thoughts
I am a bitch. At least, that’s the impression you’d get from looking at my face. I am a walking advertisement for the term “Resting Bitch Face.” For those of you unfamiliar with Resting Bitch Face, or RBF, it’s an expression on a person’s (usually a woman’s) face that makes them appear angry or annoyed, when they are actually just relaxed or concentrating on something. When someone displays RBF, they aren’t putting any thought or effort into their facial expression. If you or someone you know suffers from RBF, you’re probably familiar with the phrase, “This is just how my face looks.” Proof that RBF has always been my face’s go-to expression: Except, my face doesn’t naturally fall into this neutral, bitchy expression. I actually work really hard at it. Because unless I actively work at making my face hold still, it moves. A lot.
My face moves so much because I have Tourette syndrome. Tourette’s is a nervous system disorder characterized by repetitive movements and noises, often referred to as tics. When most people think of Tourette’s, they assume it involves randomly yelling obscenities at the worst possible moments. While that can be a symptom of Tourette’s, it’s not one of the more common tics. I’ve actually never met someone in real life who suffers from that particular tic, though movies and television would have you believe that that’s the only form of Tourette’s. (I think it actually only occurs in about 10% of people with Tourette’s.) The majority of tics involve involuntary facial twitches, body jerks, and vocalizations. I’ve seen a girl who frequently jerks her shoulder forward in a way that looks incredibly painful. I’m just waiting for the day she dislocates her shoulder, but she doesn’t even seem aware that it’s happening. Another Tourette’s sufferer almost constantly moves his head in a series of short, rapid nods. Tourette’s takes on different forms for different people. Most of my tics live inside my face. Let’s start from the top. My eyebrows wiggle. First, the left one will raise in two quick wiggles followed by two wiggles from the right and ending with both raising together once. This occasionally leads to people thinking that I’m doing this intentionally, which is usually fine, unless we’re in the middle of something serious. For instance, on a date, involuntary eyebrow wiggling can be cute and suggestive. At a funeral, however, not so much. I blink my eyes way more than an average human being. And if I’m not blinking, then I’m probably winking, back and forth, one eye and then the other. But I’m not always just rapidly blinking/winking. Sometimes I squeeze my eyes shut for a few seconds as though trying to block out a sudden bright light. Again, this one isn’t too terrible. Unless, you know, I’m driving. Closing your eyes for a few seconds while driving isn’t really the best way to make your passengers feel safe. Staying with my eyes for another moment, I also roll my eyes too much. Most people roll their eyes to express annoyance, but I do it without realizing I’m doing anything. So I kind of just always seem annoyed with what’s going on around me. Now, that’s not entirely off the mark. I do find most things annoying. However, I would prefer to not involuntarily roll my eyes while my boss is asking me to do something. My eyebrow- and eye-related tics are actually one of the main reasons I switched from wearing contacts to wearing my glasses full-time. It’s a lot easier to hide what your eyes are doing behind a pair of thick-rimmed glasses. My nose also gets in on the Tourette’s party. You know that cute thing some girls do where they scrunch up their noses? Well, it’s slightly less cute when you scrunch your nose several times in quick succession. Then it just looks like your nose itches but you’re too stubborn to just scratch it. My mouth is probably the most long-suffering victim of my Tourette’s, though. Contrary to popular belief, I actually smile a lot. But I’m not smiling because I’m happy. I’m smiling because my brain is telling the corners of my mouth to pull back sharply in a sort-of weird grimace that could be confused for a smile if you don’t look too closely. I also lick my lips to the point where they are basically always chapped. It doesn’t matter if I’ve just eaten, if it’s a hot and dry day, if I’m in the shower, if I’ve just put on chapstick or vaseline, etc. When my brain decides I need to lick my lips, it’s going to happen. If I were more skilled with the whole flirting thing, I could probably use this one to my advantage, but I’m super awkward so that’s never going to happen. (I have a few vocal tics as well, but those are harder to describe in writing, and they don’t really connect with my main reason for writing this post, so I’ll save them for another time.) The reason I’m talking about my Tourette’s probably seems completely unrelated to my earlier comments about my RBF, but I wouldn’t have one without the other. Kids can be incredibly cruel to people who are different, and having no control over your facial expressions is a sure way to draw unwanted attention. Now, I was never bullied for my facial tics, at least, not to an extent that I couldn’t handle. But I also knew that kids would sometimes imitate my expressions or make rude comments. I tried to explain to them what Tourette syndrome was and even gave a presentation over it at a school-wide competition in junior high (which I won, by the way). But for many people, if it’s not something they’ve experienced, it’s hard to make them understand what it’s like. So instead of trying to educate others, I worked on controlling my face. I practiced staring at myself in the mirror, keeping my face completely still, and counting slowly. If anything twitched, I had to start over. And this “training” finally started to work. After awhile, my face just kind of settled into an expressionless mask that, while hiding my tics, also made me look uninterested and pissed off at the world around me. It’s not always possible to keep my tics in check, though. If I’m sleep-deprived or experiencing a lot of anxiety, then my brain can’t focus enough to control my face and take care of other simple tasks at the same time. The fact that I’m a teacher makes it even harder, because I’m trying to simultaneously pay attention to my students, talk to them, write on the board, remember how to properly cite sources in MLA without looking them up for the millionth time, and keep my face from freaking out. By the time I get home every afternoon, I’m exhausted from attempting to appear normal all day. So as soon as I walk through the door, I go straight to my room, lie on the bed, and just let my face do whatever it wants for a while. My face probably moves the most, though, when I’m reading. As I’m sure you all know by now, reading is my favorite thing. And when I read, I let myself get completely lost in my book. Which means that my brain is 100% occupied, so my face is free to basically have its own little dance party. I actually had no idea this was happening until my mother pointed it out to me one night while I was reading. Ever since then I try to hold my book so that it’s either hiding my face or I have to look down at it. So if you see me and I look like I want to punch someone, just know that it’s taking a lot of effort to make that happen, and it’s exhausting. And if you see me and my face is doing something strange that you’ve never seen it do before, well, then I’m probably in desperate need of a nap or am on the verge of a nervous breakdown. Either way, maybe don’t comment on it. My face is my face, and it takes most of the energy I have to make it seem natural.
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Jacinta M. CarterProfessional Book Nerd Archives
March 2019
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