Gratitude and Learning

Wow. Let me say that I am overcome with gratitude for all of you. I would like to thank you all for your well wishes and support that you expressed on my social media pages and my website submission form. The acceptance you all have shown me is heartening.

We are all here to learn together so I wanted to come on here and address some misunderstandings I think have been going on judging by my comment section. None of this is to make anyone feel bad, it’s just to help educate so that everyone can understand one another better, as well as what this condition actually entails.

To start off with, some people were hoping I get healed from my illness. While I appreciate the sentiment, this isn’t something for me to heal from, it is a way in which I am built. I am not going to get better, but on the other hand, this is not going to shorten my life, as annoying as it is. I can no more heal from having Tourette’s than I can heal from having brown eyes. This is a disorder that interrupts my normal neurological functioning, not me feeling or being unhealthy.

In addition, some people called this neurodegenerative. It’s neurodevelopmental. The difference is that neurodegenerative gets worse over time, and this is not going to get worse over time like something like Alzheimer’s might. It is actually getting somewhat easier as I get better at using Comprehensive Behavioral Intervention for Tics (CBIT).

The final thing I wanted to make clear is that if you see anyone advocating any pseudoscience or alternative treatment in my comment section, I do not endorse these comments. This blog and social media presence speak only to my own experiences with Tourette’s and CBIT, and I am not promoting any treatments of any kind. Comments spreading this type of information will be deleted going forward..

I’ve referenced Comprehensive Behavioral Intervention for Tics (CBIT) in this blog post, and I’ll be going more in depth about this tool/therapy in the future.

Thank you for joining and Facing Tourette’s with me.