 Today I am going to talk to you about the Tourette's Survival Kit, Tools for Young Adults with Ticks. I really enjoyed this book and I haven't been sent before many books around Tourette's and Ticks so I don't know if that's that there isn't much out there which I suspect is possibly the case or maybe just hasn't entered my radar so much. Anyhow I haven't known what to recommend in the past I now have a good new recommendation so this is a new book by Tara Murphy and Damon Miller so Damon is the designer and so the book has got images throughout which are great and then Tara so she is a consultant clinical psychologist I'm going to read this out because she's like proper impressive consultant clinical psychologist and pediatric neuropsychologist following involved in research at the Tick Disorder Clinic at Great Ormond Street Hospital in London so she kind of knows what she's doing basically I think is the long and the short of that so yeah Great Ormond Street Hospital like any work I've ever done with them I've always had such utmost respect for the people there because they are like the world leading experts in their field so we can be pretty confident in the content. Now the book is directly aimed at young people who have got Tourette's and it's basically like how to guide for life if you have Tourette's which I love and it goes through like all the different situations that you might encounter from like getting on a bus to doing exams to being in a relationship to whatever you can imagine and it just gives you advice from other young people with Tourette's about what you might be able to do in that situation so it's basically split into kind of two parts you basically got bits about situations so there's a special logo for that and you kind of see this throughout the book so you can see there's like the situation symbol and then we've also got like the little spanner which is about like the tools get it spanner tools so what to do so this is like about skills building so like much of the book is about different situations and what we do but then towards the back we've got more like the tools section and that's like yeah what can we do to help ourselves and then there's bits at the back which is like for other people but yeah I'm less interested in that bit because I'm the young person with Tourette's if I'm reading this book I'm not so worried about other people maybe maybe anyhow so you've got your situation you've got your tools oh yeah and then the other thing is that basically like the book is full of advice from all these other young people who've got Tourette's as well as directly from Tara and like other members of the team and so at the beginning you've got these kind of like little biogs about who they are so for example here Eliza, hi I'm Eliza I'm 15 years old and have had tics since I was 4 I used to be bothered by the tics but once I realised that the tics were not that important I stopped caring about them so much now I'm the boss so you get advice from Eliza and other people like her throughout the book so that's quite cool okay so I'm going to show you a few different bits from the book to give you a bit of an idea of what it's like because that's what I do because you know me I love to follow a formula so here's an example so I'm going to look now at pages 27 onwards and we're looking here about what happens at exams so it's saying tics needn't be a really big problem in exams so long as you find a way to accommodate them so this is like then from the point of view of the person with the tics I need to focus on my exams everyone else needs to focus too that's not easy when I'm ticking what can I do and then you've got advice that is based from one month before one week before tomorrow and today from like both the professionals and the young people themselves so for example Harry says find a space for ticking before and after the exam find places where you'll be able to tick without anyone being distracted make sure that the places are close enough to reach quickly so like really practical advice like I've got an exam I'm worried about it actually knowing there's somewhere I can go before and after to kind of get the ticking out of my system great advice like really simple but really really good advice simple practical actionable advice which is exactly the kind of advice we all need all the time right so yeah love it okay another example I liked was going on a first date so a first date makes me nervous neither of us knows what to expect will we click or not tics can increase that nervousness and nervousness can increase tics what can I do to stop feeling so nervous and ticky suggestions then so Zach says practice suppression you only really need to hold your tics in for a few minutes for the first impression so practice the tics suppression tools at the back until you can get good enough that your date can see you smile comfortably there's no point holding tics in if it makes you grimace and squirm with the effort so that's in you know you then look in the tools bin it's like living with tics you don't have to suppress temporarily until you get past that first bit this is basically trying to take as much of the anxiety out of the situation as possible because the more anxious you are the more likely you are to tick and so they're giving you really good clear advice on how to be less anxious I mean lots of this good advice for life period for yeah young people but yes coming from people who have this lived experience too and then I also wanted to highlight page 161 which is in the like tools section and this is about being more than my tics and I thought this was really important so what can you do to avoid being thought of just as that person with Tourette's normalizing quickly ensure people see normal conversation and interaction not just tics when they meet you again simple super stuff so yeah love it what are the three things that I most liked about this book number one I think would be the style like I love it the illustrations are brilliant they're kind of like all my sort of manga type style and it's cool I think that a kid who had Tourette's would not be ashamed to be seen with this book I think they would kind of identify with it and think someone's written something actually pretty neat for me which I think is cool number two I love the fact that so many different situations are covered under like school and love and home and all the different things so you've got a kind of how to for like a whole range of different scenarios that you can turn straight to if you're a young person facing a new situation and I think just being able to do that which would remove some of the anxiety around whatever that situation is will automatically mean that you're probably going to be able to manage your Tourette's a bit better because it seems that anxiety is a really key thing to keep control of so I love that yeah huge range of situations and they don't shy away from any of the tough stuff and then finally like I really like that it's done with a bit of a sense of humour so on page 155 here like I don't know there's something about the way in which the images are done that feels really sort of light-hearted and sometimes it's a little bit sort of tongue-in-cheek and yeah I don't know it's not like it's not all serious it's kind of a bit fun and sometimes it acknowledges a little bit of kind of dark humour around Tourette's like a bit of an in-joke every now and then and yeah just tries not to make it like this big scary horrible thing but rather kind of yeah this is something we can manage together so there we go I'd recommend it either for a young person or if you are supporting someone who has Tourette's then there are some really good practical ideas in here that you could use to kind of suggest to them too but really this is aimed for them get them a copy, let them use it themselves maybe discuss it with them great Bible really for any kid with Tourette's would recommend hope it was a helpful review do let me know in the comments below if there are any books or resources you would like to see me review in future videos and please subscribe so that you will see new videos on Tuesdays and Fridays moving forwards and yeah I'll see you next time thank you bye