Well, spank my arse and call me Charlie the Unicorn. I am currently reading this paper Complex obsessive compulsive and impulsive symptoms in Tourette’s syndrome (Palumbo & Kurlan 2007) and have come to a pretty big realisation to understand myself a lot better. I never knew that Tourettes Syndrome (TS) was so similar to Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) - for some stupid reason I thought that TS involved you shouting things like swear words, without cause. I think that this is a major misconception of the entire populace, perpetrated by movies such as Deuce Bigalow, Male Gigalow. TV perpetrates a lot of inconsistencies in thought, such as when Sally on Home & Away got back from England* and suddenly had OCD in the form of scrubbing her hands constantly. Funnily enough, a few months after that story, her OCD had magically disappeared with treatment. Ashe calls bullshit on that idea. * When Vinnie and Leah hate each other, just before they get together. (as a side note... I just read a number of Wikipedia articles about Home and Away and was flabbergasted at how many people were killed off due to cancer. Pretty much everyone either leaves for Melbourne, America or dies of cancer.) I think that I either have a mix of OCD and TS, or that my OCD is actually TS. Although I don't do things without purpose, which many TS suffers do (like hitting themselves without realising they're doing it), apparently there are complex cases where TS symptoms are very much like OCD symptoms - and where as SSRI/SNRI's work for OCD sufferer compulsive/impulsive tics, they will not work for TS related tics. For the most part, I've become quite good at keeping my tics invisible around people who might be watching me. But, as soon as there are no eyes on me (aka, I'm alone at home), my compulsive/impulsive tics are outrageous. Numerous things at the same time for each ritual. It is all very ritualistic, or without regard for my own safety (only in the form of touching a hot plate to make sure it is off, for instance). In fact, aside from my checking issues, the man I lived with for nine years indicated I could not have severe OCD as he had not seen signs of any OCD aside from checking. Then again, when we had an infestation of scorpions in an apartment we lived in once, he reckons he never noticed them. :-P

 

 

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posted by Da at 6:19:00 PM