"the complex biological location of tics and their impacts on experience, both within the body and as a result of its sociality, has problematized their definition, classification, and treatment from the outset of the clinical disorder's lifetime"
"Tic Disorder Triad" = Provisional Tic Disorder (tics present for less than one year), Chronic Tic Disorder (either vocal OR motor tics present for over one year), & Tourette Syndome (both motor AND vocal tics, for over one year)
a person might experience a waxing in their tic occurances (increasing number of different vocal tics), while simultaneously experiencing a waning in concrete tic events. Put more simply: The person might not tic very often, but when she does, her tic events might be highly diverse. The inverse is equally thinkable, with fewer tic occurances but more tic events (more "sameness" in exhibited tic behavior)" (187)
^^ All this to highlight the "questionable technique of ranking tic disorders based solely on the amount or, essentially, the visibility of tics over time"
"This all gets at another quality of tics: they consist of repeated actions or gestures. This repetition occurs both in the moment, until the tic performance "feels right" from within the body [...], and across longer periods of time (meaning that this "performance until it feels right" occurs multiple times in rapid succession, extending the tic's performance dramatically)"
"the key point is that the environment has a profound and multidimensional part to play regarding the tics one has the urge to perform, when they can perform them, and how that performance might need to be modified depending on their specific circumstances."
"depending on what I'm doing (which necessarily implicates the place that I'm doing it in) my tics -- or rather, the urge that I get to perform them -- might be much stronger than others. Anxiety, stress, anger, any highlighted emotional state can further predispose certain situations to outbursts or periods of prolonged calm; another potential mark against the overuse of clock time to talk about tic disorders"
"These premonitionary urges (PUs) are further defined as "unpleasant physical sensations" (Curtis-Wendlandt, 184) with demonstrated correlation [...] to "tic-related beliefs" and "certain dimensions of anxiety such as phsiological arousal [increased blood pressure, breathing rate]" (184) [...] In my experience, a premonitory urge can appear or emanate from anywhere in the body (though they are not necessarily present to consciousness in every case) and it can "build up" over time until the tic is performed or an analogous motion that soothes than premonitory urge. The sensations also include a kind of interoception, whereby certain elements of the body which should (and I use normative word intentionally here, as the feeling involves or calls to attention the actions needed to satsify it, in most cases) be involved in the tic appear to my consciousness more vividly before the tic is actually performed."
"sometimes it's less of a bodily feeling (tightness, internal tension/anxiety, urgent appearance of certain areas of the body/skin to my attention) and more of a sudden need, an urge without the same bodily component"
"In situations where I cannot perform a tic to the degree necessary to satisfy its premonitory urge, the bodily tension and feeling of compulsion related to that urge both increase dramatically. As the performance of tics (appearance and strength of the premonitory urge) is also, as mentioned, related to stress and other emotional states, this can lead to "feedback loops" where the urge gets stronger as the sensation of one's own body gets more tense and the tics are kept in for greater stretches of time. Furthermore, when the theater-related tic is finally performed (This whole debacle of holding a tic in can last a few minutes, or as little as a few seconds before this urge becomes intolerable -- it will come out), then feelings of shame or guilt resulting from the tic performance frequently end up contributing to greater feelings of anxiety and stress anyway, leading to more tics."
"the urge is easy to miss if the tic one needs to perform is readily and easily exercised. In these cases, the experience folds, almost effortlessly, into the background of a bodily actions."
"Tics complicate this matrix insofar as I can still feel that I own the actions, that they are a part of my body, but that I did not perform them freely or on account of the exclusive control of "myself""
"The main focus and intended result of the process become clear: with the tics under control, any additional complexity introduced by the medication falls outside the purview of the treatment plan. After all, it's for the good of everyone else."
"but the core of its performance (the snort itself) was performed not because I needed to make a certain sound with my mouth, but because of the way that sound made the back of my throat/nose vibrate/appear to me in a certain way"
As tics are performed repeatedly, however, a profound change occurs, one that I argue is central to the phenomenology of ticcing: eventually the tic fades into the background of my bodily experience. I get used to doing it. It becomes incorporated into the body's habitual ways of moving in the world and, in many cases, can flow uninterrupted -- until someone else sees it."
"In other words, it's immediately clear to those who tic that the problem is one of translation/interpretation, and [is] justified. Of course, this is not to say that violent or disrespectful responses to that confusion are ever acceptable -- only that the disconnection which is also obvious to the person who tics sort of makes sense."
"Even in situations where I am alone, left to express my tics in peace, the habits associated with those tic movements are still in place. My ticcing is always and necessarily informed by all of the times that a tic has been exercised in social settings.
"While I am ticcing alone, the body necessarily dys-appears to me through my perception of the premonitory urge. However, if I am able to perform the tic without anyone around, or anyone noticing, then it seems that only one dys-appearance has occurred: the dys-appearance of a spatially-ambigious urge within me, of my body, to my attention/focus. After I exercise the tic, bar any pain or tiredness that I might feel, I am usually able to return to my projects in the world without too much effort. in the case of a tic performed around others, however, it seems like there are two related dys-appearances that oc-occur. First, the aforementioned appearance of my body to me, but this is immediately followed by the "social dys-appearance" of my body as a result of its interpretation by others."
"With tics, though, this process is fundamentally disrupted, leading to difficult situations wherein my body appears to all parties involved and, by virtue of its unexpected and (per the other) potentially inexplicable performance, is separated or made to feel apart from others and their situation."
"As the orientation of spaces, by definition, involves a certain uniformity of performance (the straight, able body), so too are they aligned against performances like tics which resist their sedimented uniformity."
"The performance of the tic stands out to me, which makes me feel as though I stand out, am disoriented, acting queer, relative to my peers."
"I felt the need to present because my tics had already fundamentally oriented me away from the collective project of my classroom, friends, teachers, etc. Even after my presentation, why did I feel the need to remove myself from the classroom or comply when I was removed (asked politely if I would "like to leave") when my tics were present? It's because tics are profoundly affective, emotive events, especially insofar as they can produce feelings of guilt or shame in thier performer -- again, which are also a result of this being oriented towards or being with a collective that I suddenly disrupt with my tics. If I had performed my tics too much, I would have been asked to leave; if I had performed my tics too little, I would have been miserable anyway, this time confined within my body to a profound and uncomfortable state of constant bodily appearance through the unsatisfied premonitory urge."
"Rather than being determined strictly by the body, then, disability identity is also necessarily determined by social forces" -- the medical model VS the social model, and the differences/overlap between them.
"Until those who are actually living the ticcing are truly listened to, their input contributing to an evolving sense of hermeneutics that interprets the tic differently, TS will remain a contradictory and difficult diagnosis."
"On the one hand, bodies do not seem to matter to who we are [...] On the other hand, modern culture feels the urgent need to perfect the body [...] We hardly ever consider how incongruous is this understanding of the body -- that the body seems both inconsequential and perfectable." -- Quote from Sieber's "COMPLEX EMBODIMENT"
"The rules that regulate the body's performance and their uncritical placement within our socially/historically contingent, habitual taking up of the world are why the social experience of ticcing is so difficult, why the first instinct is always to hide the tic via displacement, misattribution, or contextualization."
"I want to think about whatever it is that the ticcing individual, given their situation, is "meant" to do with their body? Sociiety's general answer to that question seems to be "hide it" -- stow it away somewhere where it won't bother the rest of us. [...] it also seems like the opposite solution will be necessary is a developed hermeneutics and habitus is to form around the performance of tics: tics must be performed in order to be accepted as such."