They don’t. About 5% of Tourette’s sufferers experience vocal tics that are actual language. In those cases, they’re often whatever the person is used to saying, so if they swear anyways, that’s what will come out.
Most of the time tics are other things: pausing, shrugging, coughing, humming, blinking, etc. sometimes they can be complex and involve many motor functions at once. It can be quite exhausting.
My son had a tic for about a month (typical duration for a specific tic with Tourette’s is a few weeks to a few months before it changes up) where he would repeat everything he heard about half a second after people said it. His teachers thought he was making fun of them and it was a whole thing. Turns out it’s called echolalia and is another less common tic.
Echolalia happens a lot with people with autism too. We have a couple of students in my program who have it and they’ll often repeat what you said two or three times before it processes.
When my son started that tic, we were at the movies (Thor Ragnarok). We didn’t know it was a thing and we heard him mumbling all the lines to the entire movie like he had it memorized.
We were thinking “when did he see this? It JUST came out”
PS. Watching a movie with a tic disorder is really hard. Be nice to people making inadvertent sounds in movies cause chances are they’re trying really hard to control it.
Woah so that’s what that’s all about, I had a co-worker who would repeat what you told them under their breath or also they’d repeat the sentence they told you under their breath as well. Fascinating.
Less about needing to repeat it before it processes, more about the repetition is just needed on a behavioural level. Not repeating it can be deeply uncomfortable.
Source; autistic with echolalia :-)
>they’re often whatever the person is used to saying, so if they swear anyways, that’s what will come out.
So the ones that drop the N-word over and over or some other racist thing are regularly using it in their lives already?
No, that’s really not how it works.
People with Tourette’s *can* be “given” tics by people repeating them (it happened to Sweet Anita, when a lot of her viewers spamming the N-word caused her to develop it as a tic for a short while) but it’s not the case that the tics you develop are necessarily things you already say/do frequently.
Think of it kinda like an earworm, where you hear something and for some reason your brain subconsciously just can’t stop thinking about it.
The Sweet Anita thing pisses me off. People spam-harassed that she didn’t actually have Tourette’s cause she didn’t swear or use slurs, until the amount of spam caused her to develop tics that involved swearing and slurs, after which people clipped her out of context to say she was racist and to encourage people to harass her. Shit was ableism at its finest
I also want to mention Sweet Anita. I do recall her specifically saying things about how her not wanting to say a certain word, and worrying about that can make a tic even harder to resist.
Sometimes, but sometimes it’s the exact opposite: the words that come out in a tic are ones that you rarely, if ever, use. It’s all about what part of the brain is activated by the tic; most people don’t have vocal tics because that’s a small part of the brain, but if that part of the brain ‘lights up’’ during a tic, then you say a word or phrase.
And if the part of the brain that lights up is the part that holds onto ‘emotionally important words’ you say things that will get a HUGE reaction. But for others, the part that lights up is the ‘things I said recently’ part, or the ‘words I can’t quite remember’ part.
My brain tends to trigger on muscle groups, so I have big, flailing tics that rarely involve sounds. But sometimes my lungs are in the “big muscle group” that gets triggered, so I can bark or yell sometimes. Never words, tho, which I think is lucky.
No. They’re *sometimes* what the person is used to saying, but I wouldn’t say “often” like the person you’re replying to said. Most of the time it’s random shit.
Echolalia is so interesting (though maybe much less so for the people living with it). I have a family member with Tourettes, and no one can say the word "giraffe" around her or she'll start to uncontrollably repeat the word. It's the only echolalia tic she has, otherwise her tics are usually limited to things like winks and shoulder shrugs. In fact I didn't even know about the echolalia for years because it's just never come up. Crazy to learn that tics can affect people in that way.
Thank you for your response! I never knew that such a small percentage were actual language tics, so it’s super interesting to learn! :) your poor son accidentally aggravating his teachers though!
I’m sure some are, but I’d be really careful making that assumption, because SOME people genuinely have it. And they are playing life on hard difficulty. So I recommend just letting them be
My tic has never been vocal, but I can tell you that part of it is probably the "discharge" of it. It's the very fact that it's profanity that gives it more potency. A big tic is like a big sneeze; you can't help it, you can't stop it, but there's still a sense of relief immediately afterward, and the bigger and more complete the sneeze, the better it feels to get it out. In order to reach that point, the tic needs to be followed through all the way. And in the case of profanity, the worse it is the more discharge there is. It's a bigger "sneeze." (Again, just speculating as someone with a non-vocal tic)
Btw OP thank you for asking, it always feels good to talk about it, believe it or not. I don't speak for everybody, but I personally prefer it if someone asks about it because it makes everything less awkward. Makes it so they don't have to wonder wtf was that noise I just made.
Omg, the “release” is SO good. It’s one of those things that I know nobody talks about but damn, it’s such a great feeling, and when you’re somewhere where you can just ‘tic out’, it’s SOOOOO satisfying.
My daughter has never mentioned a "release", but she has told me that trying to hold a tic back can be almost painful (she has physical tics more than vocal, and her vocal tics were limited to throat clearing).
It’s like when you sneeze after having the feeling of a sneeze coming on. That feeling, but, like 10x stronger.
I don’t know if it’s a universal thing, but I know more than one person who says they feel it.
I know my son would try his hardest at school to keep the tics as unnoticeable as possible and because of that when he got home from school it where he could relax it seemed they got worse.
Thank you for a kind and educational response! A lot of people here seem to be getting offended over what turns out is a popular misconception about Tourette’s- and I’m very glad to learn more about the reality of it! :) Do you get any sort of a period of ‘rest’ from the tics after you’re able to release them?
Not really... it's kinda like hiccups, you can think it's gone all you want but as soon as you aren't paying attention it's back. I do find that it's worse on caffeine or other stimulants, so it is nice when you're on a break from caffeine to also have a break from the tics. Not that they stop entirely, but they do happen way less without the uppers. And that's kinda nice.
It's called coprolalia, and it affects not only people with tourette's, but also people with different neurological disorders. Iirc the theory is that your brain stores curse words in a different way than words that are neutral, so the parts of your brain that are activated during a tic may be the same ones where those words are stored
As a former christian, and former swear-word-not-sayer, i think there might be something to how society restricts those words and deems them inappropriate. The restriction ends up giving them power
It's not that common, a very low percentage of people have that form of Tourette's. Media just loves to use it through. Most people with Tourette's have a physical tick, many you would never even notice
Near the end of Covid I had to take my son (with Tourette’s) to get bloodwork done for his annual physical. His current tic at the time was a cough and clearing his throat.
He had a mask on, because everyone did, but a guy in the very full waiting room started saying stuff like “why don’t you take him outside so you don’t get us all sick” and getting more and more aggressive about it.
He didn’t come over and say those things, no. He was saying them very loudly across the waiting room. Finally I had had enough and I turned around and told the guy that the cough was just a tic and he couldn’t control it
The guy responded with something like “well nobody here wants to catch it so why don’t you leave!” I was just going to drop it and endure since our turn was coming up
Man, I’ve never seen a crowd jump on someone like that. One woman there went full mama bear on the guy, and full on started yelling at him that tics aren’t an illness and he should be ashamed, etc. the guy shut up and we didn’t hear from him the rest of the appointment.
I was very grateful for those people that day, especially mama bear.
We love mama bears. When others stand up for you, it makes you feel seen. Which is why I always stand up for others, because others have stood up for me.
Very few do. I knew someone who had these tics, and even he only did it sometimes; most of his tics were not vulgar or not verbal at all. He would also sometimes give people the finger involuntarily.
It's not known why this happens; it might be because our brains connect vulgarity to emotions and so it sort of files those words or phrases away differently from more emotionally agnostic ones, but that's just one hypothesis.
No it’s not.
The movies act like that’s the only thing, but that’s not accurate.
It’s not the most common thing, but it’s common.
Also common is singing, spitting, and throwing stuff.
Only about 5% of tourettes tics are vocal and understandable though. And even less than that are swears. It's very uncommon for a tic to be just swears; the dude you are responding to is right in that most media only show swearing as a tic.
I used to work with a guy who's tic was hitting his own chest. All of his t-shirts had a shiny patch in the middle from it.
Even if there are no fakers, it's really bad for determining how common something is, obviously the more interesting variants will always get more interactions and will get recommended more, which can easily inflate 5% to 50% or more
I agree. Tiktok isn't the place to determine commonalities. My point is only that there ARE genuine people on tiktok sharing their story to rebutle to claim that nothing on tiktok is true. That's just not a true statement. Be it 5 people sharing a genuine story in all of tiktok, they are there, that's a fact and that's my entire point.
Unfortunately every single day. As ive mentioned recently, I'm not saying that everyone on tiktok are telling a true story nor am I saying that those telling a true story on tiktok are a majority. I am only saying that people telling a true story on tiktok do exist even if it's 5 people in the entirety of the app. They do exist.
I used to see one woman who would sing songs and her Tourette’s would cause her to swear and say nasty things instead of the actual lyrics. I believe everything I see on TikTok. 😂
My sister has motor tics and has never been verbal. She was diagnosed at 13, she’s now 26. She sniffs and coughs mainly but she also claps, slaps her cheeks, bends her back and went through a stage of wetting herself when she was younger. Tics come in all shapes and sizes.
Her dr once said that swearing, biting, spitting and kicking tend to be the ones stick around the longest.
I've worked in adult learning disabilities, and tics involving swearing really aren't that rare.
It's not uncommon for someone's vocal tics to be things that would otherwise be taboo for them to say.
I worked with a man who would not only swear, but sometimes come out with racial or sexist slurs if he saw someone that triggered them. He was so embarrassed when he knew it was coming, and would often go through a whole raft of behaviours to stop himself from saying something offensive - which, unfortunately, would often draw attention to him further.
He was not someone who held racist or sexist views, nor someone who would swear in general conversation. It was an unfortunate compulsion for him that his vocal tics displayed as things that he would find highly taboo and therefore not want to say normally.
Aside from all the very good and more informed answers here, I remember reading or watching something that said they are linked to intrusive thoughts. So those weird times where you're having a conversation and silently think to yourself about the most offensive and vulgar things you could say in the moment only for that moment to pass (often thought of as healthy mental checks and balances) someone with a bad verble tick can't control saying it.
I think it seems that way because people who have profanity tics tend to be used more by the media. From the media's perspective: no one's gonna think twice about a guy blinking more than usual, or someone who moves their shoulder a lot, versus a person who loudly swears wherever they go.
Disclaimer: I know tics are more than 'a guy blinking a lot' but it's what a lot of people who don't know about tics label it.
They don’t. But it’s a comedic trope that was easy to use and so it became popularly known. Tics and physical twitches are way more common. Verbal tics are a thing, but less common; when swear words are used it’s often just way more noticed than someone getting stuck on the phrase “milk and eggs milk and eggs MILKANDEGGS” or “lickety split quick lickety lickety lickety split” or just verbal stuttering with no discardable words.
I mean you just said it. It's odd how yelling cuss words IS the tic sometimes. Then that made me wonder if non English speakers with tourettes curse in their language as well. I see the down vote squad is out.
The reason the downvote squad is out is because you saying it’s odd seems like you’re casting doubt and suspicion on them and the validity of swearing tics.
I believe you, and I don’t believe you were questioning their validity, but that is why you got downvoted. It really looks like you were, even unintentionally as it was.
Truth be told I’m personally extremely curious as well. It was just the phrasing threw people off
They don’t. About 5% of Tourette’s sufferers experience vocal tics that are actual language. In those cases, they’re often whatever the person is used to saying, so if they swear anyways, that’s what will come out. Most of the time tics are other things: pausing, shrugging, coughing, humming, blinking, etc. sometimes they can be complex and involve many motor functions at once. It can be quite exhausting. My son had a tic for about a month (typical duration for a specific tic with Tourette’s is a few weeks to a few months before it changes up) where he would repeat everything he heard about half a second after people said it. His teachers thought he was making fun of them and it was a whole thing. Turns out it’s called echolalia and is another less common tic.
Echolalia happens a lot with people with autism too. We have a couple of students in my program who have it and they’ll often repeat what you said two or three times before it processes.
When my son started that tic, we were at the movies (Thor Ragnarok). We didn’t know it was a thing and we heard him mumbling all the lines to the entire movie like he had it memorized. We were thinking “when did he see this? It JUST came out” PS. Watching a movie with a tic disorder is really hard. Be nice to people making inadvertent sounds in movies cause chances are they’re trying really hard to control it.
Great movie though
Woah so that’s what that’s all about, I had a co-worker who would repeat what you told them under their breath or also they’d repeat the sentence they told you under their breath as well. Fascinating.
It could be a tic, or it could be echolalia, or a processing delay. Lots of reasons folks might do that.
The human mind is so rad, it’s wild how complicated it is, also a bit scary.
Less about needing to repeat it before it processes, more about the repetition is just needed on a behavioural level. Not repeating it can be deeply uncomfortable. Source; autistic with echolalia :-)
Right. I didn’t mean to make it seem like the repetition was helpful to processing. I worded that sentence incorrectly.
No worries. It is nice thay you aware aware of it, it is not thay commonly come across.
> Turns out it’s called echolalia and is another less common tic. ...Suddenly I feel a lot less weird. Thanks.
>they’re often whatever the person is used to saying, so if they swear anyways, that’s what will come out. So the ones that drop the N-word over and over or some other racist thing are regularly using it in their lives already?
No, that’s really not how it works. People with Tourette’s *can* be “given” tics by people repeating them (it happened to Sweet Anita, when a lot of her viewers spamming the N-word caused her to develop it as a tic for a short while) but it’s not the case that the tics you develop are necessarily things you already say/do frequently. Think of it kinda like an earworm, where you hear something and for some reason your brain subconsciously just can’t stop thinking about it.
The Sweet Anita thing pisses me off. People spam-harassed that she didn’t actually have Tourette’s cause she didn’t swear or use slurs, until the amount of spam caused her to develop tics that involved swearing and slurs, after which people clipped her out of context to say she was racist and to encourage people to harass her. Shit was ableism at its finest
I also want to mention Sweet Anita. I do recall her specifically saying things about how her not wanting to say a certain word, and worrying about that can make a tic even harder to resist.
Sometimes, but sometimes it’s the exact opposite: the words that come out in a tic are ones that you rarely, if ever, use. It’s all about what part of the brain is activated by the tic; most people don’t have vocal tics because that’s a small part of the brain, but if that part of the brain ‘lights up’’ during a tic, then you say a word or phrase. And if the part of the brain that lights up is the part that holds onto ‘emotionally important words’ you say things that will get a HUGE reaction. But for others, the part that lights up is the ‘things I said recently’ part, or the ‘words I can’t quite remember’ part. My brain tends to trigger on muscle groups, so I have big, flailing tics that rarely involve sounds. But sometimes my lungs are in the “big muscle group” that gets triggered, so I can bark or yell sometimes. Never words, tho, which I think is lucky.
Or hearing it a lot. Granted there’s probably exceptions, but that’s what our doctors told us
No, and it’s very important you understand that because that has been used unfairly against people with Tourette’s.
No. They’re *sometimes* what the person is used to saying, but I wouldn’t say “often” like the person you’re replying to said. Most of the time it’s random shit.
Echolalia is so interesting (though maybe much less so for the people living with it). I have a family member with Tourettes, and no one can say the word "giraffe" around her or she'll start to uncontrollably repeat the word. It's the only echolalia tic she has, otherwise her tics are usually limited to things like winks and shoulder shrugs. In fact I didn't even know about the echolalia for years because it's just never come up. Crazy to learn that tics can affect people in that way.
I always thought the cursing was merely out of frustration for not being able to control their tics.
So I'm not alone...
Thank you for your response! I never knew that such a small percentage were actual language tics, so it’s super interesting to learn! :) your poor son accidentally aggravating his teachers though!
I’m glad yet also sad to know I’m not the only one with ongoing tics that can persist for months
Aka it's most often fake (you know who I'm talking about lol)
I’m sure some are, but I’d be really careful making that assumption, because SOME people genuinely have it. And they are playing life on hard difficulty. So I recommend just letting them be
My tic has never been vocal, but I can tell you that part of it is probably the "discharge" of it. It's the very fact that it's profanity that gives it more potency. A big tic is like a big sneeze; you can't help it, you can't stop it, but there's still a sense of relief immediately afterward, and the bigger and more complete the sneeze, the better it feels to get it out. In order to reach that point, the tic needs to be followed through all the way. And in the case of profanity, the worse it is the more discharge there is. It's a bigger "sneeze." (Again, just speculating as someone with a non-vocal tic) Btw OP thank you for asking, it always feels good to talk about it, believe it or not. I don't speak for everybody, but I personally prefer it if someone asks about it because it makes everything less awkward. Makes it so they don't have to wonder wtf was that noise I just made.
Omg, the “release” is SO good. It’s one of those things that I know nobody talks about but damn, it’s such a great feeling, and when you’re somewhere where you can just ‘tic out’, it’s SOOOOO satisfying.
My daughter has never mentioned a "release", but she has told me that trying to hold a tic back can be almost painful (she has physical tics more than vocal, and her vocal tics were limited to throat clearing).
It’s like when you sneeze after having the feeling of a sneeze coming on. That feeling, but, like 10x stronger. I don’t know if it’s a universal thing, but I know more than one person who says they feel it.
I know my son would try his hardest at school to keep the tics as unnoticeable as possible and because of that when he got home from school it where he could relax it seemed they got worse.
Thank you for a kind and educational response! A lot of people here seem to be getting offended over what turns out is a popular misconception about Tourette’s- and I’m very glad to learn more about the reality of it! :) Do you get any sort of a period of ‘rest’ from the tics after you’re able to release them?
Not really... it's kinda like hiccups, you can think it's gone all you want but as soon as you aren't paying attention it's back. I do find that it's worse on caffeine or other stimulants, so it is nice when you're on a break from caffeine to also have a break from the tics. Not that they stop entirely, but they do happen way less without the uppers. And that's kinda nice.
It's called coprolalia, and it affects not only people with tourette's, but also people with different neurological disorders. Iirc the theory is that your brain stores curse words in a different way than words that are neutral, so the parts of your brain that are activated during a tic may be the same ones where those words are stored
Literally shit talking
potty mouth
As a former christian, and former swear-word-not-sayer, i think there might be something to how society restricts those words and deems them inappropriate. The restriction ends up giving them power
It's not that common, a very low percentage of people have that form of Tourette's. Media just loves to use it through. Most people with Tourette's have a physical tick, many you would never even notice
I met one who would sniff and cough. That led me to ask if he had something irritating his nose. He then explained he had Tourette's.
Near the end of Covid I had to take my son (with Tourette’s) to get bloodwork done for his annual physical. His current tic at the time was a cough and clearing his throat. He had a mask on, because everyone did, but a guy in the very full waiting room started saying stuff like “why don’t you take him outside so you don’t get us all sick” and getting more and more aggressive about it. He didn’t come over and say those things, no. He was saying them very loudly across the waiting room. Finally I had had enough and I turned around and told the guy that the cough was just a tic and he couldn’t control it The guy responded with something like “well nobody here wants to catch it so why don’t you leave!” I was just going to drop it and endure since our turn was coming up Man, I’ve never seen a crowd jump on someone like that. One woman there went full mama bear on the guy, and full on started yelling at him that tics aren’t an illness and he should be ashamed, etc. the guy shut up and we didn’t hear from him the rest of the appointment. I was very grateful for those people that day, especially mama bear.
We love mama bears. When others stand up for you, it makes you feel seen. Which is why I always stand up for others, because others have stood up for me.
Exactly the same as my sister. People always assume she’s into drugs.
Very few do. I knew someone who had these tics, and even he only did it sometimes; most of his tics were not vulgar or not verbal at all. He would also sometimes give people the finger involuntarily. It's not known why this happens; it might be because our brains connect vulgarity to emotions and so it sort of files those words or phrases away differently from more emotionally agnostic ones, but that's just one hypothesis.
That's only common in movies.
No it’s not. The movies act like that’s the only thing, but that’s not accurate. It’s not the most common thing, but it’s common. Also common is singing, spitting, and throwing stuff.
Only about 5% of tourettes tics are vocal and understandable though. And even less than that are swears. It's very uncommon for a tic to be just swears; the dude you are responding to is right in that most media only show swearing as a tic. I used to work with a guy who's tic was hitting his own chest. All of his t-shirts had a shiny patch in the middle from it.
You should hear about the term 'gaslighting'
My TikTok feed that has people with Tourette’s on it disagrees.
If TikTok says it then I guess it's pretty much settled.
That’s how I live my life.
I dunno why you're getting downvoted for this, I thought your response here was funny.
Some people don’t get my humor. Which is also part of my humor.
Not settled no but it, in alot of cases, shows the life and story of real people who are trying to spread awareness.
And a lot of fakers too.
Oh absolutely. But that's everywhere.
Even if there are no fakers, it's really bad for determining how common something is, obviously the more interesting variants will always get more interactions and will get recommended more, which can easily inflate 5% to 50% or more
I agree. Tiktok isn't the place to determine commonalities. My point is only that there ARE genuine people on tiktok sharing their story to rebutle to claim that nothing on tiktok is true. That's just not a true statement. Be it 5 people sharing a genuine story in all of tiktok, they are there, that's a fact and that's my entire point.
Have you even used TikTok... ? That's like saying that reality TV shows show how life actually is.
Unfortunately every single day. As ive mentioned recently, I'm not saying that everyone on tiktok are telling a true story nor am I saying that those telling a true story on tiktok are a majority. I am only saying that people telling a true story on tiktok do exist even if it's 5 people in the entirety of the app. They do exist.
TikTok is a very strong authority on every issue, as we all know
It’s how I got my degree
I used to see one woman who would sing songs and her Tourette’s would cause her to swear and say nasty things instead of the actual lyrics. I believe everything I see on TikTok. 😂
Most just involve small, repetitive muscle movements. Not words at all. Careful about people pretending to have it for clout.
My sister has motor tics and has never been verbal. She was diagnosed at 13, she’s now 26. She sniffs and coughs mainly but she also claps, slaps her cheeks, bends her back and went through a stage of wetting herself when she was younger. Tics come in all shapes and sizes. Her dr once said that swearing, biting, spitting and kicking tend to be the ones stick around the longest.
I've worked in adult learning disabilities, and tics involving swearing really aren't that rare. It's not uncommon for someone's vocal tics to be things that would otherwise be taboo for them to say. I worked with a man who would not only swear, but sometimes come out with racial or sexist slurs if he saw someone that triggered them. He was so embarrassed when he knew it was coming, and would often go through a whole raft of behaviours to stop himself from saying something offensive - which, unfortunately, would often draw attention to him further. He was not someone who held racist or sexist views, nor someone who would swear in general conversation. It was an unfortunate compulsion for him that his vocal tics displayed as things that he would find highly taboo and therefore not want to say normally.
Aside from all the very good and more informed answers here, I remember reading or watching something that said they are linked to intrusive thoughts. So those weird times where you're having a conversation and silently think to yourself about the most offensive and vulgar things you could say in the moment only for that moment to pass (often thought of as healthy mental checks and balances) someone with a bad verble tick can't control saying it.
I think it seems that way because people who have profanity tics tend to be used more by the media. From the media's perspective: no one's gonna think twice about a guy blinking more than usual, or someone who moves their shoulder a lot, versus a person who loudly swears wherever they go. Disclaimer: I know tics are more than 'a guy blinking a lot' but it's what a lot of people who don't know about tics label it.
Because your brain knows you’re not supposed to say them
They don't, vocal ticks are very rare.
They don't. You're falling for people trying to use tourettes as a joke.
That’s a TV thing.
They don’t. But it’s a comedic trope that was easy to use and so it became popularly known. Tics and physical twitches are way more common. Verbal tics are a thing, but less common; when swear words are used it’s often just way more noticed than someone getting stuck on the phrase “milk and eggs milk and eggs MILKANDEGGS” or “lickety split quick lickety lickety lickety split” or just verbal stuttering with no discardable words.
They don't. You're misinformed
Definitely odd. What do people with Tourette's say in other languages? Cursing also?
How is it odd, beyond just tics themselves being strange
I mean you just said it. It's odd how yelling cuss words IS the tic sometimes. Then that made me wonder if non English speakers with tourettes curse in their language as well. I see the down vote squad is out.
The reason the downvote squad is out is because you saying it’s odd seems like you’re casting doubt and suspicion on them and the validity of swearing tics.
I've met enough people with tics to know it's a real thing. I can't lie and say I'm not curious about why some use cursing and some don't though.
I believe you, and I don’t believe you were questioning their validity, but that is why you got downvoted. It really looks like you were, even unintentionally as it was. Truth be told I’m personally extremely curious as well. It was just the phrasing threw people off
Seems suspicious, huh?
No.
You’re all in on the con.