EDITOR’S NOTE: The following post was entered on our Facebook page the other day. It’s from the leader of an online community called Collectively Conscious, who has Tourette Syndrome and associated disorders such as ADHD.
I would just like to share that I, myself, was diagnosed with Tourette Syndrome as a child — kind of like a more intense case of what doctors term ADD or ADHD. And for years they tried to suppress it with medications like Valium, Clonidine, and eventually, when it was at its worst, Haloperidol (Haldol), an anti-psychotic.
The first two made me feel as if I was hardly alive, hardly present — like I was walking through some sort of dream. But the last one, Haloperidol, nearly killed me. I woke up one morning, a few weeks after being on it (age 12) and couldn’t move a single muscle in my body, except for my eyelids.
It took 6 weeks for me to relearn how to use my muscles and become stable again. I have since never taken any medication for my disorder. Instead, I discovered that all I needed was a way to let the energy out, a creative medium to channel it into, which in my case became drawing with colored pencils and playing the piano.
Then in my late teens, I discovered that singing was another powerful way to release excess energy. And in my early 20s, after living in a monastery in Nepal for a couple months, I discovered through meditation, yoga and diaphragmatic breathing exercises that deep within I have the strength to calm my mind and control my body as much as I need to — so long as I eventually channel the built up energy somehow before it becomes too intense. Now, in my mid-20s, I hardly even notice my tics anymore, they are mostly muscular and are very mild.
It is my personal belief that energy disorders such as ADD, ADHD and Tourette Syndrome is simply evolution of the human nervous system, perhaps brought on by certain environmental challenges in the modern world — and, unfortunately, exacerbated by lack of understanding in society and lack of wisdom as to how to address the excess energy in our children by natural means.
Just because they don’t fit into society, doctors tell us they have a disease and therefore it needs to be suppressed and controlled with medication so they can stop bothering everyone already… and sadly, even worse, so they can make a buck before people start to realize it is not even a disease!
Quite the contrary, actually. It is a gift to have so much energy. Teach these children to harness it, and to use their energy for good, to use it to create. Do not attempt to suppress it, please. :)
I love this, would love to know more about your thoughts or wisdom around things likes seizures.