Because of her cough, strangers regularly offer her a glass of water. However, this does not help Marjolene van Eyck. She has Tourette’s syndrome, with a cough. “At school they told me to act normal.”
“I am very happy that this conversation has brought attention to Torit,” van Eyck, 59, said at European Tourette’s Day on Wednesday. “Knowing about this syndrome makes it easier for the person who has it.”
Gilles de la Tourette is a group of phenomena that are expressed through uncontrolled muscle movements and sounds. Syndrome can sound like a guiding ball to the ‘tourists’, which they drag behind them.
Van Eek knows from experience, especially if it’s never been built before. She was only told about nine years ago that she had Tourette’s. “I recognized the movements of my nephew, with whom they noticed it. Then my tics could also be explained.”
Van Eyck would have preferred to have known this earlier. I went to many doctors to get answers. But none of them could explain why she coughed so much, sometimes couldn’t close her right eye properly, and had a spasm in one of her legs.
“Once the tic goes away, it provides relief for a very short time. Then the tension builds up again and it starts all over again,” she explains. “I miss a ‘shell’, which means everything comes out faster, where other people have that filter.”
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