It’s never fun when someone starts a rumor about you.
It’s even worse when the rumor is about a medical diagnosis!
For this person, things got serious pretty quick when his classmate decided to spread a rumor that he’s faking his Tourettes Syndrome.
Let’s see how he handles it…
AITA for getting mad at a girl for saying i’m faking my Tourettes?
“Background: I (16m) suffer from Tourettes syndrome, which I was diagnosed with when I was around 11 years old.
I say suffer because in my experience, it has been horrible.
It affects daily aspects of my life, and isn’t something I joke about.
The other day, while I was in the library, this girl (18f, senior) came up to me and we started chatting.
I’ll call her Amy for the sake of the story.
Anyways, Amy tells me that she heard ‘through the grapevine’ that I was “going around telling people that I have Tourettes when I don’t.”
Why would someone even lie about that?
[Extra bit of information:
Amy is friends with this girl that I used to be relatively close with (we will call her lily), and Lily knows that I have Tourettes.
She used to come to my house often and only found out because she heard my mom asking me if my new meds were helping at all with my tics.
I thought Lily was my friend, so I explained to her that I was diagnosed as a child and it is something I struggle a lot with.
She seemed okay with that answer and didn’t bring it up again.
Lily and I had a falling out around a year ago, and haven’t spoken since.]
Okay, this context is definitely helpful…
I got upset at Amy and asked her who told her that I had it in the first place (already kind of knowing it was Lily), and she quickly tried to change the subject.
I, being extremely bothered by the fact that my diagnosis is being spoken about in conversations that don’t include me, got onto her.
I told Amy that if she thought I was faking, I could show her my diagnosis papers and records of all the tests they did on me as a kid to reach the conclusion that I have Tourettes.
She said I was getting defensive and rude, and that I shouldn’t “shoot the messenger”.
The next day, Amy’s brother (16m), who is in my math class, told me that his sister is still going around telling people that I am faking Tourettes.
He knows that Amy is a liar and just likes attention being on her.
He also told me this isn’t the first time she’s done something like this.
I went up to Amy that day at lunch and said “If you don’t keep my name out of your mouth, we’re going to have a serious problem.
I don’t need you talking about my medical history with complete strangers. If I hear that you start spreading this stuff again, I’m going to get the deans involved.”
Heck yeah, we love someone who stands up for themselves!
This apparently made her cry during the next period and have what she described as a ‘bullying induced autistic meltdown’.
So I got called to the counselors office and when I explained what happened, the counselor said that I wasn’t being ‘tolerant enough’ and that if I didn’t apologize to Amy, I would get written up and my mom would be called.
I went ahead and apologized to Amy, but told my mom what happened.
She said that I was not in the wrong, and that Amy should have been the one to get punished.
I agree with her, but the schools staff seem to think that I am in the wrong and a ‘bully’. AITA?
Wow, they really made him apologize?
Now, let’s see what some of the commenters said…
This commenter thinks they should go to the higher ups about this issue.
There’s a lot of compassion in the comments, too.
The poster also got a lot of great advice from their elders!
All in all, everyone came to a general consensus…
High school can be brutal, especially for something with a diagnosis like Tourette’s.
I’m glad this person got the support they needed, he’s clearly NTA!
If you liked this post, you might want to read this story about a teacher who taught the school’s administration a lesson after they made a sick kid take a final exam.