Kids With Tourettes: In Their Own Words (Tourettes Documentary) | Real Stories

this is a documentary about Tourette syndrome and how to live with it Tourette's affects one in a hundred children mostly boys really knows why people get trash and swearing on public and things so [ __ ] I just cried I was sad I'd lost part of my son there is no cure for turrets but there is treatment the six months we followed three boys through behavioral therapy at London's Great Ormond Street Hospital what you're about to hear is their story in their own words you just watch yourself [Music] my favorite thing is face face face [Music] what I want to be when I grow up he's an astronaut to go to go out and out face [Music] we first started with your what did you start with eyes i tick yeah because you get new ones all the time that yeah different ones mmm gets me like no really hurts and then it's like getting a pack of cards and then keep them getting new ones were from time I'm a packet Callum is nine years old he's he's great little boy he's smashing personality very affectionate and a real mummys boy I've got took me and sometimes when I do my nature it they don't mean go round the down I normally hold something yeah if I'm crossing a road or going around straight it's really really hot yeah so this is my solar system poster what my numbered me like impression of an alien with Tourette's could be [Music] phone sex [Music] hello my name is Connor and I looked at all but I happened to have Tourette's syndrome which is a condition where I can't help shouts where or dream lose munch I want nothing I feel [ __ ] dehydrated ok down and we'll get you a drink soon [ __ ] bear dude do you like this one not like dad you're a bloody [ __ ] Luke why are you in a [ __ ] paddy right yep I told the world I've given my Tourette's a name I call my tracks Johnny cuz it's Johnny who shouts or swears and me who doesn't show us where he makes anything so I can't help and I don't want to do and but at the end of the day I've got to fight him and deal with him freak Connor loving caring funny sensitive draws you Matt pushes you to the limit and the next minute you makes you proud to be a parent yeah and then he'll push you again somewhere else you definitely got it there when I'm out on the street with my Tourette's I'd be quite scared because if someone in a hoodie Frances they look quite grim and not very nice my shout pull your pants up to them then things like that where's the shitty coffee shop we're going to managing quite well cut around town today may I think yeah I think they pushed I'm in my coffee in my pocket [Music] you're going cafes or even some occasion your bar and it's not me quite busy and then it goes quite quiet and then you get the looks of disgust or the smiles and then slow one by one they disappear and you end up sat your own we're going to be when I grow up is a doctor you know to help other people and I would love in my life to just save a life [Music] the tips I have is a complex tick here you're a grimace and briefing and make this noise I'm very anxious and my tics have got bad so I'm gonna come back and do some origami I feel like thinking that's annoying why doesn't he stop and we're getting bearish about that but I won't do that I can't there we go we're gonna make a jumping frog my biggest fear is that the Tourette's escalates into swearing we live in fear of this this happening every day because that's the way it's a retz is isn't it from one day to the next from one minute to the next you don't know if things could change for him like we're seeing you now and we can't hear anything but we know that you guys could leave tonight and bang a little bit of a new tip and it could be anything it that's the key that's the the frightening of the condition definitely it could change just like that so have you got any less patrol at night so anything coming up soon yes yeah we're going to great Orleans great this one thing also to happen at Great Ormond Street is when I lead the sessions I want to be able to cope through the rest of the time I have Tourette's syndrome [Music] would you say some around thank good that was your plate bed it just started but I had it when I was quite young and I didn't have it diagnosed I didn't diagnose I recently and he said he's got at that I'm strong my fingers and I think by the age of about nine we were really doing motor movements he do funny planting with his fingers and doing all this sort of thing and by that point we really realized things were not quite right and then Marvin took me to the doctors to ask what's going on and they didn't really know what about Texas but my nan came with us and she said is there a possibility that it could be Tourette's [Music] he then referred me to Great Ormond Street [Music] he does come out with some extremely strange expressions that he doesn't actually understand himself it's it's weird and I've learnt a lot when he comes to visit us we usually get a little bit of a bombardment at the beginning and it'll he'll fling his arms around me say hello give me a kiss and say Danny's a porn star I've adjusted by finding a lot of it amazing and if we're upset at all we come home and do that privately [Music] at Great Ormond Street their therapy program for kids like men we're doing ministry we have a specialist Nashville to clinic we also do some group therapies the idea of which is improving acceptance and education around ticks and and encouraging the children to get to know each other and accept the condition that I can make some friends with Tourette's rectal friends definitely like some friends you feel angry and when I use a bad word or get out a lot of anger doing it which would then I then feel really relaxed or I did it which but I don't like shouting and swearing I don't like sharing the swearing at people when they first started swearing you didn't take a breath and think oh my gosh now what am I going to do and at that point I don't think I was even able to support him at those first couple of days I just the emotions took over and I just literally cried for two days and whoever spoke today here they come um yeah I just cried I was sad I'd lost part of my son [Music] [Music] this place eventually used to decode the messages we're not I don't fancy you prick [Music] I mean being kind of used to spend most Sunday's together to use to cover me all the time I say they put where Pacific honor does crap over the driver that's a joy we eat yeah most the time enormous fun we occupy the children as we're going along nice boy boy lawyers I think anyway w ell [Music] I used to wonder why me why did it have to be me when I first got Tourette's the noise was a kentucky clap my mum was a bad habit are going to and she kept saying please can you stop that their dinner table at that time i didn't know it was Tourette syndrome I didn't know he never told me that it hurt him not to do that the tics I would say something that we're at the dinner table now you don't make noises and to think now that he would hold those in and he would be in pain I wanted to as well but I just couldn't at that point and I think she was a little upset the main emotions meow feet would be anger I'm just angry because he has it because at the end of the day Tourette's is a disability and no one wants the their child to be disabled [Music] sorry you gay person actually tell you what move over there like I'll just show myself funny [ __ ] you can't help but do movements it's almost like so if you have an urge to do something it's like a volcano almost if the volcano doesn't explode the world will blow up and if I don't do my chicks I get angry and cross and stressed it's you know quite hard to deal with but I guess I've just gotta go through it you can't really control him whether a remote controller cuz he was just born winner and you can't help the way he was born carry my [ __ ] drummer boy okay I'm gonna get some water body has been a physical today's society the way people are the way things are people aren't forgiving if he was to blurt something and then try and explain why I blurted it they wouldn't listen if he said it's the wrong kids at the wrong time you can end up in a mess that's what worries me is him getting physically and that will also hurt him mentally no I don't want that to happen Connor is very sensitive I don't know if you'll totally understand it if he gets a puzzle opportunities a real good kicker which is she's quite likely it's gonna get I have a one to one session with trial wrapped with my vocal tic power known different techniques about how to calm it down a bit you know why we're going today don't you yes I [ __ ] have any idea how I was going to do it what do you think to it because if they're trying to help you suppress your tics I think it's good there will be times Connor I guess in life when you want to be able to not tick so you can hear what someone's saying if it's like you know shut the [ __ ] up [Music] come on through another seat follows you and your mother likes it there I'm gonna sit beside you so there are two different therapies the approach we're using with Connor is called hyper reversal training what we're doing is getting him to be very aware of his chicks and then getting him to use competing responses so his tics can't come out no what I really want you to do is get the ceiling but you want to knock that over okay and yes not not over okay so before you knocked it over did you get that wave feeling going through your arm in your head okay yeah we're using a different approach with Callum because Callens younger and he has a variety of different tics we're using an approach called exposure and response prevention as many the vocal take that's bothering you is that right yeah okay you know when that's about to come Kevin can you feel it coming yeah for some reason okay you know that stomach rising feeling can we call that a tick signal yeah okay yes okay and how annoying is that tick beam in the last week 1 million 1 million okay 1 million so the exposure part is that he's exposing himself or getting used to the tick signal so he has that feeling and he sits with it and the response prevention is that he's preventing their response and the response is a tick okay so can you press Start and I'll start my time Eric Adam oh we press Start for me right here we go we're on two seconds we're looking good we're looking good with Marco we attempted some hyper reversal training so let's just do this for three minutes okay cue to breathe more in through your nose thanks for your minds but interestingly being involved with his breathing for the vocal t actually activated a lot of his tics and I think probably they've had an interaction with anxiety huh 80 seconds 81 seconds 82 seconds thank you you're one of my top tick suppressors for the first session you know I I think with his confidence he's quite a confident boy but this has knocked him down a little bit this vocal tic he's gone from like a confidence level and it's just plummeted at the moment and he said to me how he doesn't want to go out how he doesn't want to be seen in public or you know it just absolutely awful [Music] hello this is how the people stare at me that's how if it's annoying and sometimes I just wanna go in there and tell them my output tracks instead of people because the animals just ignore you because they really can't say anything near near three minutes this is just brilliant if you can sit there and look at that and just monitor your wave what I'd like you to do is tell me between zero and four how strong it is four is when you actually hit it and knock it off zero is if you were sitting over there and you couldn't get any feeling of wanting to do it how much is that wave feeling now or four okay so you really want to do it but you're not doing it you're sitting with the connor okay to stop myself thinking it's usually very hard I have to sort um blow my cheek out hold my breath tense of my muscles and french fries up and just sort of think sort of have to be angry and that stops it what I'd like you to do is put your both of your hands under your legs and what we're going to do is wait until that feeling that for reduces let's see if it does okay that's probably a mum please come in Connor Connor doing a brilliant job he has done so well I am so pleased that I can tell you and and when I asked Connor and that's the trick work we've been doing getting stronger and stronger mark oh yeah it's not going away at all really and the next piece of work with marco will be to help him manage his worries which in turn then we'll help him manage his chicks this is so fantastic and you know what you're getting used to that feeling in your tummy you know that your tummy is not going to explode just forgot to press it there but well actually I think it was probably three minutes and 54 seconds let's form a new chafing four minutes and I'm one side okay look everybody that's two hundred and forty-one seconds that is so amazing yeah it's quite surprised that you have so four minutes without a vocal tics so we've got a lot of homework to do I think Tara's give me a magic one it's a little bit hope you come come be coming back up my you coming right let's come us bedtime so quiet he's that calm down time we'll just say what happened say whether he starts ticking or not starts take it off to go live with him and that will probably be off an hour to an hour wake up dad isn't rough up wake up here you captain dad wake up that if I had a magic Foreman I would take away all the illness ears and put them in an open above vote and put it in another one just to make sure then don't get out every time someone catches something it automatically goes in there yep decided to get Marconi back because he had a wooden frame bed before and he used to buy it on the wood this is this is what's left of the headboard and you can see there are bite marks both front and back where his literally jumped into it he didn't want to tick he didn't want to make the noises and and he got really scared and initially he you know he particularly at night times thing when things were bad for him just didn't want to be on his own okay so the Gert stuff going really fun good I'm really good good the groups have been really handy because I've always wanted to meet someone with dreads and I finally got to meet some interests the group sessions are going fantastic and made a lot of friends with Tourette's syndrome and I think we're all happy we're all learning well I always check door is locked or not I always close the window Marco does have OCD it's not it's not a bad OCD but nevertheless it's it's that OCD and unfortunately it's something that comes along with the Tourette's syndrome Tourette's never seems to travel alone unfortunately so what I have to do with the kettle is if it's like flying around just from a cup of tea maids I get very they just feel so wrong for it to be there rather than this original place I always put it back on there it makes me feel better and I always get anxious that something's Bad's gonna happen or someone bathroom come through especially at night it's when I'm worried the most I'm just gonna go shut the front door now [Music] with me I got OCD but I'm not sure if that came along with the tourettes but when I started making noises I did stop together worries when I'm worried I get stressed out and of course when I get stressed out I take a look thank you thank you very much what was it that you're worrying about being roped okay and sometimes you check the back door is that door I'm the front door as well would that be every day you do that what I thought would be really helpful was that if you did some work on your worries that that would help your tics a bit more and just help you to be more relaxed and that's worry generally and and that would be a really good thing for you but the nice thing is that actually treating worries is even easier than treating tics how's the window but where did you close the window where to and I think one of the things to do will be to know when you're starting to get worried about that and then help yourself not to close the window and I guarantee you that those worries will get smaller and smaller and then after you've been practicing it for a while you'll come in and you'll see the window open and you say yeah there's the window open I don't mind okay how do you fight stick is is have to suppress it try not do it haha not on that are you ready it helps to take your mind somewhere and think about something else if you try and keep plugging away and see how we get on but you do have to duck it's really hard six minutes you go in you're doing really well one minute [Music] yeah [Music] last known three and a half minutes Oh tonight I have done my best ever and I done ten minutes nine seconds and 7.7 decimal seconds [Music] so this session with Connor I really hope he's been able to build on the last session I hope he's been able to practice using his completion response which would you rather use color the ball the ball and what I'd like to do is build his confidence that he can do it not just here in this therapy room but that he's going to be able to do it in day to day life how much do you want to hit that off the table okay and are you feeling the tick signal where are you feeling it when we down all the way down into your arms the future worries me a lot because I could different things could happen I could get attacked the swearing at someone tomorrow and yeah it does worry me so you can actually feel it reducing just went back up to two dinners okay back on one you are doing a brilliant job here I don't feel a need to do any more you don't feel the need to do it anymore okay that's great five minutes hmm we don't feel the need to do it at all no you have just managed to get rid of a whole take on her what do you think of that that's good that's really good brilliant is there one day where we be kind of being able to get rid of ticks and have no ticks hiding out there we go there go there we there you go there you never know one day we might we might we might dare to think mother the bottom [ __ ] he's got my porn ring can someone move this I never put it on not once I've never put it on because if I do put it on then it doesn't help me so the more than because then if I do do it it's a bit like when the boy cried wolf he lied about it and then when he did do it when it did happen no one believed him so if I put it on then no one's gonna believe me when I do do it properly we haven't told nan what's happened where's the napkin out I mean I'm sorry and he's a wanker the pressure on him to do the tips to swear out loud I mean it's something he can't resist actually painful to him I don't blame car oh that must alright stop you stop honest but you do you it's a pressure much ease but just for five minutes just to calm me down and just try very hard once you realized that he's got to complete or achieve that dick you're feeling really goes out to him and I don't actually ever feel offended by anything that he does you can't he's got a problem that he finds hard to deal with so I'm certainly not going to make it worse for him I've got to deal with it too all right don't worry about it it was deliberate was it you sure we need to Connor we need to make the object a bit more enticing and short of putting a glass there for him to smash the objects we have found think about how you feel think about so it's a 10 yes right into 10 can you tell me whether you feel the wave as soon as it's Irvan way can you feel it now come right start your work I understand how it's hard for mom and dad because I've walked into a room after I've been tickling she's been crying and my dad's been crying and I've never seen my dad cry in my life and it's um it's sort of it sort of breaks you and sort of thinks that it sort of makes me think that it's further they have to deal with it but they deal with it so well and it's just weirdest okay well you haven't thrown it so if you can sit whoops okay you surrender sin and go through it and it's horrendous thing he was so exhausted at the end of it I hate it absolutely hate putting through it but it's supposed to be for good so hopefully it gets us somewhere no cover me you know I'll get worse how does it make you feel ill makes you feel sick have you got your headache or what a headache it's just tough it's tough to watch him go through it is it's tough but it works by the end of it and we actually get somewhere where do we go from here I don't know [Music] [Music] all the all the things we could have wanted to happen have happened they're very comes with each other and I think is fantastic it's almost like the Tourette's and the tics don't exist for these kids at the moment they are just getting on and having a good time bowling since my treatment at Great Ormond Street but the method could the competing response having no why there weren't with ease it hasn't exactly worked for me so I've adapted the method to suit me so since then all's been going fabulous well these days when I feel it coming I I ever do times tables just only or a meson because I love my mouth think of some great times I had with my beautiful family and that really does help me suppress my tips I'm finally feeling to see the people in the church as hopefully we'll stay in contact a bit worried let's believe in ourselves okay say why haven't you been to the library what do you have to be in the library quiet and what have you found really difficult in doing [Music] it's book series Wow Oh what's your favorite planet actually yeah actually Lowe's every single one of my favorite no curate how are you doing good so look how far we've come tellin ya look how far you've come you're in the place where you know you have to be really quiet we've done really really well 47 million so you've done wow that is a big whale miss Benson oh wow wow wow before miss Fiona X was controlling your life didn't you yes so you think's in control with the threats now how long now lately expected I don't know I think it's gonna be 50 something nearly 51 minutes so done Wow trying to get an hour up waiting trying to move I need 10 more minutes you know I mean my mom minutes don't know how long you don't know right this is a moment the truth dummy Helen why bring me to a big one now I know you don't so if we go outside come in yep better [Music] [Music]

Channel: Real Stories

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Rating: 4.8869557 out of 5

Keywords: Documentary Movies - Topic, BBC Three documentary, tourettes, Amazing Documentaries, timeline, BBC 3, kids, Extraordinary people, Documentaries, Sky, Full Documentary, Movies, PBS, Full length Documentaries, Channel 4, Channel 5, Topic, Amazing Stories, only human, transgender documentary, tlc, michael vey, Real Stories, ITV, BBC, torettes, TV Shows - Topic, touretes, BBC Three, Documentary, children

Id: e8LiiezkAkQ

Length: 45min 47sec (2747 seconds)

Published: Tue Dec 27 2016