Tourette syndrome can be an obstructive, distressing disorder. But sometimes knowing that can be a big problem when people begin to use it as an excuse.
I read not too long ago the account of a young man with Tourette's. His sister was worried because her brother would physically assault her new fiancé. He had never really been violent before, although he was known to have a short temper. This woman was very upset, and her fiancé was terrified of this man who had attacked him with knives and bits of furniture. This was blamed on Tourette syndrome.
Another tale I read on the net was about a woman who was considering divorcing her husband because a severe tic meant he kept staring at women. She said it had become embarrassing, and her husband made her friends uncomfortable. This was also blamed on Tourette's.
I've approached this sort of case with a lot of sympathy and a small but precise sense of skepticism. Quite awful things are being blamed on Tourette syndrome, and they are affecting lives. The biggest problem I see here is that these sort of things are dismissed as "just part of the disease".
It's a bit like my disagreement with the world's foremost Tourette researcher - Dr Comings. According to his readings, these sort of behaviors are common in Tourette syndrome. Having experienced the condition myself, however, I think we're saying too much.
What can we say about Tourette's in order to "defend" it in this instance? Well, we know it's a neurotransmitter disorder. The two major ones are Dopamine (and its derivatives), and Serotonin. Serotonin, is mostly mood altering...a "happy" chemical. Dopamine is the one we're looking at. The theory with dopamine (for a better description, go here) is that Touretters have too much. And this excess means that any brain signals that are sent are strengthened. We know this works with movement (motor tics) and sometimes thoughts (mental tics), but this might work with emotions as well. If this is true, when a Touretter feels something they would feel it more strongly than others.
However, I have heard many Touretters complain that they don't feel emotions, they get tics instead.
So where does this leave us?
Touretters get more emotions, because of high dopamine, but they get stronger tics because of emotions and dopamine so they'd get higher emotions and...
It's a circular argument. Not only that, it's a cumulative circular argument. Every time you pass through the cycle it gets more severe.
If this were true (and I'm not saying it isn't) then any small emotion would turn into a crippling bout of tics and a passionate rage. A small fright would lead to paralytic terror, a joke could spark off lung spasming laughter. So obviously this isn't always the case.
Could it be the case sometimes?
The answer is "I don't know" and that's why I get so confused with these cases. It is possible that a dislike of your sister's fiancé, coupled with a rage disorder, and Tourette's, and the exact "right" circumstances could cause you to rush him with a knife.
Likewise, a severe motor tic involving the eyes, plus Tourette's plus the forbiddeness of gawking at women could make you endanger and embarrass people in order to ease the tic.
The other two circumstances could be too hard to face.
1) The Touretter could be using the condition to excuse inappropriate actions.
or
2) The reporting person could be over exaggerating in order to achieve something.
I don't like to accuse people of this, so I'll always take the Tourette's is an evil condition stance,