Question:
Tonight my very happy son "tried" to describe how much snow the mountain
has where he is going snowboarding and I noticed that his vocal and
motor"tics" have increased immensely. I thought that the excitment of
Christmas would cause an increase. But rather its the opposite. School
ended, tics lessened. School started and they increased somewhat. Then,
wham, the snowboarding thing comes through and this kid can barely
speak. Is this the waxing and waning or is it the stress of school
(which he hates) or neither one?
Answer:
Though waxing and waning account for some tic increases over longer peroids
of time, meaning at least hours, positive excitement or "good stress" can
increase tics too. I have been in situations that were entirely pleasurable
to me, and my ticcing increased then decreased when the event was over. I
think sometimes it happens as a result of the stimulation of the event or
activity. It could also be that tics lessened somewhat when he was actually
snowboarding because of the focus on the activity of snowboarding, and
increased when the activity was over as a part of release of stored tic
energy. Or all of the above. Sorry if that just confuses the issue.
I tend to have some interesting vocal tics when I go water skiing or
when I am out fishing in the middle of nowhere.
It is no big deal to me. I just let them go instead of holding them back -
what I used to do which really caused stress.
