Yesterday I had a ‘ticcing fit’ at work during which my jaw locked tight shut. This was incredibly painful, but thankfully Leftwing Idiot was nearby and saw what was happening. He didn’t waste any time offering me my emergency medication and I didn’t waste time in blinking to say I wanted it. It was tricky getting the pill in my mouth at all given that I couldn’t open my mouth, but somehow he managed to get it in and my muscles soon relaxed.

So did the rest of me, and as usual I became very giggly. This time the word “brackets” was what I found hilarious!

Leftwing Idiot made a big point of saying I shouldn’t do any very important work until I’d calmed down, so I did some dictation with my support worker Mia. And sure enough I was fairly distracted throughout. At one point I got stuck in a bizarre ticced “brackets” loop:

“Open brackets, write ‘brackets’, open brackets, write ‘brackets’, open brackets, write ‘brackets’, close brackets, write ‘brackets’, close brackets, write ‘brackets’, close brackets”, which comes out like this:

(Brackets (brackets (brackets) brackets) brackets) brackets).

Among the other related tics that came flying out, Mia particularly liked, “Brackets Obama”.

After 45 minutes or so of bracket-induced giggling I calmed down enough to get on with my work properly, but even now, just thinking about brackets makes me laugh.