Tourettes Syndrome and how the media portray it

Is the media giving Tourettes a Syndrome a bad name to the public?

Now Tourettes and Epilepsy are nothing to be ashamed of as people have come to accept these a lot more than say, 50 years ago where you would be looked down on for been different to the rest.

Sadly, in some cases this is still the same. Now obviously people have there own right to look at other people to try and figure out what is the matter with them, to a certain extent. Not to the point where they make rude faces are actually come up to you and tell you to stop.
I myself have Tourettes Syndrome and have been diagnosed now for nearly 4 years. I have Coprolalia

Now it is hard enough trying to walk down the street without groups of people asking me to stop ticing and swearing in public without people like this 'Tourettes Guy' pretending to have Tourettes when he obviously does not have, going into stores and public places with a video camera and purposely verbally assaulting everyone he sees, his sentences are most of the time well structured and in Coprolalia the sentences if said, bear no sense or meaning.


Image from aleuranthropy

And as this 'Tourettes Guy' has become so popular on video streaming sites such as Youtube and Google video, the media has gained a stereotypical view on Tourettes that is involves swearing and bad manners.

Now I know for a fact that 'coprolalia occurs in as low as 5-15% of patients and 5-30% in some clinical series' quote from Tourettes Disorder.com. Now another thing people tend to think as they see me or any other Tourettes sufferer with Coprolalia, is that it is amazing to have, and 'so much fun' and the amount of times I have had to argue this fact is quite amazing, literally hundreds of people have come up to me and said 'Wow you have Tourettes that must be so much fun' and even when I explain it is not, they don't take it seriously.

It is quite obviously not fun having to explain to someone you didn't mean to utter some rude comments at them and that you don't want any trouble all the time.

I have been in some tricky situations thanks to my Tourettes and none of them where fun at all, some even life threatening.

I am sure many of you who live in Britain like I do, have watched Big Brother, and know that somebody with Tourettes Syndrome was on one of the series, called Pete Bennett. He wanted to get his confidence back up and so wanted to show people he was not ashamed of having Tourettes Syndrome so he went on Big Brother and won it, but one of the reasons was public appeal because the public thought Tourettes was 'cute' I don't know how Pete himself felt about this, I would like to know. But it is not cute, it can be funny sometimes yes, I know for a fact some things or actions I do make people laugh and can cheer the day up, but they are laughing with me, not AT me, but it is not cute.

Pete been on big brother has helped raise public awareness of Tourettes Syndrome, hopefully for the better. But more needs to be done


Image from pete-bennett.co.uk/

For those who have to fight on with Tourettes (like me) because no medication will work on them, it is a daily struggle made harder because of the way the Media portrays Tourettes Syndrome, and the way the public view it as because of the media. This does not make it any easier.

And I want to increase awareness about Tourettes Syndrome to everybody that reads this.

And with enough public understanding, maybe this will reduce the stress of our lives (people with Tourettes Syndrome) while walking out in public.

Thank you all very much for reading this and I hope you take your time to visit tourettes-disorder.com/ and read up on Tourettes Syndrome, I am trying to increase awareness of Tourettes and stray it out from what it is been portrayed as in the media.

Thanks for reading, i hope you've learn't something from this,
Regards,
Mark