Stifling Fear's Fire

"What she didn't understand was that I personally could absolutely not use Tourette's as an excuse. Even if I believed that it was the reason I couldn't get a job - even if I knew for a fact that it was the reason I wasn't being hired - I couldn't let myself say those words out loud. That would give the reality of it too much weight. By that point, my quest to become a teacher was completely linked to my drive for survival. If I was going to exist with any degree of dignity and independence, then I had no choice but to prove that Tourette syndrome would never get the best of me." - Brad Cohen

In the smaller trifles of the day, we stand guard over the survival of our own happiness and dignity. Landslides start with loose pebbles. We choose to champion each moment.

Breathing Deeply

"It's over, I thought. No principal will ever look past my disability. It seemed clear that Tourette's had finally gotten the better of me for real. It had stopped me from doing the thing I had always wanted most to do: teach kids and let them find joy n learning. For a while I just sat there, watching cars whiz by.

By this point in the deepening summer, a thought that I'd been fighting for months was becoming more and more insistent. What if no one will hire me because I have Tourette's How many other principals are going to see me as merely a victim of Tourette syndrome instead of an educated and qualified teacher?

Then I breathed deeply and felt my lungs fill with air. I told myself to erase any thought of giving up. Plenty of doors had been slammed in my face before, and things somehow always managed to work out." - Brad Cohen

Fun And War

"I couldn't wait to launch into the ongoing daily battle for their attention, for their learning, and for their respect." - Brad Cohen, elementary school teacher

That's the heart of a lion... to enjoy the battle with the resolve never to give up!

Shaking That Thing

"But my life with Tourette's has made me realize that everyone has a 'thing' that haunts them in some way.l It might be prejudice or chronic illness. it might be physical limitations or life circumstances or ego or pride or jealousy or hate, but everyone has their thing. When we can control the thing, we feel empowered and optimistic. But when the thing wins, we travel the road to despair. The key is to find a road that leads around you particular limitation, a road that maybe has more bends in it but gets you to the same point in the end." - Brad Cohen

Defining Ourselves As Successful

"Although I was distressed by the controversy my behaviours were causing at home and at school, all in all I was curiously upbeat much of the time. Some scrap of identity was left for me by my defining myself as a unique and original person, despite the obvious social stigma. Compared to so me of my blander classmates, I never had the problem of walking around feeling unnoticed. I chose to see that as a positive thing." - Brad Cohen

Slight Difference

"It's amazing to me, whether I'm considering my own life or someone else's, how often I see examples of people reacting with anger or pain to a personal slight without being able to realize that they are in a situation in which they have another choice: they can decide that the comment or behavior they consider hurtful might also be legitimately classified as a flattering piece of attention." - Brad Cohen, 2nd grade teacher afflicted with Tourette's Syndrome