my ribs on the left, not quite my side, not quite my back. A popular place for a tattoo these days. I’m barely off my driveway, walking to work. This is where the school kids gather for the bus. They won’t show up for twenty more minutes. I’m thankful for the solitude, the privacy, as if the middle of the street is private. Step, step, torque.
Houses line the street. Split levels and ranches. Older houses, my age anyway, from the sixties. Most underwent renovations at some point. Do breakfast nooks hide behind these windows? I feel their eyes on me. Retirees, they monitor the street. They look for patterns. They look for anything unusual.
Step, step, step, torque. I haven’t done it right yet. I haven’t felt that pop. I never feel that pop.
Who’s watching me? What do they think? Step, step, torque.
It started in middle school. I did it when I thought I was alone. Late for class one day, an empty hallway, I slammed my locker, torque, torque. An older boy stood up the hall. I didn’t see him until too late. He mimicked my motion. He torqued. He said “God, you’re so gay.” In 1973 that’s how you insulted people. That’s what you called anyone different. My face heated, my vision tunneled. As he passed, he torqued again.
Decades later, Mike Wall, my coworker, approached from the end of the hall. I torqued. He torqued back. “Hey Mike, uncool. We don’t do that anymore. We don’t make fun of other’s idiosyncrasies.” He gave a good-natured laugh. He didn’t apologize.
A half a block into my commute, my need to torque fades. I crush my eyes together, an extended blink, as hard as I can. I open my eyes. My blurred vision slowly returns to focus. I crush my eyes again.
~
At a conference table in Baltimore, the three of us present our case to a potential client. Partners, that’s the name of our company. Morgan and I are partners. Ryan is an employee. The three of us share one side of the table. Six people, the leadership team from Lutheran World Relief sit on the other. They’re here to evaluate our services. They will hire us if we sell it well. I crush my eyes together. I strain them up and to the right, showing only the whites of my eyes. I crush them shut again. And again. I open them wide and roll my eyeballs around the sockets. I jag them left then right then right again.
This hasn’t happened before. Not like this. I can’t stop, twenty minutes, thirty. I sit straight, chin high, defiant. Confident on the outside, curled fetal in my mind. My brain fills with embarrassment. There’s no room for anything else. I can’t formulate my thoughts. I’m conscious of the time remaining, the points that still need to be made.
Morgan and Ryan can’t see my eyes. Oblivious, but they read the restlessness in the room. I’m sure they wonder why I’m not adding anything useful to the presentation. I haven’t said a word. This realization heightens my anxiety, and my eyes spasm worse than before. The LWR employees do their best to ignore me. They look everywhere but at my eyes. I understand their politeness, but I want them to confront me. I want them to say “Why the fuck are you doing that? What’s your problem?”
~
Once again, I’ve stumbled on a WordPress blogpost using Tourette Syndrome as a punchline. This time it was a comic strip. It wasn’t necessarily mean spirited, but it furthers the notion that Tourette Syndrome is funny, something to joke about.
Of course, I commented. I even got a reply:
Later (OK, immediately) I began to second guess my response. I start and end the comment with snark. Often, it’s satisfying to do that, but is it ever helpful? Maybe I could have said it without the sarcasm:
“People with Tourette Syndrome make unwanted and uncontrollable movements and sounds. Many are unemployed, underemployed or friendless as a result. Please don’t make a joke out of it.”
In this case, ArKay didn’t lash out, which is what usually happens when I blast someone with a snarky comment. He seemed to accept my argument. But he didn’t delete the comic. Maybe he’ll drop Tourette from his humor repertoire in the future, but not this time. He already put in the work.
I’m sick of this exchange. It happens two or three times a year if I also include discussions about OCD—a common co-occurring malady with Tourette. For some reason, these two disorders, my disorders make people laugh. I can’t think of any other medical condition that people feel comfortable joking about. Reread that part about me tanking our corporate job interview. Nothing funny about that.
Tourette Syndrome awareness month is approaching (May 15 – June 15). Last year, I pulled out the stops locally. I lit the façade of our library teal for the month, and I included a Tourette fact sheet in the library’s weekly newsletter and at the circulation desks. This year, I’d like to go bigger. I’d like to go global. Please consider sharing this post on social media. I’d like to hit one hundred shares by June 15.
Thank you – Jeff
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Previously Published on jefftcann.com and is republished on Medium.
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Photo credit: iStock