4 things singer Billie Eilish said about her Tourette Syndrome

When Rani Mukerji's film Hichki was released a few years ago, it brought attention to a condition that was never really spoken about. Or known by most people perhaps. Hichki stood out in its representation of Tourette Syndrome, how it affects the victim's mental state, and how people perceive it.

What is Tourette Syndrome? For those uninitiated, Tourette Syndrome is a disorder that involves repetitive movements or unwanted sounds (tics) that can't be easily controlled. One might repeatedly blink their eyes, shrug their shoulders or blurt out unusual sounds or offensive words. It looks something like this: 

Recently, when David Letterman interviewed Billie Eilish for his show, she spoke about how living with Tourette is 'exhausting'. Billie Eilish, an Oscar-winning singer and songwriter, opened up quite a bit about her experience with Tourette. 

During her interview with David Letterman for his show My Next Guest Needs No Introduction, she spoke about her experience with the condition and how she deals with it in real life. What stood out is the way the topic came up during the interview.

During the conversation, Eilish's face suddenly jerked to one side. This caused David to ask her what made her react that way. She replied, 'I am ticking.' 

When he enquired further, she said that her tics had come about at that time because of 'the lights' in the room.  

David and Billie's conversation led to some interesting insights about Tourette Syndrome.

Here are the 4 main things she spoke about: 

1. Billie found answering questions about the condition to be very interesting. Though she was diagnosed with it at 11, she was still incredibly confused by it even today. 
2. She spoke at length about her involuntary movements that could be hardly noticed by people who are unaware of this condition. She spoke about her tics at length, and how they had changed over the years. During her childhood, she would make sounds and her jaw would move uncontrollably. Now she wiggled her ears back and forth, raised her eyebrows, clicked her jaws, flexed her arms at the elbows, and flexed her muscles. Though people miss these movements now, Billie found them incredibly exhausting. 
3. She spoke about how her condition is largely misunderstood since her involuntary facial expressions are largely considered to be a 'funny move'. Though it makes people laugh, it is offensive to her. Especially when people don't get the reason why she takes offence to them.
4. Though she did not like her condition, she has made friends with it and accepted it. 

Here is a video of how her long tics look like:

This is not the first time that Billie has spoken about her Tourette Syndrome. She spoke about it for the first time in 2018, also mentioned it in 2019 when she was interviewed by Ellen DeGeneres on The Ellen Show. Her openness to talk about it has been encouraged by her fans and colleagues since it helps in dispelling the scariness that surrounds the syndrome and helps people relate to it.