I Swear

Childhood Struggles

Scotland, 1983. Twelve-year-old John Davidson lives with his working-class family in Galashiels, a town in the Scottish Borders. John has aspirations to become a professional football player and begins his high school term at Galashiels Academy with hope for his future.

After hearing that a scout will attend to assess his skills as a goalie, John prepares for what could be his big break. However, during this period, John begins experiencing episodes of tics and uncontrollable echolalia—involuntary repetition of words and sounds that he cannot control.

The head teacher at the school responds to John's vocal outbursts not with understanding or medical concern, but with corporal punishment. The head teacher whips John's hand with a belt as discipline for behavior that John cannot control.

The injury to his hand and his continuing tics mean John performs poorly at football, devastating his dreams of becoming a professional player and disappointing his father, who had hopes for his son's athletic career.

John's condition worsens at home. After an incident where he cannot control spitting during a meal, John's mother banishes him from the dining table. Soon after this humiliation, John and his siblings are told that their father has left the family.

Distraught by his father's abandonment, his deteriorating condition, his shattered dreams, and the rejection he faces from his own family, John attempts suicide. He walks into a river intending to drown himself. However, he is quickly rescued by someone who sees him and wakes up in a hospital.

Diagnosis and Hope

The film jumps forward to 1996. John, now 25 years old, is still living with his mother. He finally receives an official diagnosis: Tourette's syndrome, a neurological disorder characterized by repetitive, involuntary movements and vocalizations called tics. Doctors inform John there is no known cure. John is prescribed medication to manage his symptoms, but his tics remain frequent and cause him significant embarrassment and social isolation.

Murray, a childhood friend of John's from school, returns to Galashiels from Australia after learning his mother has been diagnosed with liver cancer. Murray invites John to his house for dinner. John, self-conscious about his tics and worried about embarrassing himself in front of Murray's family, does his best to avoid accepting the invitation.

However, Murray's mother Dottie is a mental health nurse with professional understanding and personal compassion. She senses John's discomfort and asks him about the medication he is taking. After assessing John's situation, Dottie makes an unexpected offer: she invites John to stay with their family.

Living with Murray's family, John is gradually weaned off his medication under Dottie's supervision. Dottie teaches John an important lesson: he should never apologize for his tics when around people who understand that his behavior is uncontrollable. This advice begins shifting John's relationship with his condition—from shame to acceptance.

Setbacks

Murray brings John to a nightclub, hoping to help him experience normal social activities that John has avoided due to his condition. John dances and chats with a woman, enjoying himself. However, during a ticcing episode, John involuntarily slings a drink out of another man's hand. The man, not understanding that John's action was uncontrollable, reacts with violence, and a brawl breaks out in the club.

John is arrested and remanded overnight in jail. Dottie informs John that he will be tried on assault charges—a serious legal consequence for behavior he cannot control.

New Opportunities

Despite the pending assault charges, Dottie asks John if he would like a job at the local community center as an assistant to the elderly caretaker. John accepts, desperately needing both employment and purpose.

The caretaker, Tommy, shows John around the facility. Tommy demonstrates remarkable patience, not reacting negatively to any of John's verbal or physical outbursts. However, during a tic, John unintentionally smacks Tommy's dog. John immediately excuses himself and leaves, assuming he has ruined his chances at the job and will be fired.

However, Murray's family surprises John at his home with good news on two fronts: not only did John get the job, but medical tests have revealed that the growth on Dottie's liver is benign rather than cancerous. The family sends John to collect a takeaway meal to celebrate the double good news.

While walking to get the food, John experiences an uncontrolled vocal outburst where he calls a woman a "slut"—a word he does not choose to say but cannot prevent himself from saying. Two thugs accompanying or defending the woman attack John violently in the street, beating him for the involuntary insult.

John ends up in the hospital again, this time with Dottie at his bedside. She reassures him that the job will be waiting for him once he recovers from his injuries, demonstrating her unwavering support despite the complications his condition creates.

Trial and Loss

John settles into his work helping Tommy the caretaker. Tommy shares John's developing philosophy: it is not Tourette's itself that causes problems, but rather other people's lack of awareness and understanding about the condition. Their conversations help John develop a more positive perspective on his disability.

John's trial date for the nightclub assault arrives. In court, John is called to give testimony under oath. However, he is unable to finish taking the oath without involuntarily swearing at the judge—a tic he cannot suppress despite the serious legal context. The judge, offended, removes John from the witness stand.

Tommy appears as a character witness on John's behalf. He defends John's behavior as genuinely uncontrollable, using an analogy: if a blind man had accidentally spilled the drink at the club, no one would have escalated the situation to violence. Tommy argues that John's disability deserves the same understanding and accommodation as any other disability. The judge dismisses the case, recognizing that prosecuting someone for uncontrollable behavior would be unjust.

After the trial, John goes to visit Tommy at his home to thank him. When he arrives, John finds Tommy's body on the floor—the elderly man has collapsed and died. John loses the mentor who understood him and advocated for him.

John assumes that Tommy's death means he will lose his job at the community center. However, he is informed that instead of being let go, he has been promoted to Tommy's position as the facility's caretaker.

Brief Criminal Involvement

A man approaches John with what seems like an opportunity. The man turns out to be a drug dealer who offers John work as a drug courier. John accepts, perhaps needing money or feeling desperate for any employment.

However, John's very brief stint as a drug courier ends quickly. His Tourette's syndrome means he draws attention to himself through his tics, essentially announcing his illegal activity. He cannot be discreet with a condition that creates involuntary outbursts. John gets arrested for drug-related charges.

Dottie, still supporting John despite this serious mistake, arranges for his release from custody.

Advocacy and Recognition

One day, a family from a local hospital is referred to John. They want him to meet their daughter, who is also struggling with Tourette's syndrome. Through meeting this young girl and her family, John has a realization: he can help others who face the same challenges he has endured by sharing his experiences and educating people about the condition.

John begins hosting Tourette's syndrome workshops at the community center where he works. The workshops provide support for people with Tourette's and education for their families and community members.

John's advocacy work expands beyond the community center. He begins giving talks at schools, educating students about Tourette's to reduce bullying and increase understanding. He also gives presentations at police stations, helping law enforcement understand that behaviors they might interpret as defiance, intoxication, or mental health crises may actually be uncontrollable symptoms of Tourette's.

John's advocacy work gains recognition. In 2019, he is invited to Holyrood Palace to accept an MBE (Member of the Order of the British Empire) from Queen Elizabeth II in recognition of his work raising awareness about Tourette's syndrome.

After receiving the award, John visits his mother to show her the MBE and explain why he had not invited her to attend the ceremony. The exclusion represents the lasting pain from his childhood when she banished him from the dining table and failed to understand or support him.

John's mother apologizes for being short-tempered with him during his youth, acknowledging that she did not understand his condition and responds to his uncontrollable behavior with punishment rather than compassion.

Experimental Treatment

In 2023, John is invited by researchers at Nottingham University to test an experimental treatment device designed to manage Tourette's symptoms. John participates in the clinical trial.

During testing, John finds that the device significantly calms his tics. The improvement is dramatic enough that he remains completely quiet throughout an entire visit to the university's library—an environment where his vocal tics would normally cause disruption and embarrassment.

On the train ride home from Nottingham, John demonstrates his growing confidence and the freedom the treatment device provides. He strikes up a conversation with a woman on the train—engaging in normal social interaction that would have been nearly impossible for him earlier in life due to embarrassment about his tics.

Epilogue

The film ends with footage of the real John Davidson, revealing that the story is based on an actual person. John was the subject of several BBC documentaries, beginning with "John's Not Mad," which first brought attention to his story and the reality of living with Tourette's syndrome.

A postscript appears emphasizing the film's central message: the importance of societal awareness in the continuing treatment of Tourette's syndrome. The text makes clear that while medical treatments like the experimental device can help manage symptoms, broader social understanding and acceptance of people with Tourette's is equally essential to improving their quality of life.

The ending validates John's transformation from victim of his condition to advocate for others, demonstrating that lived experience of disability can become powerful expertise when channeled toward education and awareness. His journey from attempting suicide at 12 to receiving an MBE for advocacy work illustrates how suffering can be transformed into purpose when supported by compassionate people like Dottie and Tommy.

The experimental treatment device's success in 2023 provides hope for medical intervention while the film's emphasis on "societal awareness" as equally important acknowledges that disability is constructed partly through social response rather than being purely medical. John's ability to remain quiet in the library represents freedom from involuntary symptoms, but his decades of advocacy work represent freedom through social acceptance—both are necessary.

The mother's apology decades after banishing John from the dining table acknowledges that families often respond to undiagnosed disability with punishment rather than support, and that this damage lingers even after eventual understanding develops. Her apology cannot undo childhood trauma but represents recognition that her response to his uncontrollable behavior was wrong and harmful.

John's conversation with a woman on the train—presented as evidence of "growing confidence"—suggests that the treatment device's symptom reduction enables social interactions previously impossible due to embarrassment, though it also raises questions about whether confidence should depend on symptom suppression or whether true acceptance means being confident regardless of tics.

The inclusion of real documentary footage and the emphasis on John's actual advocacy work frames the film as educational tool itself—using biographical drama to spread the awareness John has dedicated his life to creating, making viewers part of the societal shift the postscript describes as essential to treatment.

Is John Davidson a real person?

Yes. The film is based on the true story of John Davidson from Galashiels, Scotland, who has Tourette's syndrome. He was featured in multiple BBC documentaries starting with "John's Not Mad" in 1989, which documented his life as a teenager with undiagnosed Tourette's. The film dramatizes his life story from childhood through his advocacy work and receipt of an MBE.

What is Tourette's syndrome?

Tourette's syndrome is a neurological disorder characterized by repetitive, involuntary movements and vocalizations called tics. Vocal tics can include sounds, words, or phrases that the person cannot control, including sometimes socially inappropriate words (coprolalia), though this affects only a minority of people with Tourette's. The condition typically emerges in childhood and is often misunderstood, leading to stigma and social isolation.

Did corporal punishment in schools really happen in 1980s Scotland?

Yes. Corporal punishment, typically through use of a leather strap called a "tawse" or "belt," was legal and widely practiced in Scottish schools until it was banned in 1987. Students were often physically punished for behaviors that would now be recognized as symptoms of disabilities or medical conditions, reflecting lack of understanding about conditions like Tourette's.

What is the experimental treatment shown at the end?

While the film doesn't specify the exact device, several experimental treatments for Tourette's involve electrical or magnetic stimulation to regulate brain activity and reduce tics. These include deep brain stimulation, transcranial magnetic stimulation, and non-invasive neuromodulation devices. Such treatments are still being researched and are not yet widely available, representing hope for future therapeutic options.