Daily Overview: Thursday April 20th

Yesterday practically ran into today. What day is it again? That’s been my week.

Tics were moderate in the afternoon.

Face (bad), Jaw, Wrist.

It was slow in terms of new business but a productive and otherwise successful day.

Many things on my mind. Among those things was a headache, just as I reached the end of my day and began traveling home.

I said goodnight to the kids, tucked in my fiance, and fought through the headache, struggling for the better half of a session until I could find the willpower to focus.

As you will observe, this was not an easy one. After reaching peak activity I held for as long as I could before finally showing myself mercy and letting go.

Only one game this session. Sleep = #1.

YGTSS: 20

HRT (Habit Reversal Training) Exercises:

Competing response exercise, awareness exercise, and a relaxation exercise.

DAY 15 SCORE:

BEST SCORE: (A)

Hm. NOT terrible.

Today was the most mentally drained I’ve been since beginning my neurojourney. I could have taken a second rest day, but I wanted to see what I could do while tired at 11PM with a headache, as it could be representative of a challenge or unexpected task that can’t wait- which happens often. When these situations arise, I know I can fight through it, buckle down and get it done.

I often tell myself, and more often our kids, “If the reward was great enough, you’d make it happen no matter what excuses you have.”

I try to make no excuses and treat every responsibility as if the reward was life changing, because in essence, and in the long run, it will be.

Other than that, I could keep rambling on here about really anything. Just to keep things in perspective, I’ve battled this for 17 years. I’ve experienced short periods of time in which tics have gone nearly dormant. In contrast, there were other times when tics became nearly seizure-like in nature.

I’ve explored almost every possible path of relief, from FDA approved medications to self medicating. I’ve experimented with nootropics, ********, and even shock therapy.

Through an initial fundraiser campaign, I pre-ordered and received the very first wave of “Pavlov” (Pavlok) shock watches, in an attempt to train myself out of tics in this way. It definitely served as a great alarm clock in the morning but because my girlfriend of the time found it disturbing, calling it masochistic, I decided to sell it and move on.

It’s not the last time, however, that I would buy products for self-electrocution. Later on I bought a prank “pen” to zap myself when I felt a tic coming. While I found this to be a nice distraction, it died quickly, and I didn’t bother buying another one.

I was going to share some heavy details with you today, but I retracted it for another time. It is too much for one report and we have a lot of case study left. Again, I will mark as such when a report or post will contain sensitive content.

You know something? It’s pretty cool of you to read this. So thanks for reading.