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HeroOfHyrule
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03 Apr 2021, 12:09 pm

If you have OCD or an actual tic disorder, what kind of tics do you have and how much do they affect you? I'm mainly curious because I don't see people talk about tics often on here.

I have some motor and vocal tics that occurred relatively often when I was younger, but now they mainly are present when I have anxiety and get worse with the more anxiety I have.

The most recurrent motor tics that I have right now are this hard-blinking/face scrunching tic and this one where I shrug/scrunch up my shoulders. Lately I've been doing them at the same time.

The main vocal tic I have is this higher pitched "reow" cat noise that slips out sometimes and is embarrassing. I have also recently developed an issue with involuntarily slipping out the F word really loud which is even more embarrassing, but admittedly funny sometimes.



Earthbound_Alien
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04 Apr 2021, 7:00 am

I have had tics since i was less than 3 years old...

As a young child I would twitch my nose, the other children and adults would tell me off as they thought I was pulling faces at the other children, I was not but they would not believe me . They seemed paranoid to me...ya know keep accussing me of things I was not doing. Every seems to think i am monster when I am sweet inside.

If try to express the sweet that is wrong too. I can do nothing right for them. I gave up

As an adult I have more control over it but i still get them although these days its a need to grunt or clear my throat. when out i hide it behind a cough.

I assume it is mild tourettes.



HeroOfHyrule
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06 Apr 2021, 11:21 am

Earthbound_Alien wrote:
I have had tics since i was less than 3 years old...

As a young child I would twitch my nose, the other children and adults would tell me off as they thought I was pulling faces at the other children, I was not but they would not believe me . They seemed paranoid to me...ya know keep accussing me of things I was not doing. Every seems to think i am monster when I am sweet inside.

If try to express the sweet that is wrong too. I can do nothing right for them. I gave up

As an adult I have more control over it but i still get them although these days its a need to grunt or clear my throat. when out i hide it behind a cough.

I assume it is mild tourettes.

I don't know when my tics started, but I was doing the shoulder shrugging thing and some grunting-type noises by the 3rd or 4th grade.

I'm surprised that no one really pointed out my tics. I was a target to adults and other children, so it's always weird to me that no one made fun of me. Not that I'm complaining about it, I'm glad they didn't... lol

I think going on Strattera made some aspects of my apparent OCD, like tics, a bit better, but also made other aspects worse. I don't tic nearly as much as I used to, but it has become more frequent lately.



ImeldaJace
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08 Apr 2021, 4:53 pm

WARNING: I'm going to be talking about some rare and serious/dangerous tics. If you have Tourette's and know that you are likely to pick up tics from other people or by reading about them, I'd suggest skipping my post.

I developed full blown Tourette's more or less suddenly when I was 21. It turned out that I had some very mild tics that developed in my teenage years but it wasn't full blown Tourette's. My Tourette's is constantly evolving and I've had so many different tics over the years that it would take forever to list them all and I know I'd miss some. Some of my tics accur only once or twice and others repeat for awhile and then go away and some go away and then randomly come back again.

Currently I mostly have vocal tics which are usually ma, ba, da, hello, and hi mom. My motor tics are currently an occasional head jerk, snapping my fingers, jerking my arm, and twitching my legs.

In the past I've had a lot of different complex vocal tics including echolalia, lexilalia (saying aloud what I read or naming the objects I see). I also sometimes would translate something I heard or read in Spanish into English and vice versa. I also can stutter. I can also whistle better when I'm ticking than I can when I'm actually trying to whistle. I also have some phrases that occasionally pop out like "tick tock Tourette's," "shut up," "Polly want a cracker," and "bless you! bless you! bless you!..." when someone sneezes. I've also had vocal tics that are so loud and or high pitched that I've sent myself into sensory overload.

And then there are my motor tics. Some of the more severe ones are falling to the ground, writhing around on the floor, or having full body twitching and jerking. My most painful ones are when I slam my hands on the wall or a table so hard my hands go numb or onto my head so hard that my ears ring. My head can twist and jerk repeatedly which can really hurt. I sometimes flop over to the side and get stuck there for a few seconds or longer. I once went through a really bad few week long episode that started with constant head jerking from the moment I woke up in the morning to when I went to sleep at night and it made it very difficult to walk. This then morphed into leg jerks and my legs partially giving out on me with each step. That leg one comes back occasionally under great stress or excitement. Like when I got high fives from some of the cast of my favorite TV show I promptly lost my ability to use my right leg. I also have facial tics that make me have weird facial expressions at times.

I also have tics that involve lack of movement or action. I might be unable to talk. I might me unable to move most or all of my body. It can last for a few seconds to several minutes. This has happened when I've been face down in a pool more than once. I have also had a couple of long episodes when I've been unable to swallow and saliva built up in my mouth and started to flow down the back of my throat. Thankfully my gag reflex kicked in and so I didn't choke.

A strange thing is if someone touches me firmly I will often snap out of episodes of respective tics or a paralysis tic, which is very helpful.

Thankfully my tics are pretty mild at the moment. I have had a slight increase in frequency lately but that's because it's spring and an increase in spring is common for some reason for people who have Tourette's. But there have been times when I've had multiple severe tics or episodes on a daily basis along with frequent vocal tics. I've missed school and work and have been unable to drive at times because of my tics and can require physical assistance from others or need to use a cane to walk. But the severity comes and goes.


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IrreversibleMistakes
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09 Apr 2021, 12:03 pm

I'm having vocal tics and maybe they were triggered by too much of drinking.

My neighbors must thing I'm weird. Whenever I get embarrassing memories, I will shout "kill me" (this comes instinctively) and sometimes even echolalious tics.



HeroOfHyrule
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14 Apr 2021, 2:28 pm

ImeldaJace wrote:
Thankfully my tics are pretty mild at the moment. I have had a slight increase in frequency lately but that's because it's spring and an increase in spring is common for some reason for people who have Tourette's. But there have been times when I've had multiple severe tics or episodes on a daily basis along with frequent vocal tics. I've missed school and work and have been unable to drive at times because of my tics and can require physical assistance from others or need to use a cane to walk. But the severity comes and goes.

Is an increase in spring common? I've noticed my tics get worse around spring/summer. That's very odd, but also very interesting.

My tics thankfully don't interfere with my functioning much, but the fact I can't really control/resist them has always been distressing.



HeroOfHyrule
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14 Apr 2021, 2:32 pm

IrreversibleMistakes wrote:
I'm having vocal tics and maybe they were triggered by too much of drinking.

My neighbors must thing I'm weird. Whenever I get embarrassing memories, I will shout "kill me" (this comes instinctively) and sometimes even echolalious tics.

I've noticed that when I drink, plus the day after I've drank, that my tics get worse.

When I get embarrassed I involuntarily make this higher pitched, but thankfully not very loud noise. It's not a normal expression of emotion since I can't control it at all, and it happens every time. It is very annoying. I think that happens because being embarrassed gives me an intense surge of anxiety.