{"id":4035,"date":"2015-06-03T09:28:45","date_gmt":"2015-06-03T13:28:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/njcts.org\/teens4ts\/?p=4035"},"modified":"2015-06-03T09:28:45","modified_gmt":"2015-06-03T13:28:45","slug":"tourette-syndrome-an-artists-journey","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/njcts.org\/teens4ts\/tourette-syndrome-an-artists-journey\/","title":{"rendered":"2015 NJCTS Youth Scholarship Award Essay “Tourette Syndrome: An Artist’s Journey”"},"content":{"rendered":"

This is the essay I submitted to the NJ Center for Tourette Syndrome & Associated Disorders (NJCTS<\/strong><\/a>) for their 2015 Children\u2019s Scholarship Award contest. I hope you enjoy it!<\/em><\/p>\n

Shtick<\/em> is the Yiddish word for ‘weird habit.’ I am a young woman who has multiple ‘shticks’. For the\u00a0most part, it doesn’t bother me as I have always blinked my eyes, jutted my chin, jerked a leg or twitched my\u00a0nose. These shticks first appeared when I was three years old and each would come and go like old friends\u00a0dropping by to say hello and then moving onward after a brief visit. My friends noticed but didn’t care (they\u00a0knew to sit to my right during lunch or else be kicked by a leg with ‘a mind of its own’) and I did well in school\u00a0and life went on.<\/p>\n

\"EmilyB\"<\/a>

EmilyB<\/p><\/div>\n

In my freshman year of high school things changed. My once relatively innocuous shticks<\/em> were seizing\u00a0greater control of my body and mind. Rather than dissipate, they lingered longer and longer. I started to tap a\u00a0finger. It was just one finger and a tap here and there but like an avalanche, the taps started multiplying faster\u00a0and faster until the action monopolized my thoughts. Tap. Tap. Tap. I became distracted in school and at home.<\/p>\n

Tap. Tap. Tap. My finger bruised and calloused. Tap. Tap. Tap. It hurt. Tap. Tap. Tap. I couldn’t stop.<\/p>\n

A visit to the doctor diagnosed Tourette Syndrome with accompanying Obsessive Compulsive Disorder\u00a0(OCD). What I hadn’t realized until that moment was that I was riddled with OCD behaviors which were\u00a0slowly strangling my thoughts and dictating my daily routine. I had to fight back. The neurologist armed me\u00a0with klonopin, a narcotic which in her words ‘had street value’ and ‘should be hidden away’. With the\u00a0endorsement of my parents, I tore the prescription up as soon as I left the office. I was determined to combat<\/p>\n

this diagnosis on my terms with a lucid mind. I googled “Tourette Syndrome’ and my journey began.<\/p>\n

I’ve always had a passion for painting, sketching, and expressing my emotions through the visual arts.\u00a0Art serves as both an escape and catharsis. When I paint, my mind is completely focused on line, texture,\u00a0shadow and form. I am drawn into a world of my making as I interpret the world around me. I am temporarily\u00a0free from the hindering effects of Tourette Syndrome and OCD but like an electric charge that needs to be\u00a0released, the urge is never completely dormant. My canvases reflect this struggle. I employ chiaroscuro<\/em> or the\u00a0use of strong contrast between light and dark. My surfaces are never still as the eye follows the ever changing\u00a0pattern. There is an energy that simmers beneath the surface of my compositions. Form is never completely\u00a0encapsulated by line. It seeks to break free.<\/p>\n

A google search of Tourette Syndrome led my parents and me to the New Jersey Center for Tourette\u00a0Syndrome (NJCTS) located not far from our home in central New Jersey. The center offered a wealth of\u00a0educational material and guidance. We learned the official definition; “Tourette Syndrome is an inherited,\u00a0neurological disorder characterized by repeated involuntary movements and uncontrollable vocal (phonic)\u00a0sounds called tics”. I like shtick<\/em> better.<\/p>\n

From the information we received at NJCTS, I was led to the office of a wonderful behavioral\u00a0psychologist who I have been working with for the past three years. Ridding the shackles of OCD is not easy. It\u00a0is difficult work. The process is slow. There are often tears. Yet, it is also empowering. I now understand how\u00a0my body and mind react to Tourette Syndrome. I am able to quell OCD tendencies before the behaviour grows<\/p>\n

suffocating tentacles. I am in control.<\/p>\n

I painted recently a canvas of a young woman holding a pair of scissors. The cool steely blades frame\u00a0her eye and are poised to snap shut on her eyelashes. Her compulsion is not to cut her long black hair which\u00a0frames her face but to hack off lashes which normally would fall out quietly. The image is unsettling. I wanted\u00a0the viewer to experience anxiety triggered by OCD. However, upon closer inspection, the viewer realizes that\u00a0the hand holding the scissors as well as the scissor’s handle are non-existent. The long silver blades trail to the\u00a0edge of the canvas and then disappear. They are literally ‘cut off from the mechanism which can cause the\u00a0blades to open and close. She is safe.<\/p>\n

I will always be an artist. I will always have Tourette Syndrome. While I will continue to strive to\u00a0understand how each influence the other, I am empowered to shape the direction of my journey. Looking back\u00a0over several years of struggle, I found that art was my way to break free. This fall, I will be attending the\u00a0prestigious Rhode Island School of Design in Providence, Rhode Island. I am excited to immerse myself in\u00a0everything which RISD offers and look forward to a career and life filled with creative possibilities!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This is the essay I submitted to the NJ Center for Tourette Syndrome & Associated Disorders (NJCTS) for their 2015 Children\u2019s Scholarship Award contest. I hope you enjoy it! Shtick is the Yiddish word for ‘weird habit.’ I am a… Continue Reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":487,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[16,69,116,188,212,216,264],"yoast_head":"\n2015 NJCTS Youth Scholarship Award Essay "Tourette Syndrome: An Artist's Journey" - Teens4TS<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"This is the essay I submitted to the NJ Center for Tourette Syndrome & Associated Disorders (NJCTS) for their 2015 Children\u2019s Scholarship Award\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/njcts.org\/teens4ts\/tourette-syndrome-an-artists-journey\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"2015 NJCTS Youth Scholarship Award Essay "Tourette Syndrome: An Artist's Journey"\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"This is the essay I submitted to the NJ Center for Tourette Syndrome & Associated Disorders (NJCTS) for their 2015 Children\u2019s Scholarship Award\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/njcts.org\/teens4ts\/tourette-syndrome-an-artists-journey\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Teens4TS\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2015-06-03T13:28:45+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/njcts.org\/teens4ts\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/06\/Brenner-Emily-15-264x300.png\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"EmilyB\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"EmilyB\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"4 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/njcts.org\/teens4ts\/tourette-syndrome-an-artists-journey\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/njcts.org\/teens4ts\/tourette-syndrome-an-artists-journey\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"EmilyB\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/njcts.org\/teens4ts\/#\/schema\/person\/6dfd0b330f39d75ceed025ee16a27dba\"},\"headline\":\"2015 NJCTS Youth Scholarship Award Essay “Tourette Syndrome: An Artist’s Journey”\",\"datePublished\":\"2015-06-03T13:28:45+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2015-06-03T13:28:45+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/njcts.org\/teens4ts\/tourette-syndrome-an-artists-journey\/\"},\"wordCount\":865,\"commentCount\":0,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/njcts.org\/teens4ts\/#organization\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/njcts.org\/teens4ts\/tourette-syndrome-an-artists-journey\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/njcts.org\/teens4ts\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/06\/Brenner-Emily-15-264x300.png\",\"keywords\":[\"A Little Bit Different\",\"College\",\"Essays\",\"Life\",\"NJCTS\",\"OCD\",\"Scholarships\"],\"articleSection\":[\"Teens\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/njcts.org\/teens4ts\/tourette-syndrome-an-artists-journey\/#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/njcts.org\/teens4ts\/tourette-syndrome-an-artists-journey\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/njcts.org\/teens4ts\/tourette-syndrome-an-artists-journey\/\",\"name\":\"2015 NJCTS Youth Scholarship Award Essay \\\"Tourette Syndrome: An Artist's Journey\\\" - 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