Things never to say to a person with Tourettes

 Things you should never ever say or do to a person with Tourettes:

• "Can you stop doing that noise?"- wow, I would never have thought to just stop doing my noises, so glad you said that. 😒
• "Why do you do those noises?" unless it's asked by a well-meaning person.
•  Mock or imitate tics. This just frustrates the person with Tourettes and makes them unconfortable. It's just downright rude and it's bad manners. We don't love our tics and you're not funny by imitating or mocking. At all. We don't find it funny if you imitate tics. So it's just a big no.
• Pointing out tics- Some people with Tourettes won't mind. But even if they don't, just don't point them out to anyone with Tourettes. We know what we are doing, it can't be helped and we don't like doing it. It gets irritating. Asking questions is perfectly fine (if they're comfortable with it), many people (me included) don't mind answering them. In fact, we love to educate people, that's why I'm doing this blog. 
• "Why don't you swear?" Only 10% of people with Tourettes swear. It's probably the most commonly known form of Tourettes, it isn't the most common type of Tourettes at all. Tics can be as simple as a clearing of the throat. It doesn't have to be a motion that looks really crazy or an outburst. 
• "It's all in your mind," "You're in control of it," "Just in control it."- It's not at all in our minds. We aren't in control of it. If we were, we would choose to stop it. Tourettes Syndrome is a neurological disorder. Which means it's a real medical illness. Crazy, isn't it? Trying to hold in a tic is like trying not to blink. You can try to keep your eyes open as long as you want but you can't hold it forever. This is what it feels like to tic. We can supress them which then makes us really anxious and it all results in a massive tic attack which is horrible. 

We are trying our hardest every day to not draw attention to ourselves.