Exformations

Cartel Communique & Osymyso - John's Not Mad

"--  some of the time I just... 
when it feels bad, I just feel 

like killing myself 

or something like that --  

you feels so bad."

John Davidson is 16 he suffers from 

a disturbing neurological disorder 

once regarded as a wild Madness --

but when you know him better 

you discover that 

John's NOT Mad

QED: John's Not Mad (Documentary) 1988

A film that made such an impact 

and brought the relatively unknown condition 

of Tourette Syndrome into the public domain. 

Filmed as a QED documentary by the BBC, 

'John's Not Mad' follows 15 year old schoolboy, 

John Davidson, who suffers from 

the most severe form of this 

complex neurological disorder. 

A fascinating and very inspiring film 

explores the way in which John, 

his family and the local community 

deal with the extreme condition.

hello uh could I speak to the duty officer please last year Jon's mother called the social services and asked them to warn the police about his disorder John had SW an officer and came close to arrest about my son John um my son was approached in the street by a police officer who swore at him um because my son had used F language um my son has tette syndrome yes he um he comes out with quite abusive words um he shouts them the point is t syndrome makes John swear when he doesn't want to these words the thoughts come into his head and he just says them it has made his life and the life of his family almost impossible in the close-knit well-ordered community of galashields where they live no he won't hurt anybody [ __ ] up duret syndrome is quite rare and is seldom as intense as J's varying from small involuntary ticks and obsessions to what the scientists call full-blown tourettes like this [ __ ] off I wonder what a nurse you were you show sing like that but if you didn't know about John what would you think as he passed you in the street hey [ __ ] that's simp dad didn't mind houses and bookes that's right yeah they got it all fitted out now yeah whole pig h feel like I think it's hard to explain it's and I feel I'm going to see it I try and stop myself but I just feels if I have to see it it's like somebody's forcing out of me joh [ __ ] I want some fruit [ __ ] you because he feels that the words are being forced out of him JN buttons his lip almost literally in an attempt to keep the offending words private in his head rather than public in the shop I'll that big bag of potatoes cut [ __ ] it those it's not always swear words sometimes he barks and Yelps hey perhaps because John is an adolescent most of his involuntary outbursts are sexual particularly if he sees a young woman none of the Specialists investigating this puzzling disease can offer any convincing explanation about why sexual words predominate words that shock local people for one without the preservatives in John get the right one what kind of coffee do you want mom n Cafe I need dog food as real yeah I'll get bonus I'll just get the one it's for carrying it I'll just the one uh they've moved the coffee it must be on the other side then sometimes the outbursts seem more directed more focused here he tries to stop himself calling his mother a [ __ ] choosy I think if we've got it [ __ ] [ __ ] catkin we'll get catkins that's only 26 that'll do any biscuits for no need a B for my bedroom remember is it a big one or a normal one well an ordinary one fit I don't know just get an normal one shoot fit a 60 wat that should be enough yeah you see where the copies there it is John fck up [ __ ] n you want n hey [ __ ] off so while these ticks and head jerks are clearly involuntary and random Jon's swear words sometimes seem connected in mysterious ways to the world around him [ __ ] [ __ ] thank you thanks very much he is both aware of the words and of what they mean and perhaps more important what they mean to others sometimes I think that I see them because I know they're discussing and I know that somebody's going to angry about it or D the back about it and that when I think of that it just makes me worse that's exactly what my mom thinks as well the noises as well I know it's going to annoy somebody so I just can't stop myself for doing it his language is very bad now um some of the words he comes out with is really very shocking you know it's uh his jerking is not quite as bad he went through a stage where he was jerking so bad he was falling over um he would suddenly have a rapid arm movement s you know throw his arm to the side and just about knock the person out that was walking next to him um not deliberate you know it was all involuntary we didn't know that at the time though you know we we didn't know what was happening with John at all in fact we thought he was going mad of course John's not [Music] mad but galashields is a town of only 13,000 [Music] people they attend the same schools and churches and go to the same pubs [Music] the police know many of the People by name if you're Afflicted with a public disorder like tourettes a small town is a difficult place in which to hide I used to walk through the town in galasi to get back and forward to college but recently I've not been doing that and when I used to walk through the town I felt all right I wasn't bothered by anyone looking at me in that but now I just I can't quite walking through the town and I just feel like everyone's looking at me and now I walk I go right DET right around the town to come to college 

For John, there is a real need 

to hide and to be alone;

the peace and serenity he finds along 

the banks of the river Tweed 

have a remarkable effect —

Gone are the exhausting explosions 

of foul language, the Yelps and the ticks;

here he is oddly quiet quite — 

clearly the pressure of strangers 

or even friends has a lot to do 

with his outbursts ….

“I suppose the things I choose, it's like 

I'm trying to avoid other people, like 

when I go fishing and I see a pal, friend, 

somebody I know that's fishing,  

I'd rather not —

I'd rather be further down The River 

on my own fishing than 

be with someone else —”

But being alone is not the complete answer :

paradoxically, Touretters make excellent 

musicians, dancers, and athletes.

For John the boisterous noise of college basketball is a great release 

thas thas thas thas thas he's good at it too when I first started the school I was getting teased a lot because I blinked and then from then on I never used to want to go to school I just because because of getting teased can't [ __ ] and um so my mom just let me stay off and then phoned to school and explained it was getting teased and the school would say right they look into it then I go the next day and it'd be the same thing and I end up walking out the school for instance in the college I'm walking through the college when I first started going to college I was making noises people just look at me and my funny look then about a week later they used to always come after me and Shout things and that and I knew instantly as soon as I I'd start speaking to them they just laugh or oh you know don't believe you there was a teacher that just didn't want to accept it as well in the college he was just he was explained and he told he told him at the time he'd understanding that but a couple of weeks in Ni was just he just threw me out I just couldn't cope he kept saying I was just just disrupting the classroom and I wasn't able to be in the classroom because of it and just nasty things like that he was and he s a couple of times to the boys if I went to the toilet he said to the other boys hope he doesn't come back and things like that he's just really nasty 

A couple of teachers were very bad to John;

you know one teacher in particular pulled John out in front of the class and said that uh he was mental that he ought to be locked up another teacher locked him in a Cupboard because he was disrupting the class 

Today John attends special lessons at a local college but some things never get any easier there are few who would regard this relaxing midday break as threatening it's a time for friendly conversation for meeting people from other classes eating and drinking I'm all of us take social rituals like this for granted listening While others talk we eat our food in an ordered way but for John none of this is possible so fle cut it sometimes I just feel like everyone hates you just because you I've got this I just feel like everyone hates you and the pressure is enormous if you feel hated nowhere feels friendly unlike the quiet calm of the empty classroom or Riverbank the whispering Silence of the local library is an impossible challenge 

[ __ ] off hey oh God hey hey [ __ ] 

Tourette Syndrome is one of several baffling 

neurological disorders that radically alter 

what we call "normal behaviour" -- 

For one man such afflictions 

are so fascinating he's turned
stories about them 

into best-selling books :

Neurologist, Dr Oliver sex 

"The range of symptoms is -- is enormous ....

and extraordinary things were put together 

about a century ago by a French Neurologist 

by jiet um saw the sudden 

violent movements and noises 

and also sometimes sudden 

extraordinary perceptions and 

ideas and convulsions 

of The Imagination and 

The Emotions as forming 

a sort of, uh --  Syndrome 

of Body and Mind as being a sort 

of possession, with an organic basis,

which usually would appear in childhood it 

might get better after adolescence but, err 

tended to last uh — all through 

the person's life -- 

He also commented on a 

tendency to Suggestibility, 

to Imitation, to Echoing, and to the 

sudden exclamation sometimes of 

obscene or profane words.

It may be that Medication would 

would help him to some extent -- 

I get the feeling that if he's overloaded 

with medication, he feels half-Dead 

and that's not good --

Uh, perhaps there's some level of medication 

which will help him, but the most important thing 

is that he come to terms with it and especially 

that other people come to terms with it --

Coming to Terms with such 

a publicly-humiliating form 

of Tourettes is not easy --

Soon John will need A Job -- not easy for 

someone who's likely to swear at his boss 

It's 9:00 on a frosty morning and John's class 

arrives at the college Horticulture Center 

It's part of special vocational 

training for slow Learners 

Because of his trouble at school, 

John fell behind in his studies and now 

attends these special classes —but John 

is Keen bright and quick to learn; 

ironically this has put him 

at the top of his class 

the glass again joh see youate p that was KOB wasn't it the plant must must be in the center right must be in the center alist 

Fraser, John's Teacher, 

ignores the bad language and 

instead uses his enthusiasm 

to motivate the other students 

if your plant's not in the middle don't give it a yank up because what will happen is you'll break the roots and the plant will just die at that getting worse divid [ __ ] idiot you get yourselves in the right GLE here [ __ ] oh that's a bit shallow that a it it's not even in the middle I think some of your boys are cross side hey C what do mean hey big right in the middle have you yes 

At 16 John, is at the crossroads of his life;

not only does he carry the burden of Tourette's 

but he's changing from boy to man, 

from classmate to worker 

To John, these horticulture classes offer 

a rare chance to learn a skill — but 

the jinx of Tourette's mocks his 

efforts — recently John has started 

spitting at people 

and put them in these pots you can see they're nicely grown away we'll take out someone's plant and see for its see how it's doing that one we don't know who that who that one is Kies KES there you are then let's see how it's doing well you can tell cuz it's [ __ ] reasonably firm in the pot there knock it out 

There's no no evidence — this needs to be said, 

incidentally —that Tourette is not a progressive disease 

and people with mild ticks will never move into 

the sort of yelling and cursing which was 

John show you want the the compost 

all the way around but it seems to be 

surviving there another way of 

Then, quite suddenly,

John's curses are focused again;

here, he reacts to his teacher's error 

by calling him an effing idiot 

very [ __ ] idiot yeah so we'll be putting 

these on later on this afternoon 

“All of us, I think have, I feel obscenities 

and sort of angry curses rising in us 

but we repress them we inhibit them —

In John, I think, the uh you know it tends to 

leap over the bounds of inhibition; 

generally there's disinhibition and 

Tourette's which can go all ways which means the toura feels too much but but also too much comes comes out of him there's a sort of transparency he has to Bear a bad form of Tes and a particularly uh distressing one to him and to others because it involves the socially disruptive uh yells and above all words so he has to to use obscenities he he struggles with this he he wants to say this image of him holding his mouth for so much the time so that you know so that things don't burst out is is is very painful to see 

We sometimes say to him for goodness sake John you know you you can't you don't have to do that you know stop it you can't really when you stop and think about it you think ‘I shouldn't have lost my temper you know really he was he can't help it it's got to live with it's terrible to live 

[Applause] with mm St you one now 

come on behave tea time is no fun —

The cake in the center of the table is covered 

with a plastic box to keep John's spit off it as well 

as William and Caroline John has an older sister away at College in Edinburgh but whereas his younger brother and sister are prepared to sit and eat with him if fored to John's father prefers not to face the spit and bad language [ __ ] he's he's normally in um quite often he's he's late cuz he works extra jobs in the side and he doesn't like this laughing carry on either it put a great strain on us um we came to the the point where we were breaking up because of my husband's attitude he he tended to go and drink to get away from it which I don't blame him if I could have done something like that you know I think I use my work when I'm at work um forget about the house [ __ ] not but stop laughing you 

“They sometimes have the friends to stay….

Caroline has a friend that comes 

and stays at night sometimes 

and well they just accept John 

they're not the the older 

The older children don't like it as much - now you see why :

I sitting with that's the worst habit he's got 

is the um the spitting you know want it's the hardest one to live with really 

“are you not wanting that bit of fish? 

“You can have it, John, if you want —”

“I don't like the chips, Mom I thought you were full up it's the chips I don't like too greasy grain food John pardon me Hy fish is this hard good we had at John C today I have it no one 

“I'm sure the cat will enjoy it”

As a Professional nurse Mrs Davidson 

accepts John's Affliction as a medical condition 

but Her Mother, John's grandmother believes 

he is possessed by darker forces --

[ God's sake -- ]

"She thinks that uh -- 

John has The Devil in him 

that he should go to church 

and uh.... beg forgiveness 

for his sins and all this --"

"Tourette himself had written a book about 

possession in the in the theological sense, but 

this was a neurological possession -- 

but it was a neurological disease 

which was also a public disorder 

because necessarily it exploded 

into the public domain and people 

would have to react to it --

they're just a smaller post office sometimes 

Because the disease prevents John behaving normally in public he attends special classes where necessary social routines can be practiced no do you know what that that means I here John and his classmates deal with tasks like paying fairs on a bus dealing with government forms or today the type of questions he might get asked at a post office need a visit to the post office okay you what do you think get as 

"John is bright he doesn't have much difficulty with all this in the classroom whereas Teacher Lorna Peggy is forced to face The Difficulties of John's Tourette get in anyone I would think so yeah that's something that you can check The Spitting is manageable, but with girls in the class, the sexually explicit language is more difficult to cope with --

So many of the things he says 

have a sexual connotation and when 

girls are around these are the things he says, 

it's alright here because the girls understand, 

although you know they do 

take offense occasionally and 

A girl had a particular problem in 

understanding that it wasn't directed 

at her personally, that it was, 

you know, something that John does 

and he's more upset about it 

than she would be --

personal or not John's obscenities will always be a verbal Time Bomb waiting to go off in public [ __ ] [ __ ] first class [ __ ] what what inire about dog license what is it there are no official figures for sufferers of tourettes estimates vary but about one person in every 3,000 seems to be the accepted [Music] average the reason for the vagueness is the range of the affliction 

John's Tourettes may 

be extreme, but 

it's not unique --

For sufferers of this socially 

unacceptable disease 

the only real Hope is 

that the rest of us 

will understand that 

people like John, 

are NOT Mad --

That's just what I'd be see that saw this this is what I would be digging up if I was working with the Poli department now would it yeah at this time of year backu right I think we're going to cross here John this some one just keep thinking why why it has to be me and not folk that are criminals or deserve it [Music] for [Music] come on stop [Music]