Writing Tics

My latest work-in-progress is about a musically gifted teenager who takes advantage of her parent's divorce to live two lives. She's a punk rocker in one life and a musical theater star in her other life--but she never expected for her heart and her loyalties to be so torn. When her mother decides to move her to another city, her efforts to keep both her lives cause a crash that could ruin everything. 

Melody, the heroine, has Tourette Syndrome, like me. Also like me, her Tourette Syndrome is a fact in her life not the point of it. Writing her tics into the story is both therapeutic and difficult. How do I capture the energy it takes to suppress a tic? Can I make you feel the way my hands and mouth ache to move--the mixture of relief and shame that those movements create? 

It would be so much easier not to delve into the dark recesses of my mind where the tics live. But I have to because I know what it would have meant to me to see a character living her life with Tourette Syndrome without it being the central focus. So for my future readers I am committed to making sure this book accurately depicts the rich and multi-faceted lives people with Tourette Syndrome can and do live.