From street to serious

Posted Mon 7th Feb 2022 at 14:27
by Moe Khan

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Read about Moe's troubled journey to acceptance of life with TS.

Hi my name is Mumeen but everyone round here calls me Moe. I suffer from Tourette syndrome, OCD, Social and General anxiety, and ADHD.

I have had tics most of my life which started to get more frequent and intense as I got older. I was naughty from a young age so naturally I took to the streets to live that life and dabbled with different drugs to help me get by and lived a reckless lifestyle.

As I got to my teens, things began to get worse. At this point in my life, I was just ‘ticcing’ continuously and so frequently that it was an average rate of 1 tic per 10 seconds and people were starting to catch on something’s wrong (perhaps it wasn’t Tourette’s yet and I was still in self-denial). These tics involved mainly non-complex vocal and motor tics such as twitching, jerking, sniffing, spitting, and coughing. I had to be separated for my final A Level exam, so much so that my denial became unreasonable, and I started to think “THERE IS SOMETHINGS ACTUALLY WRONG WITH ME”.

This confrontation of the truth along with some bullying spiralled me down the stairs to the hole of depression. My next 2 years went by in a severe depressive state of potential suicide and full isolation from society by not leaving the house.

Faith saved me from suicide and ending everything that I ever knew. I was seen by a psychiatrist who, without fully diagnosing me, had started treatment with anti-psychotics and anti-depressants. With the medication and the help of a long-time friend moving back to the neighbourhood, I started going out again, not completely, but enough to help me start living somewhat of a life again.

Fast forward a decade of delivery jobs and prescription pills and illegal cannabis, and I have found a point in life where I am starting to finally push in the right direction. My continuous relapses of Tourettes episodes ended me up in visits from A&E all the way to exorcism. My neuropsychiatrist eventually, (after trialling me on so many drugs) decided to refer me to legalised medical cannabis which I started taking Jan 2021.

(DISCLAIMER: This medical cannabis has been of much lower potency in strength and designed to help you understand what strength and strain you require to achieve the right balance).

Now I feel I have ‘woken’ up and I am currently studying for an A level in Maths and God willing, a bachelor’s degree next year. I am still doing it in a way that I am most comfortable with i.e. distance learning. I have also decided to start joining mixed martial art clubs which has been a lifelong passion of mine. This is where I decided to contact Tourettes Action and become a bit more active with them.

Since speaking to TA about some of my ideas of how I want to get involved and help others with TS (Tourettes syndrome), I am starting to take a much more proactive approach with my condition. This means writing my e-books, starting to come back into society, meeting and supporting others like myself etc.

TA hosts an adult weekend getaway usually twice a year and I attended one in Oct 2021. It was the most amazing feeling to meet others with TS and be accepted as normal in a place where everyone was like me. I met several people before the weekend through their zoom meetings and at the TA weekend, who I am now in contact with all the time offering and receiving support.

The way I see it is, we are ‘one big family’ and should all look out for each other.

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