"Its just Badger and her funny ways .... "

It would appear that my "funny ways" are infact not quite so funny after all. Well maybe they are and maybe society just says that if you are a little odd. (Stray prefers to call it interesting) then you have to be grouped with the other 'odd' people. I however gain top of the class as I am a high functioning 'odd' person.

After many years of twitching, and playing back sounds from my environment at regular intervals whenever the need arises in me I have been given the badge TS.... (Tourettes Syndrome). Hmmm,... but I don't swear! Gosh, if I could count the number of times I have been told that I would .... well, I would run our of fingers for starters. Telling someone with TS they DONT have it because they don't swear is I suspect what makes people take up swearing out of pure anger toward peoples ignorance.

I watched a video of when I was 7,.. well actually it was my eighth birthday party but I prefer to say 7 because I am all for staying young. In the video I am certainly slightly peculiar. I watched it feeling like I was looking at someone else. That shrimp child certainly could not have been me. What I did notice however was that I had a definite blinking and head twitch even then. This made me think.... after being told by my housemates over and over that I have TS and strongly denying the claim, a little creeping thought of "maybe I do, and if I do its only a badge, it doesn't suddenly mean I am not me anymore" came into play. My psychologist believes that I do, however I have to see the psychiatrist again to confirm it. I am little confused at what a "diagnosis" infact means to mouse nor man. Or chicken, or peacock, or whatever animal I happen to take on when the sound crops up. I notice the little whistle I tend to slip in at the end of my noises is almost like some sort of socially acceptable disguise to clucking like a chicken. Like the whistle somehow takes away the embarrassment I feel at sounding like a farmyard.

Part of my denial of having TS was that I could suppress the tics for periods of time... but alas that too is common in TS sufferers. "Suppression of tics is possible, yet can lead to an outburst afterwards" - ding! (insert light bulb here)... damn. It seems that every get out clause I look for just impacts the fact more.

I am not sure why I am so desperate to deny that I may be a TS sufferer. I like to think that I am in total control of what I do, not that my brain is a little back to front. Having been through periods in my life where I hardly twitch or make sounds at all, I hold onto some hope that the urges will succumb over time. This was again another reason for my denial, I would strongly claim that I never ever used to be this bad. I can recall it being consistently worse since I was diagnosed with PTSD, which again makes total sense according to the TS Society.

Yesterday evening I realised that my noise mimicking was infact something to be admired and indeed a great skill. I like to think this means I am also a far better singer than I ever thought I was. I like singing. I am just a little shy. I got a new Apple Laptop yesterday (and yes it is very beautiful), when you start it up for the first time it plays a little space tune to you. I could mimic it perfectly, it was like magic. One listen and bosh I was that Apple making that very space sound. If you had closed your eyes you would not have known the difference.

Therefore TS is not something bad, or indeed a flaw with my brain. I have in fact been gifted.