20/20 special on Tourettes

susiestar

Roll With It
I don't know if anyone saw this, but the ABC website has an episode of 20/20 that is about 4 families, each with a member who has Tourettes.

I haven't seen all of it yet, but it looked interesting. I know some of our difficult child's have Tourettes or other tic problems.

If you go to www.abc.com and click on the place that says free episodes, then click on 20/20 to watch the entire episode. You may have to install a free flash doohickey, but it only takes a minute.

I just thought some of you might be interested.

Hugs to all!
 

totoro

Mom? What's a difficult child?
I watched it when it aired.
It was actually very good. Heartbreaking but good. Heartbreaking in the sense that it would be hard to watch any of our kids on TV in all of their "glory" for all to see.
I think they did a good job though
 

jannie

trying to survive....
I was very disappointed with it. I think it was an accurate measure of challenges these kids faced on a daily basis, but I think it portrayed children who are suffering greatly from tourette syndrome. In reality, more and more children are being diagnosed with some type of tic disorder and I would have preferred if the docuementary focused on a range of levels. I would love to better educate people on tourette syndrome, but felt that this show left people feeling extremely sorry for these kids. Prior to the show airing I was thinking about telling some people about my son's tics. But now I will hold off for the time being; and revisit it when the tics are more apparent.
 

totoro

Mom? What's a difficult child?
That is true Jannie I didn't think of it on that level. K has tics, but they are medication induced, so I never think of them as true tics. But they are still tics.

I was thinking just the fact that they were addressing this topic was good.

But this is the same thing for those of us with Mental Illness, they always show the "Crazy, out of control psychotic" times... they hardly ever portray us when we are functioning and "normal"
Especially with our kids, it is only ever talked about during "Columbine" moments and so people only think about Mental Illness in this horrifying sense.

You are absolutely right.
 
M

ML

Guest
I just read this and I thank you for the information. I think manster may have this or at the very least a tic disorder. His eye blinking now has a facial component, kind of like a wink when he blinks if that makes sense. The GP suggested he see a neuorologist. My mom is freaked about it and I'm just so beaten down by finding out there's another diagnosis for manster that I don't know what to think or feel. With his weight issue, his tics and the like his need for blending in and not being noticed is shot. I worry about bullying when middle school comes but luckily that's 2 years away and so far this school he's in has been supportive.

by the way Columbine is a HS in our district so these oddities aren't always well received in these parts.

Sigh.
 
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