Programming with Tourette's: What I learned About Navigating a World with a Disability While Programming

Why hello there! The name's Dawnlight and I'm a Computer Science and Mathematics student finishing up my first semester as a sophomore in university. I've been programming since 2017 and currently work with Java and HTML/CSS. There's been so much I have learned throughout the last few years of my programming journey and I have had the opportunity to work in so many different fields including Robotics, Web Development and Software Engineering and I have absolutely fallen in love with the world of IT, all while living a life with a disability.

The truth is, I live with Tourette Syndrome, a neurodevelopmental disability most notable for causing tics (involuntary movement of a person's body) in a person affected by the condition and the other truth is, for a while, the condition affected every aspect of my life for years. When I was diagnosed officially with Tourette Syndrome in 2019, it felt like my whole world was falling apart. I now had to navigate my life with a name for the condition I had been experiencing and trying to manage for years before and it was quite scary. I had been kicked out of a university summer program due to the condition twice and hadn't been treated well by the public who saw what it was like to have my condition. It was when I felt lost with my own condition when I decided to rely on something I fell in love with in the past to help me through my troubles.

For context, let's rewind two years to 2017, I was a freshman in high school taking a Robotics class under the guise of a teacher who wasn't even remotely qualified to teach the course. It was there when I was first introduced to the wonderous world of programming. Armed with a little Makeblock robot and a Scratch 3.0 based program installed on our high school's MacBook Airs, I was left in a classroom with other students, left alone to figure out how to make this robot work since our teacher was beyond not qualified to teach us about the world of Robotics. And so I did, for the next few months of that semester, I had worked intensively with Scratch 3.0, figuring out all the little things you could do with the robot, including following a coloured line, playing musical notes and navigating an obstacle course. There was something about discovering how to make that little robot work with drag and drop blocks of code that really stuck with me, and I knew then that I wanted to take it further, but at the same time, I didn't really know where exactly to go.

Fast forward to April 2019, when I decided that I wanted to rekindle my newfound love for programming. I decided that at this time, I would start teaching myself Python so I could create my first Discord bot since I became inspired by a former friend of mine who was programming Discord bots in Python. I had looked up a few tutorials and referenced Stack Overflow a few times, but I managed to create my first Discord bot (of which I still actively maintain to this day). I remember feeling so proud of myself for finally breaking the barrier and really getting into programming, but that feeling did not last. Just 3 months later in July 2019, I was formally diagnosed as having Tourette Syndrome after spending a total of 3 days visiting two hospitals and three different doctors. It was then when I felt like my life had came to a screeching halt. For the next few weeks after that, things were a struggle. I could not go a day without a shrill bark coming from the back of my throat or losing control of my hands and fingers as they twitch and pounded against other parts of my body and on top of that, I was kicked out for the first time from my university's summer program. For a while, I had felt lost, unsure what to do, but then I remembered what I had been doing before and that was programming. So I went back to programming my Discord bot and I started to regain my sense of self again. There was something about the programming process, the act of using machine code to create something fun, something unique, that just drew my attention away from the fact that I now lived with a disability and my love for the IT world and programming was rekindled as a result of being drawn back in. It was rekindled enough that when I did get to return to that university program two and a half weeks after they had kicked me out the first time, some staff at the university noted my IT experience and my burning desire and passion for the IT world and gifted me a Raspberry Pi 3 Model B+, which I cherish and now use to this day to host the same Discord bot on.

From there, things started looking a lot better. I was doing lots of programming work on my Discord bot, learning the ropes of Linux via Raspberry Pi OS and even got recognised by the university for my IT work and the best part was that the doctors told me my condition could not get worse, but instead would start getting a lot better, so it was then I learned to manage my disability and not let it get in the way anymore and that's when I decided that I was going to go to university for Computer Science.

Now it's 2022. I'm in my second year of university and I'm learning web development technologies such as HTML and CSS and Java as a 2nd programming language. My condition nowadays has improved to the point where I now have very few tics a day and none of them are so disruptive, I couldn't do what I wanted to do in life anymore. Programming got me through a tough time in my life where I had to learn to adapt to Tourette's and I will always be thankful for where it has brought me. I love what I do and I love my major and I've even rekindled my love for Mathematics through Computer Science as well, so now I'm going to university as a successful person with a disability doing the two things I love the most: Computer Science and Mathematics. I've learned that despite the challenges I face, I shouldn't ever give up, shouldn't ever stop doing what I love no matter how lost I feel because it's the things that we love that can get us through the hardest of times. And it's the things we love and cherish that can change our lives for the long run. What I've learned is that Tourette's didn't stop me from being a developer, if anything, it allowed me to grow into the developer I am today, filled with pride and joy. As long as you do what you love the most, nothing else can get in your way, disability or not.

And best of all, despite this whole ordeal, I get to be a developer.

A developer with Tourette's.

And I'm proud to be that way.