I have dyslexia, Tourette Syndrome, OCD, autism, and ADHD. That's a lot, so I'll just cover Tourette Syndrome and OCD for now.
OCD is a terrifying condition to have. It is NOT a fun, quirky, or light-hearted thing to experience. It is driven by fear, anxiety, doubt, shame, and terror.
Many people withhold the impression that OCD is just about washing your hands a lot, cleaning your space, and wanting things to be clean. Yes, a person may struggle with contamination and cleaning obsessions and compulsions, but they also may experience themes around counting, checking, gruesome and frightening intrusive images, doubting one's memories, religion, gender, children, relationships, magical thinking, hoarding, symmetry and ordering, time... The list goes on.
Some people also think it's just about being tidy and wanting things to be orderly. It isn't. Those who do have symmetry and ordering obsessions and compulsions may spend hours a day adjusting, moving, ordering things which can be very stressful and time consuming.
The idea that OCD isn't that serious. It very much can be. It can be utterly terrifying, cause trauma, destroy someone's life, destroy someone's ability to function, people hurt themselves, and worse. It can be very very difficult to live with and treat.
"letting the intrusive thoughts win" is actually very incorrect phrasing and very scary for people with OCD. People with OCD can experience very very frightening and anxiety inducing, life changing, intrusive thoughts. What people mean to say is "impulsive thoughts", you had an "impulse" to dye your hair, you had an "impulse" to tidy your room. Intrusive thoughts are unwanted and people do not want to act on them.
Someone's intrusive thoughts, images, obsessions and compulsions DO NOT reflect their person, values, motives, or wants. They are intrusive and unwanted.
The greatest misconception about Tourette's is that it's all about swearing. It is not. Tourette's is a very complex, multilayered condition with a variety of types of tics. Those with swearing and other inappropriate tics experience what is called "coprophenomena". Verbal swearing/inappropriate tics are known as "Coprolalia" tics. Only a proportion on people with Tourette's have these tics - it's just that they're obvious and not accepted by society.
Some people think people with Tourette's (have to) tic all the time. This is not true. Tics naturally increase and decrease over periods of times (weeks, months, years) and can be triggered by a variety of different things. Individuals may go hours, days, or weeks without ticcing or barely ticcing. This does not mean they're suddenly cured, faking, or undeserving of respect.
Some people think Tourette's just funny, and only funny, and that it would be fun to have. Some tics are funny, but Tourette's also causes/people can experience pain, injury, overheating, fatigue, unemployed, discrimination and prejudice, harassment, bullying, sleep difficulties, depression, anxiety, repetitive strain injury, and more.
There are people who think Tourette's can spread, it cannot. It is a neurological condition that you're born with. It is not a disease that can be transferred to others.
I'll leave it at that, as I could talk about both these conditions for ages. But I don't want to overwhelm you! I hope this helps! Feel free to comment or DM me with more questions! I'm also happy to discuss my other conditions if you'd like.
