Shout Out To The Kids Who Tic

I posted this on my Tumblr a few days ago, but I figured I might as well post it here, too, because it's important to me, and may be important to some of you, too, so here, have some positivity:


Shout out to the autistic kids with Tourette’s

Shout out to the allistic kids with Tourette’s

Shout out to the kids with Tourette’s that have no comorbid disorders

Shout out to the kids who have so many comorbid disorders it sometimes feels like you’re drowning

Shout out to the kids who have very soft, tiny tics, and shout out to the kids who scream and punch things when they tic

Shout out to the kids with self-injurious tics, shout out to the kids with palilalia, echolalia, coprolalia, shout out to the kids who don’t fit into any pre-determined categories and shout out to the ones who fit in ALL the pre-determined categories

Shout out to the kids whose doctors try to de-diagnose them, shout out to the kids still waiting for a diagnosis, shout out to the kids whose parents or teachers or classmates tell them they’re faking, to the kids who are starting to wonder if maybe they are faking, shout out to the kids who are happily and firmly diagnosed and who are fortunate enough to have supportive kith and kin, shout out to the kids who never have to doubt that they’re telling the truth

Shout out to the kids who’ve been ticking since age 2, shout out to the kids who didn’t start ticking until sixteen, shout out to the kids who grew up and don’t tic anymore, shout out to all the adults who were told they’d stop ticking at eighteen but never did, shout out to the kids whose whole family tics and shout out to the kids who happen to be the first Tiquer in their family line

Shout out to the kids on medication, to the kids who never took medication, to the kids who tried medication and decided it wasn’t for them, shout out to all the kids who were prescribed medication they never should have been offered and ended up worse off because of it, shout out to the kids on medication who love their meds, shout out to the kids on medication who still tic because suppressing and managing isn’t the same thing as curing

Shout out to the kids with 504s and IEPs, and shout out to all the kids who live in a school district that won’t acknowledge them, shout out to the kids who can’t afford a diagnosis, shout out to the kids whose parents don’t believe them when they say they can’t help it, shout out to the kids who made their parents listen

Shout out to the kids who have to educate others every day of their life, to the kids who have to explain their disorder to every substitute so they don’t get yelled at, to the kids who are raising their voices and forcing the world to take note, and shout out to the kids who are shy or timid, to the kids who would rather blend into the background and not have to fight to be accepted.  

Shout out to the kids who laugh at their own tics, who cry about their tics, the kids who hold it all in until they explode at the end of the day and the kids who just let everything flow and don’t care who sees.  Shout out to the kids who struggle to get by, and shout out to the kids who are living well, and shout out to all of you living in between.  

Shout out to all my fellow Tiquers out there, the ones that have Tourette’s and the ones that Tourette’s is trying to take–you are strong and beautiful, and every day that you get through, no matter how difficult, no matter how strenuous, is a day that you become stronger and more vibrant.  There’s no wrong way to have Tourette’s, there’s no wrong way to respond to your overactive nervous system, you are doing you, and the you you are doing is perfect just as it is.  I believe in you, and you should believe in you too.

I am here for the kids who tic

Things I Learned Making My First Two Podcasts

1.  Websites are dicks

     Before I put up my podcast I tried to make a website, and I bought a one dollar domain from GoDaddy, because I'm a broke idiot with stars in my eyes who didn't realize that you had to pay extra money to attach that domain to a website, and since I have no steady income right now I basically can't use my own domain.  Lesson learned.

2.  No one cares

     As with any project placed into the public realm, it's an uphill battle to get anyone besides yourself to care.  My first podcast sat for an entire month before anyone deigned to listen to it once, and I didn't honestly expect much different--my writing persona is relatively new and no one is going to be as interested in your work as you are, at least not for a long time.  Sometimes you're an overnight hit, but much much more often, it'll take a lot of work to get yourself off the ground.
     (But that doesn't mean you shouldn't try.  You just have to push harder.)

3.  You'll put in more hours than you'll get out

     I knew this going into it, of course, but I didn't realize quite how much time would go into it.  I figured I might have to spend two hours on a half hour episode, and I was wrong; between writing and rewriting the script, rehearsing and recording it, and editing it all together, I'm fairly certain I put somewhere between seven and fifteen hours into that first episode.  The second episode took me nearly ten hours, and it was only seven minutes long!
     The time you put into it will increase the quality, of course--if I didn't want to put in the time, I wouldn't have started the podcast in the first place.

4.  There's no need to be afraid to show your kith and kin

     In general, I feel better about sharing things I care about with strangers than with people I know.  Part of this is because, yes, I know, consciously, that we are allowed to ask for attention, but I grew up in a society (and environment) where it was frowned upon, and it's a lesson I've internalized very deeply, so I try not to talk too much about what I'm working on except in passing.
     Another part is that disapproval from people you care about hurts more than it does from strangers.  And, the biggest deterrent for me, I grew up in a small mostly-white farm town in upstate New York, which means I know a lot of conservatives, which, if you've spent a lot of time on my blog (or any time on my twitter), you know I'm not.  By a long shot.  To that end, I write a lot of not-conservative things, with a lot of liberal themes and characters.
     My mother's family is also extremely religious, so they frown on things like cursing, which I do often, both as a matter of neurology and as a conscious mood/character choice.  To that end, I'm often reluctant to share anything I write with them.
     But in order to show the podcast to one of my friends who wanted to listen to it (and who co-starred in the most recent episode), I had to post it on facebook, where all of those fears were just waiting to come screaming up to devour me!  ... and didn't.  Actually, I got a pretty positive response from my friends, both the ones I've made out here and the ones I left back home.  It's really nice to know that my efforts are appreciated, and no one's said anything negative at all.  Just goes to show that sometimes people can surprise you for the better!

5.  My voice is higher than I thought

     This makes sense, since I'm hearing my own voice as it sounds echoing inside my skull, but it's still jarring, and since my MC is supposed to have a deeper, more gruff voice, I have to keep that in mind whenever I record.  It helps to listen to do a test recording or listen to each take once its finished to remind myself that I need to go higher/lower.
     Basically, as a general tip when listening to yourself in recording, be prepared for your voice to sound different from the way it usually is.

6.  Screwing around with Audacity is sometimes the best way to get stuff done

     Honestly, sometimes tutorials won't give you what you need.  I found a number of tutorials for creating a robot voice effect when I went looking for it, and none of it worked--they all sounded like robots, to be sure, but they weren't clear enough, and I wanted the character to be well-understood, and also to retain some of the flavor of her voice--not too robotic, in other words, just robotic enough.  So I had to mess around with things until I did, and it turned out great!
     Never be afraid to mess with your equipment--just make sure you save the pre-editted version, just in case.

And that's some of the stuff I've learned podcasting so far!  It's an adventure.