It's not often I've encountered a person with tourettes, but as I lined up to board my plane this morning a man to my right blurted out nonsensical phrases and jerked his head erratically. As insensitive as it may be, the close quarters in a plane often exacerbate what might otherwise be a slight annoyance: a crying baby, a lapse in personal hygiene or a contentious individual.
Shut up, right? Planes should be treated like libraries or dental offices, where quite, inside voices are both expected and required. While the rest of the passengers on my flight respected the decibel requirements, the tourettes guy couldn't keep his mouth shut.
To be expected, right? He has an illness. Along with it comes verbal tics, which are sometimes expressed as "coprolalia" (the involuntary use of obscene words or socially inappropriate words and phrases) or "copropraxia" (obscene gestures). While the Tourettes Syndrome's website contends that, "despite publicity, coprolalia/copropraxia is uncommon with tic disorders"; nonetheless, this man shouted "vagina, vagina, vagina" along with other choice words for the majority of the flight.
I couldn't help turning to see what was going on two rows behind me, but the man appeared oblivious to his outbursts. What made the situation so strange were the business related phone calls he made before we took off. They were perfectly comprehensible and professional. How could he control his tourettes while on the phone, but at no other time? I bet he just does it for kicks.
Monday, January 5, 2009
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1 comments:
It is nice to see someone who has clearly done a bit of research!
Regarding your comments at the end, it is possible to suppress tics for a brief period of time, but this will often cause them to be worse later, and it can't be done indefinitely. A long flight is too long to suppress tics for, although I am sure he tried, and if he found flying stressful that would also make them worse
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