In a heartwarming gesture, a cafe employee goes above and beyond to support and uplift a customer battling Tourette syndrome.
People with disabilities face unique challenges in life that others cannot comprehend. This is especially the case for people diagnosed with Tourette's syndrome. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, it is a condition of the nervous system that causes people to have "tics." Tics can be understood as movements, twitches or sounds that affected people do repeatedly. People with Tourette's are unable to control these. However, people around them can provide the support and care that is necessary to live with these conditions. The MacPack podcast—who goes by @the.macpack.podcast on TikTok—recently shared a video where one of the cohosts, Riley, talked about a wholesome incident at work involving a customer diagnosed with Tourette's syndrome.
Riley begins the story by sharing how he was at work at a cafe and on his lunch break, he noticed a lady swearing quite a bit standing away from the store. The other cohosts, Jake and Joe, laugh at this. Joe remarks, "I'll have what she's having." Riley continues with the story, narrating how the lady continued to lose it, yelling out swear words repeatedly. By now, Riley and other customers in the cafe are concerned about the lady's behavior. He looked at other workers to get an idea of what exactly was going on. The woman then started walking towards the cafe, making Riley nervous.
The woman sat in the corner and continued to yell profanities. Soon, another worker, Katie, showed up at the scene and walked up to the lady. She asks her, "How's your day going?" The lady calmly replied, "Yeah, my day's been going good, thank you. How are you doing?" They had a short conversation after that and the lady essentially stopped screaming. Sometime later, Katie shared with the other workers that the woman had Tourette's syndrome. The other cohosts realize why she was behaving that way.
Riley explains that she ended up screaming because she couldn't find her keys in her bag which "set her off." Katie wanted to stop everybody in the store from looking at her and decided to defuse the situation by going and talking to her. Riley commended his coworker's quick thinking and considerate behavior. People on the platform agreed and shared their thoughts in the comments section. @samiiehuntress said, "Katie's a hero."
Earlier this year, Lewis Capaldi witnessed an incredible show of support from his fans while performing in Frankfurt, Germany. The singer was performing his hit single "Someone You Loved," when he started to get tics because of Tourette's Syndrome. According to People, fans wasted no time and collectively filled in for the final chorus. Capaldi revealed on an Instagram Live in September that he had been living with Tourette's for years, but had only been diagnosed recently.
Capaldi added that his tics began to show as a shoulder twitch and could be triggered by excitement, stress or happiness. Capaldi had concerns that he suffered from a degenerative disease but said the diagnosis made sense as he had noticed himself twitching in many interviews. He decided to come forward about it to make it clear to his fans that he was not on drugs.