EDITOR’S NOTE: Every Tuesday, noted Tourette Syndrome advocate Troye Evers shares his “52 Weeks of TS” blog journal with the TSParentsOnline community. With just 8 weeks remaining in this series, there’s a chance you missed one more entries from his exciting, revealing journey. You can read all of them here. For more information about Troye, please click on his name or visit his website.
The cabin fever has set in. I need to leave my apartment. I need to leave my neighborhood. I want to go back to work. It’s interesting how the pages have turned. Something that seemed so simple has actually brought on more anxiety. I mean, yes, I don’t have to deal with other people, and their germs, but I am going to go crazy if I have to spend too much longer in my house.
There are little things around my apartment that are starting to drive me crazy and agitating me. As soon as the agitation starts the tics come on more, and its little things. I’ve spent the last week watching stupid TV shows and movies, and every half hour the radiator comes on with a blasting hissss that makes it almost impossible to hear the TV. Therefore, the TV volume has to go up to an almost disrespectful level.
Sitting there watching TV and watching two of my dogs just pace around the apartment — clip-clopping against the wood floor, back and forth, back and forth, and they won’t lie down. It’s driving me nuts. I’ve taken them out for walks, and I’m just starting to realize that they’re like the energizer rabbit — they just keep going. The clip-clopping and the radiator hissing is like nails on a chalkboard, and it’s causing me to tic more.
I think I’m just getting to the point of boredom. I’m finding things that agitate me because I’m so bored. There’s really only so much TV to watch before you get bored of it. I have tried to write and play video games, but the truth is I need to get out of my apartment before I go crazy. I actually need to be in the company of other human beings, even though they might have germs.
I will actually give into my OCD for an intelligent stimulating conversation with something other than my TV or my iPad. Don’t get me wrong, I could do this with my husband, but I’ve spent the past week with only him. I’d like to talk to someone else for a change.
I’m actually surprised my anxiety is not any worse than it is. I still have to say, the fish oil is doing a remarkable job. I’m officially off the Klonopin as of this week, and I cannot say that I really feel any difference. It makes me wonder what it was actually doing for me. It didn’t help with my anxiety, it was just something I put in my body twice a day that my body was probably immune to. However, that’s the thing, even when I first started taking it, I never really noticed it helping with my anxiety. I hope that the fish oil continues to help me, I kind of like the anxiety-free lifestyle.
It was somewhat hard to write this week’s entry. Even though I started 52 Weeks of TS as an educational platform for people to understand what a person with TS goes through every day and every week of their life, I have found it hard to write about myself. There are so many people without homes and electricity, I feel selfish about talk about myself.
Until next week, “I’ll tic to you later.”
