Make the Most of the Bright Days

 Well, I've just hit 21 years old again, and getting over a Tourettes mega phase and all the manic nonsense that accompanies it. 

Hot weather is long behind us, and the leaves are falling from the trees, as well as various acorns, hazelnuts and walnuts - I planted a couple of hazelnuts I found on a pavement on our work campus. I've collected seeds from the library gardens in order to plant them in my planters, and bought some new bulbs to plant whenever I can ever clear out the weed roots from my plant pots. 

I like visiting the park, although cans of shandy have replaced tea as my drink of choice, my body having decided to become wheat and dairy intolerant in my old 21 year old age. Still some nice flowers blooming at the park, and a common carder bumblebee was paying a visit. 

Always the hardiest of our bumbles, it's good to see them still around, and I will miss them during the dead months, as I have done for all these 21 years. 

Si

All text and images copyright CreamCrackeredNature 13.10.25

Glory in the Gardens

 We've had better weather - briefly as it has started raining again - and things have really come to life in the Friary Gardens, where the early showing of aconite and snowdrops has been replaced by glory of the snows. 

It's not a native wildflower, it's a cultivar of squill of some kind I believe, but it grows wildly enough, and the bees seem to love it too. 

I've had some time off, spending it with my sister, finally finding an ideal internment spot for my mum's ashes after so long. The original plan was to scatter her in a favourite spot in her Scottish hometown, but the pandemic got in the way of all that, and we've all decided we'd rather she was close to home so we have a spot to visit on important dates. 

So by a mighty and gnarly old tree, which we felt sure she'd have loved, she will rest. 

With time to walk - and run too! - my Tourette symptoms eased somewhat. Although my increasingly middle aged body often wakes with sciatica and other twinges. Yet I do not feel mentally old, I feel as I did when I was 15 in many ways. 

Long may that continue!

Si

All text and images copyright CreamCrackeredNature 19.03.24

And Now Sunset over Work

During the week I don't have a lot to show you; the workplace isn't exactly brimming with life I can photograph well at the moment, other than a few daisies that have braved the frosts to poke up in the garden area where the blue and great tits munch upon the fatball and seed feeders.

The rabbits are plentiful, but wary; a flash of white tail suddenly erupts from beneath your nose almost, and is gone in an instant. Kestrels in the sunrise look beautiful, but they are mere dots in a mobile phone shot.

My hip is still bugging me, my neck too after some fairly violent ticcing today. But I will get it sorted, and I will get through.

Si

All text and images copyright CreamCrackeredNature 21.01.20

Wretched Day

At work, we've been hosting a Doctor Bike who we have been getting to fix any minor problems with our colleagues' bicycles. It's been a successful event, despite involving a lot of standing around in the cold and wet, and we've provided free lights to riders who didn't have any too.

Anyone with a puncture, got that fixed up as well.

The last of these sessions was yesterday.

This morning, as I arrived at work, I got a puncture. A puncture I had to sort out myself with only a couple of tools and a quick release wheel that was anything but. In the rain. With dyspraxic hands and general clumsy cretin realness.

I was almost crying and screaming, but I got it done.

Then, as I went to go home, the fitting on my front light snapped. My fitting of the new inner was off as well. I felt like riding  off a bridge

I've been having to fix the bloody thing when I got home.

Si

All text and images copyright CreamCrackeredNature 07.03.19

Magnolia and Blossoms

After a long old week at work with not a massive amount of sitting at my desk and being on my feet, my body was very unco-operative today  and did not want to do any exercise whatsoever.

I am thus rather angry at it, and have given it a good telling off.

I did however make it to the park for tea and a walk round. The neighbourhood magnolia trees are now coming into flower, white as a swans wing, on my way to the park, and in the park itself blackthorn and hawthorn are decked in a thick dressing  of sweet blossom.

Attracted to this delicacy I saw another newcomer for the year today - a red tailed bumblebee queen. But a coy one, so no photos.

Si

All text and images copyright CreamCrackeredNature 01.03.19

Just Playing with the Splash Filter

I thought this kind of effect could only be achieved with a lot of fiddling with two layers in pixlr - it turns out my phone will do it quite happy at the press of a button and a swoosh of the finger.

The reappearance of rain has brought the return of a few wildflowers to the unmown verges at work, including a very vivid marigold looking creation that seems to have been blown in on the winds from somewhere.

"Blown in on the winds" is how I've been feeling, Tourettes having been quite wild the last few days, which has been entertaining for the office staff at any rate. All that energy being expired at work has been leading to me feeling rather low in the evenings however.

But such is the way of things. I really could not imagine living life any other way.

Si

All text and images copyright CreamCrackeredNature 06.09.18

Done in Through Cricket Really!

Last day of the league season, and the last few days I've dreamed of putting in a big performance; lots of runs and lots of wickets.

As it turned out I didn't do either. But it was a beautiful day and a good game. Pity 1) lady luck deserted me and 2) I was in a touretty mood, but a bad one.

So we bowled first, and things started slowly. Not many wickets, but not many runs. Good bowling. Good fielding. Then when I appeared after 15 or so overs, odd things happened.

Odd but not good. A catch went down in each of my first three overs. Grrrrr. I didn't let it bother me externally, but then I straightaway knew it wasn't going to be my day.

I kept on trying, as the sun shone and the buzzards cried, but even though I was making the ball reverse wing past the batsman's edge loads of times, the nicks stopped coming. I then got hit for a couple of 4s and thus got whisked off after 8 overs, and I was furious with myself for not taking a wicket.

Had a bit of daze for a couple of overs, then was fine. Fielded bloody well after that actually.

Wet Bridgeford Legion, for twas they we played, got 181-7 off 45 overs. Not unbeatable on a flat deck and I thought well if the bowling hasn't worked out, I can make up with it with the bat.

I was still optimistic at tea, which I ate too much of as usual. The sausage rolls at Collingham are A1, I tell you, likewise the scotch eggs. Luckily there were no egg sandwiches to cause flatulence by anyone in the dressing room. There certainly had been back at our HQ, but that's another story.

So yes, batting. I was put down at 11 again, despite being in better form. I was gutted, I thought I might get to go 9 again and get a chance to bat against friendly bowling. I didn't get to bat at all, as it turned out.

As before, I was in a convulsive mood for 15 minutes, then fine. Got rocketed but that's OK. I'm ultra competitive and don't like not being involved. Esepcially as realistically I've only got a year or two more of being even an average player! Psychologically, being told you are the worst bat in the side if you are of my sort of disposition really gets to you. You want to be good at something!

Again, a few ticks and a walk around the ground and I was fine. I even took my short off, although it went back on if anyone came within 50 yards of me. Or I was scrumping apples.

We made a fist of it, but none of our big gun batsmen fired - we made it to 149-7. Then we returned to HG, where a large group of first team players were planning on getting into the shower together.

Must be a sports thing.

Si

Flowers in the Rain, The Watching Thereof

God the weather has carried on being dismal. Thought it would be dry but no, two more rainy commutes. Weather trying to destroy me. WELL I WON'T HAVE IT.

The wet flowers looked very pretty, so I wandered outside to snap them. That's alright, isn't it?

So, exercise. Trapped in tonight but rain, but not missing being out running or cricketing. Demotivation day. I will regret this for other reasons, because exercise is so important to my mental health. Tourette's is very energy intensive, the tantrums, rages and obsessions even more so.

If I'm not outside, thinking of other things and burning up that energy and stopping it from fuelling my various ailments, then they get worse.

I need to remember this all the time. Weight is also a mental health issue for me in all sorts of ways.

Si

All text and images copyright CreamCrackeredNature 29.06.17

The Tourettes Cricketer Strikes

Hero to Zero in a day. After a good day yesterday, I got called today for some obscure back foot no-ball violation rule that really pissed me off.

I was already on a down after feeling really stiff and unable to open the bowling as I usually do, even though our skipper was late and technically I could have bowled myself if I wanted to. But a slightly picky umpire wound me up, and it completely threw me.

This led to one of my famous meltdown times, as not seen on a cricket field for a while. For about 45 minutes I had no idea what was going on out there! My body didn't help by being completely unable to obey the instructions my brain was giving it...one particularly hilarious uncoordinated dive ended up with me in a sprawl on my back, with the ball sailing over the rope behind me.

Grrrrr.

Luckily our skipper is a proper cricketer, and he took seven wickets while I pointed out oystercatchers to passers by and generally moved around in a chilly daze.

When we batted, we struggled against good bowling again, although our new Kiwi friend showed his power by hitting a few into the trees. I merely popped up a catch off a leg spinner for 1.

Really bad day for me.

Si

All text and images copyright CreamCrackeredNature 04.06.17

Tic and Stim Confusion

So, I've been having another outbreak of Tourette's and Asperger's confusion that has become a little bit of an odd obsession the last couple of days.

I'm trying to work out how much of each thing is inside me - is it  Tourette's 100-0? Or 0-100 Asperger's?

I really can't tell. Both TS and AS share similar co-morbid conditions - OCD, ADD and various other flavours of behaviour, but they are also different, and this is where I've been going a little crackers.

Tics are in the provenance of Tourette's. Stims are autistic behaviours. Stims are things like flapping of hands, rocking back and forth - I've just been rocking back and forth just now while thinking about rocking back and forth. Tics are uncontrollable, only they are not...they satisfy an urge, wait so do stims, sometimes, but in a different way...

The only really consistent thing I pick up is that tics tend to be more centrally located down the centreline of the body, while stims are more symmetrical and found at the extremes. But even then I'm not sure about that. I do tic vocally, usually quiet little names or phrases of interest quietly burbled and usually taking on slight different, clipped forms, but the real yelling, and the most convulsive, violent, flappy tics come when I'm extremely upset or stressed by something I read or think about.

Then, at other times I think stimulating thoughts and my hands begin to flap and do a sort of clapping without moving thing.

Then sometimes my left foot has been arching within the shoes, and my left leg likes to do a sort of strange stretching thing, like a slightly demented cat.

So today, everytime by body has done something, I've tried to classify it - stim, or tic?

I've tried to classify me. Tourette's, Asperger's, or both?

For some reason this became very important, and I'm not sure why. Knowing what percentage of my behaviours is caused by one or the other doesn't change very much, they are all still there and nothing will ever change that.

Even as I write this, a tense bit of "Silent Witness" comes on, and my right arm bends over the top of my head, hand towards my left ear. At the same time, my left side tenses and pulls my body over like an anti-stretch.

Incredible thing, the brain, and body. I don't know how the heck anyone ever works it out.

Si

All text copyright CreamCrackeredNature 03.01.17

The Asperger Child

I was trying yet again to get rid of a load of horrific clutter in my horrifically cluttered flat, when I found various notebooks that I have kept haphazardly at various times in various places.

Most of them are comparitively recent and full of various scrawls; the book of holidays, which is red, and the book of moon-a-mucks, which is brown, and horror and prose and thankfully no bad poetry whatsoever.

What I also came across was a very 80s design A4 notebook, which I was using in about 1987.

This was the book of planetary geology and economics, of flying saucer sightings, interstellar space craft design and a navy belonging to a nation and history that never existed.

These are all my designs. My stories, the external expression of what went on in my head and what still does, endless design of aircraft and navies and cricket teams and all sorts.

I had no idea back then, but thanks to reading Oliver Sacks I have since discovered that this is very much a trait of Asperger Syndrome, as is the obsessive bowling of tennis balls against trees while commentating on it in Richie Benaud voices. Which I've greatly enjoyed doing since 1980 and never will stop doing.

Tourettes and Aspergers do often run together, their spectrums ribbon around each other like friendly snakes, and both share OCD and ADHD co-morbids. What I am, and which bit of all this does what, is very unclear to me and doesn't matter anyway.

So here it all is, the created universe of Si!

All text and images copyright CreamCrackeredNature 15.11.16

Pretentious, Moi?

As a couple of you noticed the other day, I hinted at how I often wonder how my writing stacks up from a literary point of view, especially compared to the great flood of "New" nature writing that is emerging at the moment; works like H is for Hawk and The Outrun.

The latter work I certainly intend to read in the near future, having followed author Amy Liptrot on twitter for a few years now, and I have seen many good reviews of Helen Macdonald's work as well. These are nature writers who are hugely admired and respected, and I wonder if I would ever have the ability to write anything not to match them, but to lose to heavily but in a plucky way.

There seems to be so many pitfalls to avoid. I've read various little articles on how NOT to write about the natural world, and believe me, I find it very hard to avoid using words like "majestic" too much. I have also caught myself writing about the wonder of something that frankly, is nothing much to wonder at and have erased these feeble passages in the nick of time.

I hope.

I also worry endlessly that this blog is merely a shallow account of what I see on my travels, rather than exploring the deep psyche of the Tourettic Aspergic writer; I worry that it doesn't mean anything...but then again, take this dunnock.

I could write about this dunnock in two ways, I guess.

1) "I opened the door, and saw a hungry dunnock on the hunt for crumbs under my feeders."

OR

2) "I opened the door, and my eye was caught by a tiny, frail dunnock, desperately seeking scraps of food from my empty feeder. As I looked into its eyes, it looked at me with an almost human recognition and between bird and man, we shared a moment and knew that we were both the same.  We were scrappers, fighters, permanently on the look out for any crumbs life could give us. After the death of my family, and my subsequent addiction to heroin, seeing this bird, as lost and starved as I was yet never giving up, gave me the strength to go on living, and face every day with a new and unbreakable perspective."

I worry that if I ever try to write anything too deep, I'll drown in the direness of that number 2.

But am I a good enough writer to avoid that?

Si

All text and images copyright CreamCrackeredNature 21.05.16

Tourettes and the Road to Wellness (Ugh) and Mindfulness (Double Ugh)

I suppose everyone has seen a lot of posts on how people are going to set themselves up for a better year. Well, I'm late, I'm gruff, and I don't do resolutions.

You are only setting yourself up for a fail, most of the time.

I see a lot of people talking about "Wellness" and "Mindfulness" and how they are going to improve them in 2016, which to my occasionally cynical mind makes me think of incense burning yoga-and-oatmeal-thons in a retreat with spinning dreamcatchers in the window. The sort that cause house fires on sunny days.

Well I hate those words, horrible, middle class Sunday supplement terms, endorsed by a tranquilly smiling D-List celebrity standing in that yoga pose that makes you look like you have a bladder infection. Boo to "Wellness", boo to "Mindfulness".

Just get out there and take a bloody walk! Why spend a fortune on taking your yoga mat to a cabin in The Alps when you can merely don a pair of sturdy shoes, plug in some sounds - Radio 4 or 6 in my case when I'm not listening for birdsong - and visit a world that costs you absolutely nothing and if more us enjoyed it wouldn't be in such a mess. Most town dwellers, and even a lot of city ones, should be able to find a pleasant spot to walk in within 15 minutes. If they can't, they should be down their council's throat to provide one.

Fancy being a bit more energetic. Well, you can kit yourself out for running for less than £40 - I just ran a marathon in a pair of Decathlon running shoes that cost me £13. Cycling is equally cheap if you know where to look; £50 will get a perfectly serviceable mountain bike from a roadside bike man, if you're smart.

I have Tourette's, I need to burn energy and keep myself super occupied to keep my physical and mental ticcing from getting too extreme on bad days. Other folk may find it beneficial to sit on a sun lounger and watch butterflies or commune with the moon on a starry night. Whatever it is, JUST DO SOMETHING OUT THERE!

It does help, believe me.

Si

All text copyright CreamCrackeredNature 06.01.16

"On the Move" with Oliver Sacks

The recent death of the famous neurologist Oliver Sacks made me more determined than ever to read his final work, his autobiography "On the Move". I owed it to him, for I owe him my sanity.

Once upon a time there was a university student prone to distressing bouts of obsessive thoughts, rages, and who's strange ticcing behaviours had been remarked upon, and made fun of, for years. By my final year at University, with finals approaching, I just didn't know what to do any more. I'd seen counsellors and psychiatrists throughout my studies, and none of them knew what was happening to me. I was really struggling to cope.

One mental health nurse suggested schizophrenia. That went down really well.

In the University bookshop, I idly picked up a copy of his anthology "An Anthropologist on Mars", opened it at random to a chapter on a surgeon with Tourette's Syndrome, and found myself reading standing up in the bookshop, beginning to end.

Reading about me.

A year later, I was given my formal diagnosis, and the improvement in my well being was immediate, simply because I knew it "wasn't my fault" any more, and I wasn't mad. Still been a rocky path, but I'm still here!

As for his book, there are many surprises to learn about the cuddly, bearded fellow, the one essentially played by Robin Williams in "Awakenings", the cinematic adaptation of his book of the same name. You can see from the picture that he was a leather clad biker, a neurological  Kerouac-ian hero, a traveller. A bear of a man.

He was also a drug addict for a large part of the 1960s who nearly killed himself with amphetamines, a Muscle Beach powerlifter and record holder, and a gay man who was celibate for 35 years at one point. Indeed the account of how he lost his virginity, which would be essentially rape in modern terminology, is shocking in his calm acceptance of the situation.

What he also makes clear that he was never a great researcher in neurology, rather his fame came from his sympathetic care of his patients combined with his deep observational skill. He has been criticised for exploiting his patients, but to me he stays on the right side of the ethical tightrope - bringing the study of the intricacies of the brain to mere mortals, without compromising his position as a carer. However, he does make it clear that he had to shelve a documentary on one of his Tourette patients after they made threats against him, and his use of terms like "idiots" to describe certain conditions is very jarring to the modern reader.

Indeed,  it is his accounts of his freewheeling early life and forays into writing case studies, that form the most readable section of the book. After the 1968-73 period where he describes his work with his "Awakenings" sleepy sickness patients, things begin to flag rather as has life settles down and he gives up his motorbike. A major section towards the end, where he describes a new theory of "neuronal evolution" will almost certainly blow the synapses of a non-expert reader. Fans of his case study writing may also be disappointed, but obviously those works are available to read in their own right.

But overall it is a fascinating account of a deeply human and important man, and I enjoyed it greatly.

Si

All text and images copyright CreamCrackeredNature 10.10.15

Well, my Tourette's Really got to Someone at Work

Last week, someone made a complaint about my behaviour at work.

What could it have been? My stressed obscenity yelling and flailing gotten too much for the management? Have I wasted too much time making sure my hands are germ free in the bathroom? Is my clumsiness meaning I do my job too slowly?

Apparently not.

It seems, I was...sort of...scaring someone. Immediately behind me, sits a chap who gets around by motability scooter a lot of the time, although he can walk ok over short distances. I don't know the cause of his disability, but I know he has been mugged twice. He told me this.

He told me this when he asked me not to basically tic behind him, or move too close behind him. He said his reaction to people who come up behind him and startle him thus is to hit them. Now one of the things I do at work sometimes is to automatically jump up from my desk, and take a few paces back sometimes, sometimes a bit of a trot up and down, a bit of a wave, a bit of a cricket bowl at imaginary things.

A lot of the time I'm barely aware I'm starting to do it. I just DO. I apologised and said there was no intent to it, this happened twice. The third time, he went to my immediate supervisor, who took me out back for a quiet chat.

He was totally understanding, said he knew I did things without realising, but could I please try and realise and not do stuff too near this other fellow. I said of course I would, if I did realise, and I would move away from him. He then said if he did hit me, as he'd obviously told my supervisor might happen, it might lead to very unpleasant disciplinary procedures for him.

I told him I wouldn't "press charges" as it were if it did happen, but I was told company policy would have over-ruled me. So basically, if you are going to tic, go and tic somewhere else if at all possible.

Like I said, I said I would if I could, but sometimes it's such an automated action it just happens. I myself hate being touched unexpectedly, and in fact am probably even jumpier than he is. I don't criticise him. But I get mighty puzzled when I see him standing talking to a manager with his back to a busy doorway, where people were walking through rather closer than I was.

An office re-arrangement at work has now had the good fortune of separating us. But I am very curious as to how on earth this situation would have played out. Because I wouldn't have been able to stop myself for long, and ergo the promised punch would have arrived at some point.

I think I forget how intimidating Tourette's can perhaps be. It isn't cute. It can't be cured by swimming with dolphins or going on a once in a lifetime rip to Disneyland. I can imagine a 6'1 85 kilo man in a frenzy can be quite scary, especially when the attractive snarls and yells are thrown in. I can be lungey, and disrespectful of personal space, which is a copper bottomed irony.

But, it is me, and without it I wouldn't be me any more. Was he being oversensitive? Was I?

Si

Mr Spock and the Joys of Non-Neurotypicality

Many better writers than me have already been pretty eloquent in expressing the impact Leonard Nimoy and his creation of Mr Spock had on their lives.

I'm not going to bandwagon jump, nor am I going to pretend that Spock was some kind of inspiration for my love of sci-fi, spaceships and astronomy.

I've written elsewhere of where that came from - the artist Donald Rudd  - but what was actually going through my mind on hearing of Nimoy's death was a piece by Oliver Sacks in his collection "An Anthropologist on Mars". Sacks writes of two autistic people in that anthology, the artist Stephen Wiltshire, and the animal behaviourist Temple Grandin. I think it's in the Grandin piece that Sacks talks of how autistic people often stated that their favourite character from TV was Spock, and his latter day successor Data.

Sacks, who incidentally himself has stated recently that he is not long for the world theorised that it was the portrayal of a person with very non-human emotional needs trying to make sense of a very human environment that appealed to folk with autism. I think also that the fact that the tremendous contribution these people to those around them, and the fact that their colleagues valued them and treated them warmly when they were perhaps not able to respond likewise, would also be influential in this.

Perhaps also the Aspergic love of knowledge and information too would be an attraction.

Seven of Nine, a character who would also would have had "AS Appeal" in addition to her other obvious charms, was not around when Sacks wrote the article. Certainly sat where I am upon my Tourette's spectrum, where it dances with that of Asperger's, I found all these characters fascinating, and enjoyed their relationship with the neurotypical world, although I was and still am very suspicious of how the terms "Neurotypical" and "NT" get thrown around sometimes.

There is a whiff of contempt about it, I occasionally find...albeit a rather understandle whiff.

Still these are terms that have entered common (ish) usage. And it is to Leonard Nimoy "and the character I created" that a huge amount of credit must go to for making not just autistic - or non-neurotypical - people perhaps feel more comfortable in their skins, but anyone who felt that maybe you know, "knowing stuff" was more important than having cool hair.

Si

A History of Tourette's

This post was actually written as one of the header pages for the blog, but I felt it could do with a wider reading, so here it is.

********************************

"What is going on with my body?" I'd never ask myself as a child, as a parental scolding voice, or gorping child, would point out my flailing arms and legs or frantically rubbing hands.

"Talking to yourself again?" the stepfather would ask, as I continued a two hour session of playing imaginary cricket with a tree with live commentary thrown in.

I would shrug dfensively, say as always that I couldn't help it, and get on with the (part sub-conscious) job of developing an eccentric personality as a cover for all these strange behaviours.

So my life continued, being bright but always struggling in exams due to inability to write fast enough, enjoying chemistry theory but hating the lab classes as I was too slow and clumsy to set up my apparatus, and too obsessive about the results, often too restless to settle down to homework.

But I made it through school with good A Levels, although they should have been better, and went to Exeter University where the nightmare of chemistry practicals caused me to give up the subject and become a Classicist at the end of my first year instead.

Round about then, things started getting difficult...hardcore obsessions, contamination compulsions, sleeping problems, inability to concentrate. Again I didn't know what was going on, but it was causing a great deal of distress.

Luckily I read "An Anthropologist on Mars" by Oliver Sacks in the University bookshop, and it was his piece on a surgeon with Tourette's Syndrome that unlocked all the doors, and enabled me to get the diagnosis.

Things seemed better straightaway...it wasn't my fault anymore.

Obviously, it's never that straightforward. But my interest in nature, running and cycling has helped enormously. One of the main things I like to do with this blog is try and impress upon people how benficial even a slight interest in their local environment can be to their physical and mental wellbeing.

Tourette's and the Danger of Disclosure

As I spend a lot of time job hunting, trying to lift myself out of the warehouse and the world of unfulfilling under-employment, I find myself thinking about my Tourette's Syndrome, and how much of an impact it is having on my employability.

I suppose there are two angles to this.

1) How Tourette's may affect my self image and make me nervous about applying for jobs.

2) How potential employers may see the condition.

I wonder about point 2) above. I have decided to be totally open about my Tourette's these days when I apply for work, feeling that I prefer to be honest and up front, and not wanting to have to explain things in retrospect if an employer called me in for a "one to one" and asked "Is there anything wrong? It's just we've noticed...blah blah blah etc etc etc."

I mention it on the equal opportunities monitoring forms. I mention it on this blog. The question is, are any potential employers being out off by my Tourette's Syndrome? Even if only subconsciously.

I applied for a Communications related job a couple of months ago which I felt reasonably qualified for - my CV is far from being a disaster area and I have notched up many worthy achievements on it! - but as ever, a week later I got the nice rejection e-mail.

Now I'm sure that there were many better equipped candidates for the role, and looking back I perhaps didn't emphasise certain of my capabilities enough. But in the back of my mind, there is always a few neurons whispering to each other and saying "What if they were worried you were speaking to the local TV news and started hurling obscenities or spitting at them? What if you shouted "big bums!" on Heart FM while doing a serious interview about cancer?"

This is probably pure silliness on my brain's part, but then again there is discrimination against folk with Tourette's out there amongst employers, and of course it is regarded as the one disability that it still seems permissible to laugh at (BTW I don't get all po-faced at Tourette jokes, but many people do and this is entirely within their rights).

I'm not an "advocate" by any means, in many ways I hate the word, but I do feel it is important to stand up for what I am. Frankly if an employer is nervous about Tourette's, then they probably aren't going to be worth working for, and I would hope third sector employers are much more likely to be inclusive when it comes to giving folk like me a job.

In other words, I hope my open-ness is not damaging my career prospects!

Tourettes and Nature

So, the weather outside is good, but I'm stuck inside, a twelve hour shift with no natural light.

I've had a few tics, been a little bit jumpy. Too much energy to burn, and no way of burning it. Tourette's is a condition exarcebated by stress, and in my case, an un-occupied brain can start obsessing, leading to an increase in symptoms. Sometimes picking up envelopes just isn't stimulating enough.

It made me reflect on how good I think Nature is for my Tourete's specifically, and my mental health in general. When I walk, cycle, or run, there is a rhythym, and purpose, to my motion that smooths out to a large degree the jerkiness and twitchiness of my normal motion.I may twitch or speed up if I get excited, but nowhere near as violently as can happen normally.

In addition to the physical motion, I like to employ Radio 4 as a means to impart informational noise to the brain to drown out any obessive or rage-y thoughts that may be lurking there. I always like to believe my exercise is also an aid to learning, although Radio 4 goes straight off if "Any Questions" starts any ominous looming in my eardrums.

There is also the challenge of nature that keeps my brain busy and so on an even keel. "What is that flower? Was is there a week ago?" "Is that a goosander on the lake again?" "What bird could that be singing?" - I also like to look up, and about, all the time, always hoping to see something. Thus I keep mentally active...and also trip up on chain fences and strain my ribs in the process. But at least I'm happier while I'm doing it.

The main thing is just an overall feeling of wellbeing from being able to exercise in the open air. And I'm not talking in a masochistic, bodybuilding "no pain no gain" or (ugh) "feel the burn" sense. It's almost more in the sense of exercising your right to be outside in the - free - open air, to do what you want with no-one out there telling you when you have to go inside again.

The freedom is wonderful, and I'm always gratified to see folk doing similar things to me. And I'll keep doing it, easing my Tourette's, settling my mind, forever I hope.