Anybody else have tics?

Post Reply New Topic

[quote="MacYavel83"]I had tics when I was a kid, much less now.
]

Same here.

No, I have been lucky in this respect. When I stim it is very small finger movements that most do not identify as unusual behaviour.

I blink a lot and have facial scrunching. Not sure if this is a tic or a stim, though.

I have one definite tic where I tug the shoulder of my shirt. Did it since I was a kid.

I have quite a few of them, some completely involuntary (like head jerks and fluttering/tremors in muscles all over my body) and some voluntary in the same sense scratching an itch is voluntary, like repeating phrases such as "pax vobiscum" when I'm upset or angry at myself. many of mine are attributed to my conversion disorder, which is an extreme stress response which is likely related to my ASD but also to other stress factors in my life.

I bite my lips and snatch small chips of skin from them. I continually "count" my teeth with my tongue. I play with my fingers, stacking them in awkward positions. Would it count as a tic that I write words with my middle finger on table tops? It's always just one word at a time, but I can repeat it dozens of times.

I shook my head rapidly and blinked my eyes a lot up until I was 19years old. Now I just tic my head sometimes when I eat certain foods.

Had various tics throughout my life but never ever really thought of them as tics in the tourette's sense - like a lot of this stuff, just something I did that felt natural but knew I should hide to avoid being singled out. I screw my eyes up (and also do that eye rolling thing with lids shut), sniffing and screwing up my nose, used to crack my jaw a lot as a teenager but not anymore. Also used to make a strange constricted swallowing noise a bit like a hamster or something. I'm a compolsive finger tapper but not sure if that is maybe more of a stim thing.

Listing all this out together it seems impossible that I never recognised what I was doing was tourette's/AS type tic behaviour but, like all the other symptoms, I think I am learning now just how much I have been able to lie to myself over the years and write off all the questions I would ask myself about my behaviour as just my overactive immagination. Denial is great...until it breaks down.

I have facial tics. Gets me a lot of looks from strangers that pass by. They probably think I'm making faces at them.

When I blink a lot I know a seizure is coming. It's interesting to see similarities in tics and complex partial seizure jerking. Or even simple partial that looks just like stimming.

when i think too hard on something i get an electric sensation at the base of my skull and my head jerks to one side...when I'm talking while that happens i normally stammer.... though i believe it's a side effect of the medicine i was talking earlier in life.

I have the shoulder shrug/twitch thing and it has got a lot worse over the last few years. It is annoying and does draw 'funny looks' from strangers if it happens in the supermarket etc. I have found that clenching my left hand and releasing does help somewhat - I read that in an article about professional footballers who say it helps them relax if they are taking a penalty or free kick - but it doesn't stop it totally. I bought one of those neck collar shiatsu massage things which does provide some short term relief from the twitching too. I have recently switched to Citalopram from decades of Prozac as it is supposed to help with anxiety, but to date it hasn't made much difference. I could really do without it, but it is quite possible that I am stuck with it.

Anybody have any techniques/strategies/vitamins etc that have helped?

Cheers

Yeah I hate them but I have shoulder twitching and head jerking sometimes noises. When I was younger I used to twitch my nose and stamp my foot uncontrollably