The Invisible Cost of Tourette's

The Aisle That Broke Me

I walked into Aldi for milk and green tea and walked out crying in the car park. Not because of the milk. Because of a cast iron saute pan, sitting there in the middle aisle like it knew exactly what it was doing, because it always is the middle aisle, isn’t it. It was gorgeous. Heavy bottomed, the kind of pan that makes you believe you’re about to become a woman who braises things with confidence. I wanted it the way you want things you didn’t know you needed until they’re right in front of you.

I picked it up, felt the weight of it settle into my wrist, and put it straight back down. Because I don’t drive. Because I had a fifteen minute walk home with my hands already full of groceries, and there was no version of this where I casually carried a cast iron pan the rest of the way like it weighed nothing. So I left it there for someone else, someone who could just chuck it in a boot and drive off without a second thought, and I stood in the car park afterward, properly crying, over a pan.

It sounds dramatic when I write it out like that. A grown woman, undone by cookware. But it was never really about the pan. It was about the quiet, relentless arithmetic that runs underneath almost everything I want to buy, a calculation most people never have to run once in their life. Can I carry it. Is it too heavy. Is it too big. Do I have the strength and the stamina to get it from that shelf to my front door without help. The pan failed the test. So did I, apparently, for wanting something that ordinary.

The Bit Nobody Sees

I have Tourette’s. Not the version from television, not the one where people assume it means shouting swear words in Woolworths, that’s coprolalia, and it’s actually rare, present in only a small slice of people who have this condition. Mine looks like tics I can’t fully predict or control, and a nervous system that isn’t cleared to operate heavy machinery. Which, translated into a normal Tuesday, means no driver’s licence. No car. No quick trip to Bunnings for the thing I suddenly need.

This is the part people don’t clock, because Tourette’s is an invisible disability. I don’t look unwell standing in a supermarket aisle. I look like a woman deciding between two brands of tinned tomatoes, mildly indecisive, maybe a bit tired. What you can’t see is the tic firing through my shoulder, or the fact that my entire relationship with transport, housing, and shopping has been quietly rearranged around a body that isn’t safe behind a wheel. Invisible doesn’t mean small. It just means you have to trust me on it.

And because it’s invisible, people build their own explanation for the gaps. They assume I don’t drive by choice, that I’m one of those inner city types making a statement about petrol prices. I’m not making a statement. I’m working within the actual limits of my actual brain, and those limits don’t come with a visible sign, so I end up explaining myself in supermarket aisles to people who were only ever curious about the tinned tomatoes.

The Cost Of Convenience

Because I can’t drive, I have to live near supermarkets and public transport. Not “prefer to.” Have to. That’s not a lifestyle choice, that’s an accessibility requirement, and anyone who has looked at a rental listing knows exactly what that requirement costs. Walkable, well serviced suburbs come at a premium, always, and I am paying that premium every single fortnight simply so I can get to a shop and back on my own two feet.

Then there’s the actual buying. I can’t do a big weekly shop, because a big weekly shop assumes a car boot, or at the very least, a lot more upper body stamina than I’ve got left after the walk there. So I buy groceries the way you’d feed a share house that’s always slightly running out of things, little and often, whatever fits in one basket without dislocating something on the way home. Bulk buying is a fantasy. I have never once walked into Costco and thought, yes, this is for me, this cavern of twelve packs I cannot transport.

Delivery exists, technically, at a price that makes my matcha budget weep. So I do the maths constantly, over and over, on things that shouldn’t require maths at all. Milk, yes, I can carry that. A mirror, no. A chair, absolutely not. The pan, obviously not. This is the invisible tax of my disability, paid in premium rent and small baskets and things I quietly decide not to want anymore, because wanting them and being able to have them are two entirely different categories of my life.

The Question No One Asks

Most people don’t actually know what Tourette’s is, which is a different problem entirely. They’ve got one reference point, the shouting, the swearing, the version from a documentary they half watched once, and when I don’t match it, I can see the confusion land in real time. There’s a small pause. A recalibration. A “oh, but you don’t…” that trails off because they’re not sure how to finish it politely. It’s the one disorder that comes pre-loaded with a stereotype so specific, nobody bothers building a wellness fix for the rest of it. No magnesium, no yoga, no essential oil blend, because confusing doesn’t sell candles the way fixable does.

And because the conversation stalls out at “wait, so you don’t swear?”, it rarely makes it any further. Nobody asks how I get my groceries home. Nobody asks what it costs to live somewhere walkable. Nobody asks what it’s like to leave a good, useful, completely ordinary object on a shelf because your body can’t be the one to move it. The questions stay stuck on the stereotype, because that’s a story people already think they know, while the logistics of an entire adult life, rebuilt around one limitation, stay a messier conversation nobody quite gets to.

I don’t need anyone to solve it. I need somebody to understand that disability isn’t only the tic itself, it’s the thousand small decisions that ripple out from it, the rent, the baskets, the pan left behind. It’s not a mystery I need solving. It’s a life I’ve already built the workaround for. I’d just like the workaround to be seen occasionally, instead of the stereotype being treated like the whole story.

What I’m Actually Asking For

I’m not looking for pity, and I’m not looking for anyone to finally crack the code on a condition that doesn’t come with one. What I want is smaller and more useful than that. I want people to understand that a disability can be invisible and confusing and still be expensive, still be exhausting, still shape where you live and how you eat and what you’re allowed to want in the middle aisle of a discount supermarket on a Tuesday.

I went home that day, put the kettle on for green tea, and Lulu greeted me at the door with his usual look of vague, demonic disappointment, as if he too had been hoping for the pan. I didn’t get the saute pan. I got a reasonably priced jar of organic passata and a fair amount of feelings I hyperventilated about via voice notes to my Scottish bestie. Some days the workaround holds. Some days it cracks a little, over cookware, and that’s allowed too.

So if you take one thing from this, let it be this. Next time someone tells you about an invisible disability, don’t stop at the stereotype, and don’t stall out in confusion either. Ask about the actual life underneath it. Ask about the rent, the baskets, the things left on shelves. That’s where the truth actually lives, not in the headline version of the diagnosis, but in the quiet, constant, unglamorous logistics of getting through an ordinary Tuesday.

You Are Not Entitled to an Answer – Chaos, Crumbs and Clarity

In this episode of Chaos, Crumbs and Clarity, we're unpacking why you are not entitled to an answer. Specifically, we're talking about the strange little corner of modern dating where a few days of app chat somehow becomes an emotional contract, and suddenly a man you've never met believes your silence requires a formal explanation, a debrief, and possibly a follow-up meeting with management.I have two stories for you. One man who talked almost exclusively about himself, ignored the fact that I was sick, and then followed up a week later asking whether I'd reconsidered his "request for clarification". And another who became offended because I didn't respond to his selfie within two hours while I was lying in a dark room with a migraine. Sir. Please be serious.Because here's the thing. Before you've met someone, you do not owe them unlimited access to your time, attention, reassurance, or emotional labour. You don't have to justify why the vibes changed. You don't need a reason they'll consider reasonable. You are allowed to disengage because something felt off, because you changed your mind, because you met someone else, or because you're in your luteal phase and frankly the entire world can wait.Today we're talking about the difference between ghosting and simply disengaging, why demanding closure can become a boundary violation, the exhausting expectation that women should manage men's feelings for them, and why you do not need to JADE, justify, argue, defend, or explain, when you've already decided you're done. Let's get into it.Key Takeaways:A few days of chatting does not create a debt. Matching on an app, exchanging messages, or talking on the phone does not give someone a claim on your attention. Until you've actually built a connection, you are allowed to walk away without submitting supporting documentation.Closure is not something another person can demand from you. Asking once is one thing. Continuing to push after someone has clearly disengaged is not persistence or emotional maturity. It's refusing to accept the answer you've already been given.You do not need to JADE. You don't have to justify, argue, defend, or explain why you're no longer interested. The reason doesn't have to be good enough for him. It just has to be yours.Pre-date silence and post-date silence are not the same thing. If you've never met, disengaging is part of app dating. Once you've shared an actual date or developed a genuine connection, a simple goodbye becomes basic courtesy. Nobody needs a dissertation, but acknowledging another human being matters.Sometimes they don't miss you. They miss the audience. Someone can seem interested while actually being interested in having your attention. Real connection requires curiosity about you. If the only time they become deeply engaged is when you're leaving, pay attention to that.For more visit ⁠BryJaimea.com⁠ or follow over on IG ⁠@BryJaimea

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