When a friend knocked on her door and asked her to come out and play, the eight-year-old Suzi Payton stuck her middle finger up in response. “I shocked my friend and myself,” the now 47-year-old remembers. “I was terrified they were going to tell on me. Things like this would happen a lot growing up. I would say weird, random stuff and people would laugh and I would feel stupid and ashamed.”
It wasn’t until she was in her mid-thirties that Payton was diagnosed with Tourette Syndrome, an inherited neurological condition characterised by uncontrollable sounds and movements known as tics. Tourette’s affects one school child in every hundred and more than 300,000 live with the condition in the UK, according to the charity Tourettes Action.
