The Keeper: A Life of Saving Goals and Achieving Them Read Online Free Page A

Seconds later, the cycle would repeat itself. Terrible sensation. Buildup of stress. Action. Relief. In school, teachers snapped at me in class— Sit still. Stop clearing your throat.
    Other kids laughed. What’s going on with your face?
    At home, Mom stayed quiet, but I could feel her watching me. I saw how her eyes zeroed in on whatever part of my body I’d moved, the flicker of concern that passed over her face. It was the same look that she had when she realized Chris and I had outgrown our winter coats and needed new ones. It was the same look she had when she pulled out her checkbook and a calculator, opening one bill after another and sighing.
    I could tell it worried the hell out of her.
    I hated that I was adding to her anxiety. I hated that I couldn’t knock it off, be a little easier on a woman who deserved some peace of mind.
    But, of course, that was impossible.
    O n the soccer field, though, my whole world changed. While the ball was far away, my mind might still order me around ( touch the ground, twitch, snap the Velcro on the goalie glove, cough, touch the goalpost, blink ). But the closer that ball came, the more my symptoms receded. The tics, the crazy thoughts, the conflicting mental messages—poof! They were gone in an instant.
    So were the details around me. Players, colors, people on the sidelines, they all blurred and fell away. Only one thing remained in sharp focus, its every detail vivid: the ball, moving toward me.
    I would kick it or catch it or parry it. Or it would elude me and I’d have to pick it out of the net while the other team celebrated.
    Either way, whether I had succeeded or failed, that’s when everything became crystal clear again—players, colors, spectators, scoreboard.
    And then, too, the intrusive thoughts. Touch the ground. Touch the post. Twitch, jerk, cough.
    W hen I was 11, I developed a new symptom, the worst one yet: I had to touch people before I talked to them. When I say “had to,” that’s exactly what I mean: if I didn’t touch them first, I literally couldn’t form the words.
    It was like touching the person opened the door to my thoughts, allowed vague ideas to flow into concrete words. But if I didn’t touch the person, everything in my brain just kept thumping against the door, unable to escape.
    At school, I tried to hide this tic through casual touches—I might punch a kid lightly in the arm, or tap him on the opposite shoulder from behind, as if trying to make him look the wrong way. Sometimes I faked bumping into them.
    At home, I touched my mom on the shoulder. One tap. Then I could talk.
    She glanced down at the place I just touched. She didn’t say a word.
    After a while, when I stepped toward her, she began stepping backward, slightly out of reach.
    “Go ahead,” she encouraged. “What were you saying?”
    But I couldn’t tell her. I stood there mute. Just tell her , my brain screamed. Tell her something.
    No words came. I was helpless—yet again—to control my own brain, my own body.
    M om took me to a pediatric neurologist. He peppered us with questions about my behavior. If I’d had any doubts about whether I’d been hiding my symptoms, that visit made it clear: I hadn’t been. Mom described it all: the compulsive touching, the twitching, the blinking. She’d noticed everything.
    The doctor put words to my symptoms. I had obsessive-compulsive disorder, or OCD, and Tourette Syndrome, TS—a double whammy of brain difference, a worrisome one-two punch.
    OCD is an anxiety disorder, one that brings conscious intrusive thoughts and compulsions— Touch the bannister. Pick up that rock. You’d better do it or something terrible will happen.
    TS, on the other hand, creates almost unconscious physical urges.
    The two are closely related—at least a third of TS patients have OCD. Sometimes it’s even hard to tell the difference between a tic and a compulsion. But while tics stem from an urge in a specific part of the body—either