Photo via @meowmons/TikTok
November 29, 2021, 2:51 pm
A TikTok user and self-advocate for people with Tourette’s Syndrome caught an unfortunate bit of discrimination that she often has to endure in public on film when a woman began yelling at and threatening to call the police on her due to her uncontrollable swearing tic. A common neurodevelopmental disorder, Tourette’s is characterized by both motor and verbal tics, or sudden rapid movements or vocalizations, that often go unnoticed by those unfamiliar with tic disorders. Sometimes these tics involve the vocalization of certain words including those deemed “bad” by the public in a condition known as coprolalia.
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Those uneducated about Tourette’s can react negatively to this type of tic, and unfortunately, when ego or something comes into play, will often express disbelief or make false claims about the disorder when confronted with the truth. This occurred on one bus in Australia even after multiple other people came to the defense of TikTok user @meowmons.
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“Footage of how a woman threatened to call the police on me for swearing tics, this is the reality of discrimination,” the video description reads.
According to the user, a woman on the bus challenged her to “stand up and let all your swearing out like a brave one” when she started having coprolalia tics, which “offended” the other lady. When she tried to explain her condition, the woman suddenly transformed into a tic disorder expert, as people apparently often do when called out for being ignorant on this subject.
“That’s not a normal reaction from someone with Tourette’s,” she said to the woman with Tourette’s.
While it may not be common, coprolalia occurs in about ten percent of Tourette’s cases, and for those who have it, it is absolutely a normal reaction.
Thankfully, multiple other people on the bus stood up for the woman with Tourette’s, shouting down the other woman and assuring the former that she had done nothing wrong. She offered her thanks to these bus riders and encouraged other people to do the same, saying that “if you come across these attitudes please don’t be a bystander.”
Just after this, however, the magical Tourette’s understander says she’s going to call the police over some swearing. When they both exited the bus, she informs MONS that she actually tried to call “but her phone didn’t work,” which everybody believed, wink wink.
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Unfortunately, this is not the first time that this TikTok user has felt the need to defend herself in public from people who think they know everything about Tourette’s syndrome when they actually know nothing. One of her first videos shows another woman who appears to be exiting a public transit area claiming that “if you had Tourette’s you wouldn’t be able to argue and said you had Tourette’s,” which is nonsense as the disorder has no effect on one’s ability to argue outside of the tics.
This woman and her partner also defaulted to pretending they know more than someone with the disorder than someone who has it as well as pretending that they were only harassing her about it for her health and safety. The man even claimed that he wanted her to “get home safely,” a common excuse and infantilizing statement often uttered by able-bodied and neurotypical people who are confronted by disabled people for being ableist.
According to other TikTok users with tic disorders, this kind of ableism has them too afraid to even go out in public.
“I haven’t used public transport since my tics got bad because I’m afraid of exactly this happening,” wrote one video commenter.
“This makes me so mad especially bc I catch this bus and I have tics it makes me scared to go out bc of people like this,” said another.
*First Published: November 29, 2021, 2:51 pm
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