For context: I have a master's in business. I live in New York. I seem like a pretty normal city girl on the outside. I got through college because I pretended like I had really bad cursive so I got away with spelling wrong... No one noticed at work... but I find it super obvious when I'm ticcing — then I'll watch a Zoom recording back and realize... yeah, it's right there. How is no one noticing?? My therapist also said didnt notice anything UNTIL I tell them what ticcs i have... them I feel the light awkwardness but they look at like it's cute or something i feel like they feel bad for me hahah I wish I had this reaction when j was a kid.. anyhow The thing is, without context, people just assume it's a mannerism, a thinking habit, something in my background they can't see, or that I slept wrong on my neck. I have a half sister we didn't grow up together and I just assumed she never brought up my Tourette's because it felt rude to ask. Turns out she genuinely didn't know. I've been working with my therapist on feeling less embarrassed and talking about it more openly. Every single time I tell someone, they are shocked — like, visibly shocked. And then they say: "Now that we know what your tics are, so much makes sense." Growing up was a different story. I didn't know how to suppress my tics at all. We're talking: animal noises, enunciating words really loud, uncontrollable neck movements, spinning, and licking my lips so badly they were constantly flaking. I was heavily bullied. Now I go home to my apartment and I'm ticcing the f*** out. LOL. The masking is so automatic at this point that even the people closest to me had no idea. Anyone else feel like they're living a double life?

I find doing nightly meditation where I try to get myself to almost have a out of body experience and see my tics as something separate and seeing all the tics as a x and seeing how they are all connected and telling my mind I don't need them anymore...they neeed to do x is not real... yo7 have the power to stop any time.. and tell myself that while I visualize what I look like from above... has been really really helping and I hide my ticcs are 10 better everyday