Are you insane? Probably. Everyone has quirks, little things they do, or maybe something they do a certain way, it can be something as simple as mouthing the words you read silently, it’s quite common, but why do some people do it, and not others?

There are two reasons I’m writing this article, one, I saw an ad for Tourette Syndrome, the boy in it wasn’t the compulsive blasphemer often stereotyped. His symptoms were barely noticeable, his eye occasionally twitched, he sometimes made a high pitched yip, and he used to spell every word he heard (This symptom was overcome). Two, I have several small quirks of my own, I suspect one of which is latent Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, never had it checked, never going to.

The boy in the ad was made out to be completely normal, despite his yip and twitch, in fact if I met him, and he occasionally yipped or twitched, would I care? No. Would I think it’s tourettes? No. This diagnoses, while maybe correct, is problematic. The boy now has to sign on every document where it says “Mental Disorders?” as Tourette Syndrome. When someone asks about his yip or twitch, his answer will be Tourettes. He will then have to live with the negative stigma this creates, the boy doesn’t spew curses, but a prospective employer, insurer or principal will think he does.

The problem I have is the over-labelling of mental disorders, my brother is hyper-active, fairly loud, and a bit of a jerk. When he was little, other women would ask my mother if he’s been checked for ADHD, my mother would laugh and say he’s only really active. The truth is, if he’d been checked for ADHD, he probably would have been diagnosed with it. He doesn’t have ADHD, unfortunately any hyper-activity or over-enthusiasm is diagnosed as ADHD. Similarly this boy was able to overcome his word spelling with simple mental force. Should he have been diagnosed with Tourrette’s? Probably not. His symptoms were and are mild, the doctor could have simply said; “Yep, definitely something going on there, you’ll be fine, take one of these once a day and work on your speech.” Problem solved. No stigma, no embarrassment, no discrimination.

Those little quirks; the reading under your breath, irrational phobias, compulsively counting steps, that little voice in your head saying kill…kill…kill…kill…kill…kil-sorry went off for a bit there… Almost everyone has these things, in fact the population without them is so small not having them is an abnormality in itself. I’m not referring to learned behaviours; speech, gait or other nurture-learned behaviours, I’m talking about the ones not exhibited by family members that have clearly developed individually.

Furthermore, some are more obvious than others. Phobias, for example, are quite obvious. One could debate that such phobias are the result of trauma, I give the example of a friend who’s terrified of moths after a flaming one flew at him as a child (No, really), but he also has a  phobia of elevators, which is without reason. Similarly Arachnophobes (real ones, not the people  who just don’t like spiders) often report no actual fear of spider bites, just an uncontrollable fear  of them, one actually saying if one appeared in her car; she would drive the car into the nearest solid structure in order knock herself out and so not have to deal with spider. This irrational disregard for personal safety, in which one would risk one’s life to escape their phobia, could actually be classed as a mental illness. But c’mon, their just freaks right? Wrong.

Other such abnormalities are much less obvious, but not necessarily less debilitating. This is mine, I can best describe it as compulsive anatomical symmetry, you know the thing about stepping on cracks, you break your mother’s back? If I stepped on a crack, I had to step on the next crack with the other foot to realign my symmetry. When I went down stairs, if I started on one foot, I’d have to finish on the other. If I didn’t, I’d become distracted, unfocused and the part that was unbalanced would become agitated. Eventually it got so bad slight brushes would have to be mimicked on the opposite side. I realised I had a problem and endeavoured to stop, which through shear force of will I managed to get over it, although I still have slight relapses, stairs sometimes offer slight annoyances, but I quickly recover.

The reason for is these sometimes little, sometimes big, abnormalities that don’t have a name is simple, we’re all different, we look different, we think different. My brain, isn’t the same as yours, there are different chemicals and neurons, the combination of which can cause problems, or sometimes be an advantage, or even be just weird.

So remember, your a freak too…..freak