Tourette's is funny. There I said it. And I'm allowed to, because I have Tourette's Syndrome. And guess what? I'm about to tell you how you have Tourette's too. Oooh, not so funny now, is it?

This site is mainly a collection of citations of people using Tourette's in a colloquial way. This whole mess started because I had a hunch. I thought I remembered someone usnig the phrase "political tourette's" to describe a politician saying something when they should have self-edited. So I turned to the web. The first thing that came up was an episode of Jon Stewart where Lewis Black said that Glenn Beck has "Nazi Tourette's". At that point, I knew I was on to something.

I began searching methodically for every combination I could come up with. Each unique phrase became a different type of "tourette's" that people were self-diagnosing. Some produced more results than others -- "social tourette's" gets way more use than "laughing tourette's". I began to compile a list of every use I found. And the more I searched, the more the list grew. "artistic tourette's", "musical tourette's", "shopping tourette's" (my mom came up with that one). Though it didn't have enough usage to make the cut, my personal favorite is "math tourette's".

To be clear, mostly the people using Tourette's in this colloquial way do not have Tourette Syndrome. But what was important for me was the way people were using Tourette's as a bridge toward understanding their own odd behaviour. They seemed to understand that Tourette's is about impulse control, and they leveraged the official diagnosis to legitimize some behavior that made them self-conscious and uncomfortable.

I can really identify with this. For me, being diagnosed with Tourette's was both oppressive and freeing. Initially I was terrified. Now I had a syndrome -- some name pulled from the pages of a medical book. Mostly I had questions: Will I get sick and die? Will I be able to get a job? What do I do now? But as I learned more about my new friend, Tourette's, I came to realize that I was really quite lucky. This disorder does not kill or mame, it meerly annoys. Don't get me wrong, Tourette's is a pain in the ass. But along with the difficulty comes a hyper-active brain and a ton of potential creative energy. And having an official diagnosis was a weight off my shoulders. Now when someone asked me "why do you keep doing that?" I could say to them, "I have Tourette's". My diagnosis was ammunition for me to defend my weirdness.

This is what I think people are doing when they use Tourette's in this casual, non-clinical way. I don't see them trying to belittle Tourette's (there's plenty of that in the media already -- i.e. Duce Bigelow or Tourette's Guy). What I see in the citations I have gathered here is people using Tourette's as a shorthand for explaining an urge that seems beyond thier control.

I hope you enjoy reading through them as much as I enjoyed collecting them.

Cheers,
Andrew Frueh, 2014

p.s.
Remember that Tourette's Syndrome is classified as a disorder for a reason. We have different brain chemistry and we cannot always control what we do. This can be extremely embarassing, can really eat away at one's confidence, and cause a lot of pain for the person with Tourette's. This can be especially bad if the individual is not diagnosed and has no explanation for their odd behavior.
If you know someone that you think may have Tourette's, remember that there is a lot of quality info on Tourette's Syndrome out there, and there may be a support group in your area.

p.p.s.
If you want to see my other work, or contact me, visit my website: andrewfrueh.com