Somewhere along the way in elementary school, Marcus heard the “n-word”. As is common for people with Tourette who also have copralalia, he picked up the word and became obsessed with it. Of course Marcus has copralalia. Poor guy has everything possible for people with Tourette syndrome: complex vocal and motor tics, copralalia, OCD, ADHD. Not everyone has all of these and not everyone has copralalia, contrary to folk knowledge based on caricatures in popular culture. Marcus has to cope with it all.
Back to the n-word story. We got some feedback from school folks that he had been using the word while doing some name-calling. One day in a tantrum, he called his father the n-word (I never use the actual word due to my politics about race). Then one day when my husband took him to a local city park, he called a kid the n-word and got punched in the face. My husband dealt with the family and they were okay afterward.
He then came up with a plan to stop Marcus from using the word: he rented the whole Roots series and sat Marcus down to watch it. I loved this idea! Marcus only got to the scenes about the Middle Passage before he yelled out, “Enough! Okay, I get it!” Had to smile.
He stopped using the word for a while, but it did come back, mostly at school. Such is the way of involuntary tics.
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