Tourette's Podcast

Our guest is Erick, a trans man and lifelong Touretter who, in navigating outsider judgments, became his own boss, found success with it, and realized that you "can't waste your energy anymore worrying about the people who try and deny who you are or what you have," as he put it. The discussion covers self-acceptance, co-occuring conditions like OCD, working in one's own, best way, and the difference between group advocacy success and exhausting, individual battles.  Tourette Gala, Nov. 10 in NYC

We talk with the eloquent Tom White, who works in the space of startups, in a great conversation covering pursuit of intellectual curiosities and how to keep momentum through often serious challenges. Plus, listener questions: 1) How do Touretters get used to ticcing in public?; and 2) When is Billie Eilish going to be on the show?  Tourette Gala, Nov. 10 in NYC https://www.tomwhitenoise.com/

We start this week with some breaking news from the Tourette Association of America: a Tourette Syndrome research study from the CDC has just landed, and it concludes that the prevalence numbers for Tourette Syndrome and persistent tic disorders are double what we previously thought. One in 50 school-age children has Tourette or a persistent tic disorder. Read more.  Our conversation this week is with superb guest host Jhonelle and an excellent guest Touretter named Shawna -- the two of them met at the Tourette Association of America's recent annual conference in Minneapolis, Minnesota, and continue to get to know one another here, with all levels of relatability. The hard times, the upsides, everything real.  And a listener question -- can Tourette positivity go too far? 

Peter Zhao -- you might know him as the great Fabulously Tourette -- takes the hosting helm for this episode featuring high school-aged guest Slayton, who has been managing Tourette in his life for about four years so far. Ben kicks us off with some quick Q&A about adults with Tourette before making way for the fantastic conversation that Peter and Slayton are able to create, with points about corpolalia, medications and side effects, bullying, creativity and more.  Fabulously Tourette Radio  My Crazy Brain (Slayton's podcast) https://tourette.org/about-tourette/overview/living-tourette-syndrome/adults/ https://tourette.org/support-adults-ts/

Let's head to New Zealand, specifically Dunedin, home to a legendary music scene whose latest name, Mads Harrop, is our fantastic guest this week. Mads' experience with Tourette Syndrome, autism and anxiety directly informs and shapes her music, which has a great early-90s quality and lyrics you'll know how to follow. Mads just released a new EP, "My Chemical Fix," easily locatable through Bandcamp, iTunes, Spotify and the like. Her thoughts on the brain, healing through music, and how she deals in public spaces are among points on this episode.  Mads Harrop on Bandcamp Tourette's Association of New Zealand

Season 8, Episode 2 follows last week's guest-host format with our friend Kass taking the reins in conversation with Lilly. They find quick connections in their respective Tourette experiences. Great discussions here about self evaluation and self care, imposter syndrome and dealing with later-onset tics. https://twitter.com/TicsnTatts https://www.instagram.com/ticsntatts/ https://www.tiktok.com/@ticsntatts  

Season 8 is here. Following our usual Episode 0, we're here with Episode 1, in which Ben steps back and Britney and Aiya take the reins. Britney (author Britney Wolf, that is) leads the conversation with Aiya, who was diagnosed last year at age 16. She knows she's always experienced Tourette, but her tics really picked up (she calls it a "tic boom") as the years progressed. This episode is great, especially for people Aiya's age, going through school and dealing with judgments. Discussion also covers co-occuring conditions like OCD and anxiety. Britney's book, Ticcing My Way Through Life

Season 8 is here! Via our traditional Episode 0, we kick it off with updated thoughts on popular listener questions. 

The Tourette community lost a hero Dec. 15, someone I named on the very first episode (Season 1, Episode 0) of Tourette's Podcast. Steve Bachner was my first frame of reference for TS. Seeing him on an episode of 20/20 in the late 1980s was my first time seeing someone else with the disorder, and there he was, Steve, being followed by John Stossel and cameras, in a shopping mall, Steve ticcing to the fullest. I remember being a little kid guffawing at people's reactions to Steve, with a least one citizen observer telling the show he assumed he was probably high on drugs. The observer wouldn't have guessed Steve was living with a disorder that throws involuntary sounds and movements. I knew all about it. I met Steve not long after at a national Tourette Association of America (then called the Tourette Syndrome Association) conference and confirmed his heroism to me. Steve was kind, funny, witty, and willing to be talk to me like a human being. I never forgot it. We reconnected after I started Tourette's Podca

The Season 7 finale episode. Our guest is Tourette scientist Dr. Flint Espil, who talks with us about the latest Tourette treatments and questions before saying something we weren't expecting. In a great way. Thanks so much to Gogo, Maddie, Johnelle, Tamara, Davide, Dan, Amelie, Winter, Jack, Mark, Sophia, Shamus, Saddiq, Christine, Harper, Flint, the other Sophia, the Tourette Association of America, Geeks Rising and so many other people who've been on or closely involved with the podcast. My mind is pried wider every day with your help. This has been the most rewarding and humbling season for me. Thank you, everyone, for listening. -Ben Dr. Flint Espil on Twitter Tourette's Podcast is made possible by the Tourette Association of America, tourette.org. Support! Tourette Gala is Oct. 28 You can give Tourette’s Podcast individual support at https://www.patreon.com/tourettespodcast Tourette's Podcast Discussion Group on Facebook

Taking risks is ... risky. Might fail, right? You don't just suddenly decide to move from, say, the midwest to Los Angeles to try and turn your talents into a rewarding career. And, lord have mercy, having something like Tourette Syndrome and comorbids like anxiety doesn't help, does it? For pop singer Harper Starling, it did. This is, in fact, her story. She uprooted, made a long trek to L.A., where she knew no one, and, as we speak, is now preparing for a three week tour of England. Harper directly credits Tourette Syndrome for where she is right now in her singing career, which include a single out now called "Not Another What If" and another soon to debut. She's really forthcoming and direct in her music and that carries through this conversation. Hat-tip to Harper's manager, the very cool Cindy Valentine, for helping to coordinate this one. https://www.harperstarling.com/# Tourette's Podcast is made possible by the Tourette Association of America, tourette.org. Support! Tourette Gala is Oct. 28 You can g

Keeping last week's episode - our analysis with tourette scientist Dr. Christine Conelea on some of the recent talk about young women and their symptoms -- in focus, this week is a referral to a response video from Tics n Tatts on YouTube. Kass, who runs the channel, adds great points. Tons left to explore with this question: has the Tourette science and treatment world gotten it wrong when it comes to Tourette and other neurological observations in women? Tourettes in Females Part 1: Recap of the Tourettes Podcast - YouTube S7 - Episode 14 - Science Episode: Revisiting the TikTok Thing, Sex Differences — Tourette's Podcast (tourettespodcast.com) S7 - Episode 4 - Is TikTok Giving People Tourette Syndrome? (Science Episode!) — Tourette's Podcast (tourettespodcast.com) Tourette's Podcast is made possible by the Tourette Association of America, tourette.org. Support! You can give Tourette’s Podcast individual support at https://www.patreon.com/tourettespodcast Tourette's Podcast Discussion Group on Facebook

Recall our episode a while back with the authors of scientific report examining why doctors were seeing reported swells of young women over the course of the pandemic with Tourette-looking symptoms, and how social media like TikTok -- by way of the tic-heavy videos posted by influential Tourette personalities -- might be a player. We're revisiting that on this episode, but from a different angle. What else might be going on? Are we getting it wrong when it comes to what Tourette looks like in females? What we examine: Are there real differences in how Tourette expresses in boys versus girls, men versus women? What's up with that observed boost in young women presenting tics? TikTok? What do we know about Tourette Syndrome nowadays from a science standpoint? How involved are Tourette patients in the conversations and work in science and medicine? Our guest is Tourette scientist (and longtime friend of the show) Dr. Christine Conelea, who has been doing amazing work busting Tourette myths and bringing clarity t

Saddiq is a radiography student and fitness Instagrammer/TikTok-er whose energy-spending workouts serve a role for his Tourette, discussed here in addition to late diagnosis, coprolalia, creativity and the stress of travel. https://www.instagram.com/saddiqhead/ Support the show https://www.patreon.com/tourettespodcast Tourette's Podcast is made possible by the Tourette Association of America, tourette.org. Support! You can give Tourette’s Podcast individual support at https://www.patreon.com/tourettespodcast Tourette's Podcast Discussion Group on Facebook

A different kind of episode this week -- all listener questions, including some day-of zingers. Should we make this an occasional thing? An all-listener-questions episode? Contact. TAA's YouTube page Ask the Expert: Tourette and COVID-19 Vaccine Support the show https://www.patreon.com/tourettespodcast Tourette's Podcast is made possible by the Tourette Association of America, tourette.org. Support! You can give Tourette’s Podcast individual support at https://www.patreon.com/tourettespodcast Tourette's Podcast Discussion Group on Facebook

Seamus Evans, an ambassador for the Tourette Syndrome Association of Australia, is a standup comedian, television and radio personality, and keynote speaker working in his experience with Tourette and the boundaries it seemed to set for him -- which he essentially laughed right past. Not that it was overnight-easy. Not that he didn't have the challenges and self-doubt and depression and everything else on the TS dinner menu. He brought all of that along and today shares what he figured out about himself. His story is so kinetic that we need a part-two. Plus: a listener question about music and concentration. https://www.seamusevans.com/ TAA's YouTube page Support the show https://www.patreon.com/tourettespodcast Tourette's Podcast is made possible by the Tourette Association of America, tourette.org. Support! You can give Tourette’s Podcast individual support at https://www.patreon.com/tourettespodcast Tourette's Podcast Discussion Group on Facebook

A small preview of the good times awaiting you on Episode 11 of Season 7, out this weekend. It'll be a good one; we're checking back in with Australia. Eyes peeled!

This is a replay of an episode from 2019 that speaks pretty well to the emails we get asking for discussion of alternative "remedies" -- and why the podcast doesn't (or does so with heavy heaps of caution). Here's the writeup that accompanied the original airing: For Episode 10 of Season 3, we've called a doctor. (Yes, one with TS.) Clay Jones, M.D., is a pediatrician with a frequent byline on the widely read Science-Based Medicine (SBM) blog and is co-host of The Prism Podcast, which explores science, skepticism and the perils of not being an informed or careful seeker of what should be life-improving solutions. That's kind of an uncomfortable subject to dig into sometimes, particularly within the Tourette community. I've heard from Touretters asking whether I've tried certain alternative "remedies" or "healing" practices, or if I know anyone who has. What's tough about that is we as Touretters don't have a wholesale, go-to, zap-it-away solution presently. And as noted in a previous post here, current insura

Tourette. Rhetoric. Tourrhetoric. We're talking on this episode with Sophia Maier, a Touretter who takes extra care and study when it comes to the shapes and tones and incisions we create with our words. This isn't just a "words matter" dialogue -- it's about really caring for the language people use and why, so loaded with implications for empathy, public policy and, maybe most importantly, reflections WITHIN individual communities to allow for criticism and growth. In focus here are Sophia's life as a trans woman, her appreciation for her own tics, coprolalia (never censored here) included, and her recognition that individual challenging factors like TS aren't enough to constitute or capture the full experience of other marginalized or mistreated communities. We're also remembering the life and work of someone we've lost -- Suzanne Dobson, chief executive of Tourette's Action in the UK. Sophia Maier: A story of transition On Instagram| Twitter| crm49@psu.edu | kbub530@gmail.com Tourette's Podcast is made

Astrophysicist Mark Giovinazzi is on the show -- a guest we're meeting almost at random. Mark, an exoplanet-hunter, sees the chaos of Tourette and the universe working nicely together. Plus: that vocal-tic feeling; and Ben has an wonderful panic attack at work. https://exoplanets.nasa.gov/ Tourette's Podcast is made possible by the Tourette Association of America, tourette.org. Support! You can give Tourette’s Podcast individual support at https://www.patreon.com/tourettespodcast Tourette's Podcast Discussion Group on Facebook