It started when I was cast as one of the angels to stand beside the Nativity at a church Christmas play. I was supposed to act holy, but I looked demonic. I kept stretching my neck like a giraffe trying desperately to reach for some leaves. I had a momentary relief each time, but it kept coming back. The preacher came up to me afterwards and mimicked the way I stretched my neck onstage. He thought I was joking around, but I felt my cheeks warm up like a stovetop and tried to pretend that yes, it was in fact a joke.

Normally my visits with my pediatrician were pleasant, joyful even. But that day, it was nothing but serious conversation, whispering in the private conference room as they discussed what could be wrong with me. Days later, I’m sitting in a dull waiting room with a wall of old issues of GQ and Highlights for Kids. I’m called back to an examination room where a stern-looking doctor is already there, sitting down with his legs crossed. He wore a bow tie and pants too short for his legs, so I saw the top of his argyle-pattern socks.

After he made me walk in a straight line and tapped my knees with a small hammer-like object, he ruled out anything more sinister.

“They’re called tics.” he simply stated. “She’ll need to be on medication.”

I had trouble the first few times swallowing pills, mixing it into applesauce or ice cream due to the sharp, bitter taste. But I couldn’t keep it up forever. I eventually trained myself to suck it up, because the longer I kept it in, the worse it got. The same thing can be said for my tics; I became too good at hiding them out of perceived necessity. After all, the whole purpose of taking the pills was to lessen the tics. That sent the message at an early age that my tics were not something that should be seen.

If someone did see them and ask, I would angrily deny that I did anything, a poor attempt at gaslighting my peers for my own hurt at not being “normal”. Considering how many times my neurologist told my mother that my condition would go away as I got older, all I had to do was insist it wasn’t real until I got to the point where I was nally free of it.

But that day never came.