Understanding tics and neurodevelopmental disorders through lived experience: The first-person experience and the...

For many individuals with Tourette, navigating everyday judgments from strangers and peers alike can be as much of a challenge as the tics. Tourette-awareness campaigns and the rise of social media support communities have done significant work to improve the public's understanding and acceptance of tic disorders, but individuals living with it still experience unfortunate misunderstandings about their tics -- sometimes in sensitive environments, like airports -- which makes for a nervous base-pressure that "Touretters" can feel in their day-to-day and which can inflame their ticcing. Social difficulties, and even the fear of the them, are very much a part of the story for people with Tourette and other tic disorders. The science community has done excellent work over the years in reaching out to the Tourette community to consider those daily-life experiences and better align with what people living with Tourette would like to see improve with respect to the disorder.