![]() And now, in her late twenties, it was happening on a far bigger scale. Slowly it was all coming together: the phases of scratching and popping in childhood had occurred at stressful moments in her life. The notes also revealed that in her early teens she had a habit of making a vocal popping sound. I would scratch my legs and my arms until they bled,” recalls Rochelle. ![]() “In my medical records there were notes about my incessant scratching as a child. At a specialist hospital in Newcastle, experts combed through her medical records and made an interesting discovery: during childhood Rochelle had experienced symptoms that, with hindsight, could now be recognised as subtle tics. Having ruled out all other avenues, her doctors - still puzzled at Rochelle’s condition - determined the cause must be neurological. Six months into the shaking came the arrival of Rochelle’s first vocal tics - which manifested in the form of kissing noises. To go from that, to not being able to do anything because you can’t stop moving, was a hard realisation,” she says. “It was frustrating because I’d been such an active person I was really involved in my kids’ lives and was a full time worker. Physically unable to function, Rochelle had no choice but to go on sick leave from her job in a brain injury unit, and quickly adapt to relying on her mum for help with childcare and everyday life. But then her arms began shaking, and her head, and - soon enough - her whole body was swarming with impulse. The erratic movements in Rochelle’s legs had remained permanent since the moment they started almost becoming a new kind of normal. Over the ensuing months, while questions void of answers continued to swirl around her head, the quaking began to spread. But when she underwent MRI and CT scans in the following weeks, doctors concluded there was no link. Having sustained back damage during pregnancy that was so severe it temporarily put her in a wheelchair, Rochelle immediately assumed her ailment was due to that. I couldn’t get them to stop,” Rochelle tells Cosmopolitan. “But then I woke at about 2 o’clock in the morning, and my legs were vigorously shaking. She was recently single and had put her two children to bed before doing a few jobs around the house and going to sleep herself. The night before had been totally normal. But Rochelle was 28-years-old when she experienced the first onslaught of intense physical impulses that would stay with her forever. The rare condition, which causes a person to make involuntary sounds and movements known as tics, is usually detected in children. ![]() Rochelle didn’t know it at the time, but what she was experiencing was the onset of Tourette Syndrome as a result of stress. Panic set in as she realised she couldn’t control her limbs well enough even to take the ten or so steps to her sleeping children’s bedrooms. Not just a stubborn tremor, but furious, frequent convulsions, as if the tectonic plates of her own body were shifting. Underneath the covers, her legs were violently shaking. Waking up with a start, Rochelle’s sleep addled brain came around quickly to the disturbance. ![]()
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