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Trimoxie
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04 Dec 2010, 10:44 pm

Ever since I was a child I've had tourettes that includes things like vocal tics, staring, shaking head, blinking eyes, tightening muscles, touching things etc..
My vocal tics are currently the worse one out of them all. I've to constantly swear, including people I care deeply for. The worse one out of all my vocal tic is cursing my grandfather who has passed away (a very long time ago). Basically because I try to "control" this particular tic, the urge becomes more and more. For many months now I've tried to do everything to surpress it.

The reason I made this thread is because I've got a question for people with OCD - Tourettes or anything else that's similiar. It's very hard to explain but if you could, please try to figure out what I am trying to say.
To give a very simple explanation: when you force yourself to become angry everytime you laugh, then after a while this becomes automatic. You can replace angry with almost anything, such as a certain thought, concentration, dullness, tic and so on.

Anyway so I tried to do this with my vocal tic. I've tried to replace it with almost anything. I've done it obsessively for a long period of time. I started to make myself be conscious 24/7 and be in full control. Then I've decided to put a thought between the urge and every action i take (it's just mili seconds apart). So like if a bus explodes, I don't jump up, I first think about what I'm going to do, then do it.
Anyway so one thing I've been trying to do is force myself to become dull, force myself to think about nothing. So whenever the tic came, I would instantly get dull and still try to surpress the tic (cause it didn't go away). This caused a lot of frustration. After repeating this, the frustration and anger became another automatic part of it. Anyway, a year later, to this day, there are hundreds of all kinds of emotions, thoughts, controlling behaviour going on whenever I get a vocal tic.

I'm having extreme sharp pains for the past 3 months. In the past 4 weeks, the pain has increased to the point that it's unbearable. Headaches all day long, the veins are bouncing and it's like the "stream of whatever go's on in the brain" can't get through. It's like it's all bottling up and sometimes this sound appears that could best be described as "ghh khkhh khh" and the entire brain becomes numb (dunno if this is the right word, but as if your brains freeze literary). Also the last 5 days my brain feels like it's literary being pushed apart by 2 magnets. Like the left and the right brain are being pushed apart, but seriously like the force of a magnet.

That's the best I can describe it, the pain is unbearable and I'm actually very well capable to handle pain so I'm really not exxegerating here.
RANT: I can't even do my own hobbies anymore cause the entire time I'm controlling these tics and within less than a minute my head becomes filled with so much information and it all bottles up with the rest of it.... then the pain GETS WORSEEEEEEEEEE. I don't care about the pain, I care for all those brain cells (R.I.P.) I lost in the process. If a standard adrenaline can kill brain cells, well this is 100x worse than that, frustration AND dullnesss + 100's more all with excessive force. I literary feel those brain cells dying.. How the F can I stop thisss, vocal tics vocal tics...... I need those brain cells BACK. I need them!



Adamantus
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05 Dec 2010, 5:17 pm

I understand your problem to some extent. I had a time when I supressed my thoughts and it was the worst time of my life. I read about spirituality and enlightenment and got it mixed up and believed that thinking was wrong, so I supressed my thoughts in order to try and get happy. This is my only real experience with supressing things, and it really doesn't work. Sometimes when you're unhappy you experiment with different things in order to get happy, in all my experimenting I just think I made myself weird and people would treat me worse than they already did. Please don't supress your thoughts, it'll only make you worse in some way.

And my usual broken record treatment, try EFT, it'll change your life for the better.

P.s. I'm not sure if I understand tourettes properly. Is it like, you think of something you know is inappropriate, you're affraid it'll come out in words so you avoid it any way you can? I've been thinking about this for a while actually.



Trimoxie
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05 Dec 2010, 7:21 pm

Adamantus wrote:
I understand your problem to some extent. I had a time when I supressed my thoughts and it was the worst time of my life. I read about spirituality and enlightenment and got it mixed up and believed that thinking was wrong, so I supressed my thoughts in order to try and get happy. This is my only real experience with supressing things, and it really doesn't work. Sometimes when you're unhappy you experiment with different things in order to get happy, in all my experimenting I just think I made myself weird and people would treat me worse than they already did. Please don't supress your thoughts, it'll only make you worse in some way.

And my usual broken record treatment, try EFT, it'll change your life for the better.

P.s. I'm not sure if I understand tourettes properly. Is it like, you think of something you know is inappropriate, you're affraid it'll come out in words so you avoid it any way you can? I've been thinking about this for a while actually.


Thank you for your reply, I will look into EFT (not sure though if it works, but at this point I'm willing to try out anything).

As for tourettes, vocal tics are actually only present in 15% of people who suffer from tourettes,
It's an uncontrolable tic that makes you say inappropriate things. The word itself isn't something you're born with, it's the tic and it's connected with what you think is the most unappropriate thing to say at any given moment. We know it's unappropriate and we try to surpress it, but it only makes it worse, the urge is so severe that stopping it will cause mental and physical symptoms. It's often an automatically repeating of the words or sentences, like a sneeze. Also the urge is not to be compared with if you're mad at someone and feel like to swear. The thoughts that come in our head isn't something to do with opinion. And it's not something we can stop.



Jellybean
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07 Dec 2010, 5:31 am

Quote:
As for tourettes, vocal tics are actually only present in 15% of people who suffer from tourettes,
It's an uncontrolable tic that makes you say inappropriate things


A slight correction: Vocal tics are present in 100% of people who suffer from Tourettes. Coprolalia, the uncontrollable swearing, is only present in 15% of people, me being one of them. Saying inappropriate things that aren't swearing (commenting on someone's weight, shouting 'baldy' at a bald guy etc.) are NOSI (non obscene socially inappropriate behaviours). If you're interested in learning more, here's the UK Tourettes page (although you might want to check the US/Australian ones too because the UK one is still pretty small):

http://www.tourettes-action.org.uk/abou ... -syndrome/

As for supressing your tics, its really not good for you at all. Ok, I totally understand how frustrating and embarassing it is to shout rude things, do strange movements and actions. I know what it's like to be stared at, commented about etc. It sucks, I will admit that. But is it really worth making your health worse to please others? Supressing my tics led to severe rage attacks (uncontrollable anger outbursts) and gave me gut problems from the stress (among other things). Since I have stopped supressing my tics, I have felt a lot healthier. I admit though, it does take a very strong person to do this and I am not that strong. I have had many a break down in the supermarket (where my TS goes into OVERDRIVE) because of people STARING at me. Yesterday I hid under a trolley for five minutes to calm down... not great but hey, I was suffering! Do you see a professional in Tourettes? I am currently going through the extraordinarily long process of trying to see one, but I have heard that it is really worth the wait.


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Trimoxie
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07 Dec 2010, 6:35 am

Jellybean wrote:
Quote:
As for supressing your tics, its really not good for you at all. Ok, I totally understand how frustrating and embarassing it is to shout rude things, do strange movements and actions. I know what it's like to be stared at, commented about etc. It sucks, I will admit that. But is it really worth making your health worse to please others? Supressing my tics led to severe rage attacks (uncontrollable anger outbursts) and gave me gut problems from the stress (among other things). Since I have stopped supressing my tics, I have felt a lot healthier. I admit though, it does take a very strong person to do this and I am not that strong. I have had many a break down in the supermarket (where my TS goes into OVERDRIVE) because of people STARING at me. Yesterday I hid under a trolley for five minutes to calm down... not great but hey, I was suffering! Do you see a professional in Tourettes? I am currently going through the extraordinarily long process of trying to see one, but I have heard that it is really worth the wait.


I know its very bad for my health, it ruins the one thing I don't want to be ruined, which is intelligence. I don't surpress them to not be laughed at or be embarassed, I don't care about that. I just didn't want to hurt the feelings of my mom and I really think it will. Just until recently (3-4 days) did I decide to stop suppressing them. My brain muscles are very tense, cause of trying to control it (it's to tense the neurons are all held together and it leaves this electro shock everytime). Everytime I do the tics, my whole mind opens up, the feeling is so great. I still have to control a lot of the tics though when it's night cause I'm more hearable, or whenever I go grab some food and see my mom, which is still escalating the frustration.

I'm currently seeing a psychiatrist, but when i explain all this to him, he says it's not tourettes, cause I'm "controlling" it. He doesn't understand what I mean with controlling, I tried to tell him that it's not something done that easy. I'm literary destroying myself everytime I suppress one. My whole brain is a total mess, every time I control it, it just gives this massive deep pain/shock plus an everlasting pain. I'm sick of it! That's why I stopped controlling it, but still it's the entire day long, almost every second. I think if I didn't suppress it for this long, it would be much less. The frustration is so big, my head is hot 24/7 and the veins on my head feel like they are about to snap.

He has given me a drug by the name clomipramine. I am going to take it as of today. It's for OCD, which I have, but I seriously doubt this is the OCD. The head shaking, blinking, vocal tics, staring tics. These are more likely tourettes. It's like a tic, it's not something I think about and decide to do. But like I've supressed and controlled it so intense for so long that it's always automatically controlling it when the tic comes. I am sick of so many days passing where I go to the psychiater and try to explain and say it's urgent but just go home with nothing but another day of hell and brain cell massacres. I also see no other way to fix this, so I have to try this drug so atleast my mind calms down, which I hope it does. I hate everything that has happened.



Adamantus
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07 Dec 2010, 1:58 pm

Trimoxie wrote:
Thank you for your reply, I will look into EFT (not sure though if it works, but at this point I'm willing to try out anything)...


Everyone is sceptical at first with it. Good luck.



Trimoxie
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10 Dec 2010, 9:10 pm

Alright, I took it for 3 days but decided to quit. It felt exactly like those other medications. The way that my mind becomes blank. Just careless. Depressed, dizzy, dull, tired. Even if some symptoms go, the entire purpose of the medication is to change me, that's not what I want.



John_Browning
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11 Dec 2010, 2:00 am

I can temporarily hold off vocal tics when I'm around people, and I've learned to swear under my breath when others might be close enough to hear. Being focused on something helps to control it too.


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11 Dec 2010, 2:58 pm

Conscientiously suppress the tics for short bursts only. Longer term, it can lead to severe emotional turmoil (panic, rage.) Only do so for between 5 to 1 hour if you can manage it. Otherwise loosen up and let them roll by.


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Trimoxie
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11 Dec 2010, 3:28 pm

Xelebes wrote:
Conscientiously suppress the tics for short bursts only. Longer term, it can lead to severe emotional turmoil (panic, rage.) Only do so for between 5 to 1 hour if you can manage it. Otherwise loosen up and let them roll by.


Yes, exactly. Today my parents went away and I stopped suppressing it, I felt SO good and powerful, focussed, intelligent and the list go's on. But it's extremely rare that both of them leave the house, so I usually end up suppressing it for weeks or months. That's why it's so extremely hard for me.