I'd swear, but that'd be the icing on the cake.
Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, let's have a talk, shall we? We could talk about rainbows and butterflies, or kittens and puppies, or what man-whore Paris Hilton is doing this week. But I'd rather talk about Tourette's Syndrome. And how not-funny it is. Despite what people think. Why do I wish to talk about this, may you ask? Because suddenly, Tourette's jokes are the "in" thing. Hey! Look at the twichy kid! Ha ha ha. I swore? Oh, I have Tourette's. It's cool.
It's not cool.
It's not a joke.
It's a disease.
And a painful one at that, both physically and socially, if you want to know.
But you probably don't want to know. You'd probably rather keep laughing. Ha bloody ha.
You wouldn't laugh at a kid in a wheelchair. Or somebody who has lost all his hair from chemo. It's not PC. But for people with Tourette's, we seem to be fair game. Or even if it's not us personally, the condition itself. And you get sick of it- really quickly. So maybe it's not so suprising when we snap.
An interesting observation: it's guys way more than girls who think it's funny. I've known two guys who have been sensitive to someone having Tourette's: one I dated and the other has the disease himself. The others would just as soon mimic and point. Yeah, try mimicking for what it really is- uncontrollable muscle spasms. A twitch so bad that after a while your muscles hurt so badly you can hardly hold your head up. Count up the bruises from where you accidentally hit things. And if you hit a person, good luck explaining that. It's a barrel full of laughs.
I can take a lot, people. I can take teasing, and joking, and all sorts of crap at my expense, be it just in fun or for something I did. I can take poking and prodding for fun.
But Tourette's isn't funny.
It's not cool.
It's not a joke.
It's a disease.
And a painful one at that, both physically and socially, if you want to know.
But you probably don't want to know. You'd probably rather keep laughing. Ha bloody ha.
You wouldn't laugh at a kid in a wheelchair. Or somebody who has lost all his hair from chemo. It's not PC. But for people with Tourette's, we seem to be fair game. Or even if it's not us personally, the condition itself. And you get sick of it- really quickly. So maybe it's not so suprising when we snap.
An interesting observation: it's guys way more than girls who think it's funny. I've known two guys who have been sensitive to someone having Tourette's: one I dated and the other has the disease himself. The others would just as soon mimic and point. Yeah, try mimicking for what it really is- uncontrollable muscle spasms. A twitch so bad that after a while your muscles hurt so badly you can hardly hold your head up. Count up the bruises from where you accidentally hit things. And if you hit a person, good luck explaining that. It's a barrel full of laughs.
I can take a lot, people. I can take teasing, and joking, and all sorts of crap at my expense, be it just in fun or for something I did. I can take poking and prodding for fun.
But Tourette's isn't funny.