# The tick in my back

![](https://39669.cdn.cke-cs.com/rQvD3VnunXZu34m86e5f/images/65e7a6291b2af798d73c4c3020b14be8b969428875206f04.png)

It’s been almost sixteen years, I suspect, since the tick entered my body. It must have burrowed and made its home quietly, with no fuss and a singular focus, because I did not notice its presence until its work was complete. I suspect I acquired my companion, my confidant at this point, traipsing about the woods behind my house. But, it’s plausible that it found me before or after school as well. Maybe it latched on to my clothes and made its home while I sat at the kitchen table doing homework. Around my house in northern Maine, these ticks are quite common. Many are innocuous, but some, like mine, my tick, the one housed between the bottom of my neck and my shoulder blade, have other plans.

It was around that time, towards the end of middle school when I noticed the effects. I had recently aged out of my beloved Montessori school. At Montessori school, I unapologetically followed my curiosities. Each day, we had a paper “contract” that had a certain set of subjects above the line, and another set below the line. I had to complete lessons in all the above-line subjects and I could choose a subset below the line. Most lessons were self-led and I could find a spot in the classroom to study. Once I was ready, I demonstrated to our teacher that I was proficient.

I remember the zoology lessons and geography lessons: handmade laminated index cards, red and green, that fit nicely into an old labeled plastic box. If you walked in at any moment throughout the morning, most kids would have one of the lessons, splayed out on the floor, in their own corner of the room. We were all at different levels. I loved geometry and math, so I would blast through these, often selecting them as my choice picks when they weren’t mandatory. Sometimes, I would have the same lesson as a friend and we’d work through things together; some days I would be quick; some days it would take me all day to get through the contract.

Suffice to say, this school was alternative and flexible, so when I first got to our local middle school, I didn’t know how to even study for a test. It took me a minute to acclimate to the structured schedule and group classes. At some point then, during school or between school and home, or during soccer practice or after-school clubs, the tick made its home.

If you’ve never had a tick buried beneath your skin, it may sound scary, and likely pretty gross, but I barely notice it, beyond a red dot that styles nicely with the pockmarked acne on my back. It also might be hard to imagine that this tick, more likely ticks plural at this point, and I have existed in a symbiotic relationship. I am not an entomologist or neuroscientist, but I suspect this is a result of the tick’s original port of entry, about two inches to the left of my right shoulder blade. It set up shop and quickly got to work, plugging in to my muscles and nervous system.

As a result of my new circumstances, both the new school and the symbiote, I was more zeroed in. My approach to school transitioned from whimsical to militant, well as militant as a seventh-grader can be. I did the work required: I studied for exams (after the first one shocked my system!) and I followed the rules. Instead of being pinned down by the structure, I found I could use it as scaffolding to construct accolades and honors. These merits are the life-source of my tick.

As I receive my honor, the ticks anxiously await their fuel, screwed into the plumbing of my body that transforms the certificate, medal, or report card into an agar for my tick. In response, as a small token of appreciation it seems, these achievements satiate the itch. And the accolades seemed to serve more than a standard hydrocortisone cream: the outcomes were positive, my trajectory was promising. Simply because of where the tick lives, I stand with an upright posture: rigid.

This tick-assisted scaffolding got me into college, pushed me to pursue early stage engineering work, and got me to train for incredibly long bike races. The tick made me pragmatic, with a bias for action, and a penchant for *agency*. I gave my tick asylum and chose to accept its gifts.

Because of all that I have received, it might be surprising to learn that for the past six months, I have been systematically exorcising this tick and its progeny from my system.

* * *

I wasn’t sure how common these symptoms were or if anyone else enjoyed the taught tension that comes from living with *Ixodia Nervosa*. I assumed that it was rare and specific to the rural complexion of my childhood, but I now know that others of a different makeup, experience a similar ailment. Sometimes, if I am attentive, I can tell within a couple of minutes of light conversation, if my interlocutor harbors a distant relative of the companion I carry. So, these ticks must not be specific to the Maine woods and are more common than I expected.

On the other hand, I have met a few people who have never heard of such a tick before. I’m certain because these friends have that unabashed curiosity of the Montessori school kid I was before the tick attached. Curiosity is too shallow a term to describe their tick-lessness. Their lack-of-tick is obvious in their deep explorative projects, their enthusiasm and optimism for new ideas, and their joy of charting a new quadrant of their map. My tick makes me run around, digging metaphorical holes 1 foot deep while my tick-less friends excavate wells inspired by the pure wonder of what they might find.

Similarly to how our story began, the tick likely got infected long before I noticed. With the tick infected, our mutualism faltered; the tick became a parasite and I faltered. There are plenty of articles online that detail tick removal steps and I tried a lot of the approaches, but these instructions are helpful to remove a newly embedded tick and don’t detail what to do when you neglected these steps sixteen years ago and the good thing you had going has been sullied.

In hopes of curing the infection by removing the diseased, I devised treatment plans in the coffee shop before work and in conversations with friends: pro and cons lists, stream of consciousness writings, a sabbatical, personal programming projects, fellowship applications. I hoped each would bring remission and catharsis, and like the accolades of earlier years, they stopped the itch but they weren’t complete.

In one case, I hoped writing about excitement, enthusiasm and expectations would help me devise a practical treatment plan to one-shot the tick. It brought a short-term relief, but nothing more. I’m not sure there is a providential answer or framework that’s singular and complete. I think it’s likely that my treatment will drag on, but I am confident that the timeline is finite.

As I am not well versed in tick epidemiology, I originally hypothesized that the tick’s sickness stemmed from a result of its fixed diet or from a lack of nutrition; however, I’m starting to believe that, since the tick feeds off the chemical byproducts of my output, it’s likely that my belief and emotions surrounding my achievements is the true input that starts the chemical signaling pathway that ends in the ticks mouth.

Because I believe in this central governing mechanism that ultimately fuels the tick, sheltered beneath my skin, about two inches left of my right shoulder blade, I also believe in the tick’s ultimate end.