I last wrote about how I've been thinking of my late brother, and how I was feeling a new anger about how my mother handled (well, didn't handle) the situation when we were all living at home.

It didn't come out of nowhere. You see, last week, I met a person with pretty severe Tourette's. He had extremely loud vocal tics, flailing of arms, and also continuous very, very hard coughing. It was obvious he wasn't doing any of it to be a nuisance, and he wasn't very healthy anyway with his obvious overweight and general lack of hygiene.

I met him during a class where we were supposed to discuss our homework exercises. He sat in a chair that I sat in later, and left it stinking of guy sweat. That coupled with his random screams and coughs that hurt my ears, my senses went into severe overload pretty fast. I also had flashbacks of my late brother, and found myself starting to have a panic attack. I had to exit the class with tears flowing down my face, and go home to rest. I had trouble doing anything very meaningful for the rest of the week because memories kept popping up, distracting me.

I wrote to my teacher explaining what happened, and he responded with apologies and said he'd arrange so that the guy would not appear to the homework class anymore but could still complete the course.

Yes, that's what you do when someone's illness (for which there is no cure) disturbs everyone. With that arrangement, the others get to have their homework class without disturbance, and the guy can study too.

Gladly, my ability to concentrate is back now. I've decided to take up some yoga and do a whole lot of exercising at the gym as soon as I am able to pay the fees. Those should help, should this weak spot of mine (or some other one) cause trouble again.