A master at concealing the twitches, tics and grunts, Brian Conaghan even fooled his wife.Photo: Stocksy
I agonised over telling her. For over a year I agonised. After all, what's a marriage without honesty, loyalty and trust? What's a marriage when one side has a secret? Not much, that's what. In 2009, I kept my diagnosis of Tourette syndrome hidden from my wife. Why?
Here's why: I was utterly embarrassed by it. I didn't want to be that guy who twitches, tics, shouts and swears all over the place. That guy people stare at in public places. I was content being that calm and affable guy. That's how I thought people saw me. I wasn't ready yet to distort this perception.
Furthermore, I was steady, comfortable in my own skin, confident. My wife's rock. By telling her about the Tourette's, I'd be chipping away at the rock, I'd be losing control of who I was, I'd be showing her my weakness.
Basically, I was scared to tell her.
I mean, how do you even go about initiating a conversation like that? I was wary of her reaction, the questions she'd naturally ask, the grilling I'd get. The thought of it terrified me. I wasn't ready to confront that.
I know now, however, that it was my Tourette's I wasn't ready to confront, not my wife. I knew that, by not telling her, I'd have an "episode" in front of her very eyes. Deep down I knew this would happen, and it did.
Here's how: midnight. On the couch. Drinking wine. I felt the pressure rising inside: I could sense the eruption coming. Conversation was white noise.
I couldn't concentrate. It wasn't the alcohol, I knew that for sure. It could only be a matter of minutes before detonation time, before my terrible secret would be unleashed. Or not. Maybe I could soldier on and conceal it one more time. No chance! Time to fashion a goodnight before projectiling my lies and deceit all over my wife.
But before I had the chance to say, "See you in the morning," it erupted: first the uncontrollable tics and neck-jerking; then the aggressive-sounding grunts, growls, barks and random indecipherable noises; finally the chest and face slapping. My wife knew me to be a happy, smiley, lovable drinker, not this twitchy, shouty, unruly guy she was now witnessing. She stood observing all this with an air of understandable befuddlement, mystification and terror. As much as I wanted to, I couldn't get the words out to explain my "episode".
The following morning came the whys and hows. While my wife demonstrated levels of understanding, protectiveness and concern that both soothed and saddened me, she also asked perhaps the most pertinent of questions: "How is it possible I never knew?"
This is how: I'd become adept at concealing it. She'd never seen the tics being shaken out of me in a loo or when no one was looking. She never heard my vocal tics when I was riding my scooter. Not once did she hear the growls, grunts or barks in noisy, congested places. In social situations, she couldn't see my curled toes or my white knuckles whenever I felt the tics approaching.
After the big reveal, some things did make sense to my wife: my incessant nail-biting, the tugging and twisting of my ears, shaking my legs, hitting myself, my inability to sit still, my impulsiveness, the stress that basic arithmetic caused. She could now relate this to my Tourette's and not solely as my cute/bizarre/annoying idiosyncrasies.
Although Tourette's came to me late in life – I was officially diagnosed at age 37 – it enabled me to understand certain symptoms I'd had since childhood. The diagnosis provided much-needed clarity and meaning to my actions.
Let's get something straight here: I'm not that happy I was diagnosed with Tourette's, I'm not happy lugging the label around on my shoulders, and I'm not happy telling people about it. But the diagnosis has had a positive impact on my life. I'm more relaxed about who and what I am, less worried about folk discovering it, or me revealing it.
In a sense, you could say that Tourette's has liberated me somewhat. Well, almost
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