Gogglebox: Meet The McCormicks!

Posted Tue 27th Sep 2016 at 10:36
by Georgia McCormick

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Georgia, Scott and 14 year old Isaac regularly invite 6 million viewers into their living room on the hit TV show Gogglebox. Read here how the self-proclaimed 'quirky' family have endeared themselves into the hearts of many, and their mission to raise awareness and eradicate stigma by being open and honest about Isacc's Tourette Syndrome.

When the producers of Gogglebox approached our family to see if we would be interested in appearing on Gogglebox, we were thrilled, yet tentative about how our family would go down with the general public.

To those that know us and accept our family know how bonkers we all are, yet this was quite different, for Isaac our awesome teen has Tourettes Syndrome. This decision was made after a fair amount of discussion with Isaac, and we left the yay or nay completely up to him, in the sense this show is viewed by up to 6 million people, Six million viewers would see Isaac tic-ing across the UK and beyond quite possibly.

Isaac has pretty much all the tics, both motor and vocal, including Papilalia, Coprolalia, Echololia and many more. His diagnosis came at age 12 after a very sudden onset of the condition that knocked us all sideways, as it does most families when it comes abruptly charging into your lives.

Isaac really wanted the public to see all that Tourettes Syndrome was, but he also wanted the viewers to see that he was firstly Isaac, a keen and gifted musician, and a typical sulky teen, who hates school and getting up early! Tourettes Syndrome is a significant part of his and our lives, we have faced many of the jibes in public and the ignorance that still surrounds this Neurological disorder, we know first hand the experiences people with TS and their families face. Our family are quite diverse, we have another amazing son who has Autism. We deal daily with the effects both positive and negative faced with living everyday life in every sense of the word, with complex Neurological condition's.

Gogglebox producers were and are very keen to make sure that Isaac felt and us as a whole unit were comfortable and happy at all times, and that actually they are not just in it for his Tourettes, but because we are actually all a happy, colourful unique family. Well as happy as a family can be at least!

The experience has been really great so far and we are all enjoying this for what it is, and for however long it lasts for. The public have been great out and about, since being on Gogglebox. They've been really quite lovely, wanting to chat, have their selfies with us and ask us about being on TV.

We are very proud to be sharing our family with Gogglebox, the viewers and the fact that we are raising Tourettes Syndromes profile by being in the public, we will endeavour to take this as far as we can.

We still cant quite believe we are on TV because in truth we don't feel like celebrities one bit! We are a 'normal' family that work, go to school and do everything you guys do. I think when we said we would go for it, we totally underestimated how many watch it, we watched it ourselves and never dreamt we would be swapping sides for one minute!

We are for now enjoying the ride, and as we say proud to be raising Tourettes Syndrome awareness.

From the McCormicks.

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