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Kathryn de Tomb 🏳️‍⚧️🫶 [Free Łink!] @kathryndeplume.com · 10h

I do not miss the body shocks or the rainbow yawns 😅😅

Kathryn de Tomb 🏳️‍⚧️🫶 [Free Łink!] @kathryndeplume.com · 17h

Also being Autistic, with OCD and ADHD, and also being at odds with my gender identity in a way I didn’t have headspace to unpack, and confused by all of it.. it’s hardly surprising I felt like either an alien or a misfit made from discarded parts for most of my life 😆

Kathryn de Tomb 🏳️‍⚧️🫶 [Free Łink!] @kathryndeplume.com · 17h

I’m fairly at ease with it as an adult because I can rationalise it, but I spent so much time growing up in tears of frustration because I couldn’t not do it, like I didn’t have control over myself, and fighting it just made it worse. It was pure torment and pretty much overshadowed everything.

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Kathryn de Tomb 🏳️‍⚧️🫶 [Free Łink!] @kathryndeplume.com · 17h

But also because it’s really hard to talk about Tourette’s without causing myself to flare up. It’s such a bizarre thing about it. Meeting other people with Tourette’s causes me to flare up too. Even watching documentaries about it 😅

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Kathryn de Tomb 🏳️‍⚧️🫶 [Free Łink!] @kathryndeplume.com · 17h

I don’t talk about my Tourette’s much, mostly because it’s an asshole, but here’s a lil impromptu 🧵 with a few insights..

Kathryn de Tomb 🏳️‍⚧️🫶 [Free Łink!] @kathryndeplume.com · 17h

Tourette’s is such an asshole, and so difficult to put into words. I’ve just never found a way to truly illustrate the compulsion, because it’s not like the compulsion most people think of.

The closest thing is to say it’s like being conscious of an itch and not scratchng it, but it’s not enough.

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Kathryn de Tomb 🏳️‍⚧️🫶 [Free Łink!] @kathryndeplume.com · 17h

And I can tell when people are trying not to look like they’re looking. It’s so obvious after decades of analysing my periphery while trying not to look like I know anybody is looking 😆

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Kathryn de Tomb 🏳️‍⚧️🫶 [Free Łink!] @kathryndeplume.com · 17h

And there’s other sides to it of course. It makes one feel perceived in a way that nothing else can, so I just don’t want to be around anyone or go anywhere when my tics are flaring up. It’s agony anyway, but doing it in front of people, especially strangers, is so distressing.

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Kathryn de Tomb 🏳️‍⚧️🫶 [Free Łink!] @kathryndeplume.com · 17h

The worst motor tics for me are in my neck because I end up so swollen and sore and it ends up affecting my whole body. But mouth tics hurt too. And I pretty much have a constant finger tic that I maintain to keep the others at bay, but my hands are always sore because of it 😅

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Kathryn de Tomb 🏳️‍⚧️🫶 [Free Łink!] @kathryndeplume.com · 17h

And often the sensation of the pain and/or swelling it causes feeds back into it. Sometimes it’s excruciating because the inhury actually prevents you from satisfying it.

There are no upsides to Tourette’s. Not that I’ve ever found anyway 😅

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Kathryn de Tomb 🏳️‍⚧️🫶 [Free Łink!] @kathryndeplume.com · 17h

At best it’s a very temporary reprieve but not really because motor tics nearly always incur a pain penalty. Bruising, callusing, over extended or contracted muscles, over stretched tendons, sore joints, etc., depending on the tic, especially since the more you do it the harder it is to satisfy.

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Kathryn de Tomb 🏳️‍⚧️🫶 [Free Łink!] @kathryndeplume.com · 17h

It’s not enough because there’s a penalty to pay, whereas scratching an itch is just relief, and I don’t get relief from satisfying my tics.

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Kathryn de Tomb 🏳️‍⚧️🫶 [Free Łink!] @kathryndeplume.com · 17h

Tourette’s is such an asshole, and so difficult to put into words. I’ve just never found a way to truly illustrate the compulsion, because it’s not like the compulsion most people think of.

The closest thing is to say it’s like being conscious of an itch and not scratchng it, but it’s not enough.

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Kathryn de Tomb 🏳️‍⚧️🫶 [Free Łink!] @kathryndeplume.com · 17h

As my fellow Tourette’s sufferers will attest the last thing I need during a flare up is a sensory chest anomoly 😬

Maybe it’s a biproduct of also being Autistic with OCD but it can so easily go from a minor frustration to a full blown coughing tic (and then worse once you’ve irritated your chest).

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Kathryn de Tomb 🏳️‍⚧️🫶 [Free Łink!] @kathryndeplume.com · 17h

Fortunately it wasn’t a whole segment, but a particularly juicy one and its position betwen my teeth and angle of incison was such that I essentially drank it like a shot without swallowing 🥴

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Kathryn de Tomb 🏳️‍⚧️🫶 [Free Łink!] @kathryndeplume.com · 17h

Pro tip: don’t inhale satsuma. Just tried it and I do not recommend.

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Kathryn de Tomb 🏳️‍⚧️🫶 [Free Łink!] @kathryndeplume.com · 19h

I had a Kermit toy when I was really young and it was made of weird foam stuff and apparently I bit his finger off and got it stuck up my nose so probably not him 😆

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Kathryn de Tomb 🏳️‍⚧️🫶 [Free Łink!] @kathryndeplume.com · 19h

LOL I thought exactly the same 😂 even screenshotted it and sent it to my brother

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Kathryn de Tomb 🏳️‍⚧️🫶 [Free Łink!] @kathryndeplume.com · 19h

Is this a life question or? 😂

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Kathryn de Tomb 🏳️‍⚧️🫶 [Free Łink!] @kathryndeplume.com · 21h

😱 big nope

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Kathryn de Tomb 🏳️‍⚧️🫶 [Free Łink!] @kathryndeplume.com · 22h

Which is why you don’t need to “manage” it and why your body does the rest. No calculations to do, no decisions to make, just an hour of light therapy while you wake up in the morning and you’re done!

Kathryn de Tomb 🏳️‍⚧️🫶 [Free Łink!] @kathryndeplume.com · 22h

The basic premise is this: the light therapy triggers your body to stop its melatonin production, which not only means you feel more awake during the day, but also means in the evening when your body starts producing melatonin again you aren’t already full of it so you feel sleepier 😆

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Kathryn de Tomb 🏳️‍⚧️🫶 [Free Łink!] @kathryndeplume.com · 22h

And it’s very simple and easy to do. You don’t even have to think about it. Just put the Luminette on your face as soon as you wake up and run either the 1h, 40m, or 20m cycle and your body will do the rest (the 1h is most effective in my experience).

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Kathryn de Tomb 🏳️‍⚧️🫶 [Free Łink!] @kathryndeplume.com · 22h

I really wouldn’t rant and rave about something like this if it didn’t actually work, but I’ve spent (literally) my entire life prior to the last few months as a sleep deprived zombie beholden to their built-in body clock, and the therapy has been nothing less than life changing for me.

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Kathryn de Tomb 🏳️‍⚧️🫶 [Free Łink!] @kathryndeplume.com · 22h

FWIW the Luminette is also backed up by peer reviewed research. You can read an excerpt here:

myluminette.com

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Kathryn de Tomb 🏳️‍⚧️🫶 [Free Łink!] @kathryndeplume.com · 22h

I’m happy to answer any questions about the Luminette, or the light therapy in general, or indeed the differences between the Luminette and other forms of light therapy (e.g. light boxes). Don’t be afraid to ask!

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