Tourettes – The Funny Side
A Tourette’s sufferer launches blog to explore the funny side of her tics.
Jessica Thom was diagnosed with Tourette’s Syndrome in 2006 and is now just one of the 300,000 individuals in the UK who is affected by uncontrollable tics.
Jessica belongs to the 10 per cent of Tourette’s sufferers who involuntarily use’s offensive language. Her tics also frequently include the word ‘biscuit’ and can also involve a complex combination of phrases and sounds.
The syndrome now means that Jessica has to consider many things that most people take for granted. For example her unpredictable and involuntary movements mean that she is unable to use knives, she avoids carrying delicate objects, she wears gloves to stop her biting herself, lids have to be placed on cups to avoid spillages, cinema trips are difficult and she tends to limit the places she goes to where she has been before and people know her.
However, despite her many setbacks Jessica is determined that her condition will not prevent her doing anything she wants to do.
Jessica has now created a new blog – TourettesHero.com (currently under construction) which she hopes will spread awareness of the condition and allow others to share and celebrate the funny side of Tourette’s. The blog surrounds a superhero character ‘Touretteshero’ who speaks her mind in a witty and inspiring way.
“I have said so many funny, strange things and I want to celebrate them. There’s much more to Tourette’s than swearing. Writing and thinking about Tourette’s is good way of giving me the language to explain it to other people,” she says.
Jessica has decided not to use medication to keep her tics under control and instead has tried various techniques such as relaxation and cognitive behavioural therapy instead.
Many individuals who struggle to control their outbursts find that hypnotherapy has been a useful resource. To contact a counsellor dealing with this issue please visit the homepage of this site and use the search tool.