'I felt Tourette's would ruin my life, now I teach at Cambridge'
Dr. Amanda Cole, an assistant professor at Cambridge, has publicly shared her experience living with Tourette's syndrome. She hopes to challenge the stigma surrounding the condition and encourage a more inclusive environment for those who tic.
Why it matters
It highlights the importance of neurodiversity in academia and the ongoing struggle to destigmatize invisible disabilities in professional settings.
Image caption, Throughout her academic life, Dr Amanda Cole has kept her Tourette's hidden - until now
Dr Amanda Cole was 15 and sitting in a religious studies class when she experienced a peculiar spasm at the back of throat. She assumed it would pass, but it was a vocal tic and her first known manifestation of her Tourette's syndrome, a condition that causes people to make sudden, repetitive sounds or movements.
"How am I going to have a family? How am I going to have a job?" Cole, 32, remembers asking herself as she lay awake at night after her diagnosis in her 20s at her home on the Debden Estate near Loughton, Essex. "I thought it was going to destroy my life."
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