Tag back

Tag back is Lionel Essrog’s compact description of how he responds to the recurring demands of Tourette syndrome. Counting, touching, and repeating words become one activity in a perpetual game of tag: the world—or his brain—appoints him “it,” and he tags back. The expression frames repetition not only as something imposed on him but also as a response he can perform.

Definition and Use

The phrase follows Lionel’s account of counting, touching things, and repeating words as “all the same activity.” He calls Tourette syndrome “one big lifetime of tag,” then describes the world, or his brain, appointing him “it” again and again. Tag back names the answering movement in this pattern: recurrence prompts a return gesture.

Agency and Repetition

The expression holds compulsion and agency together without suggesting that Lionel can simply stop the cycle. His question, “Can it do otherwise?”, makes the repetition seem inescapable; the answer, “So I tag back,” gives his response the force of an action. Tagging back is not presented as an escape from being made “it,” but as a way of answering that condition on his own terms.

Narrative Significance

The metaphor makes a bodily and verbal pattern legible through the familiar structure of a game: someone is made “it,” and the sequence continues through a return act. Lionel’s parenthetical equivalence between the world and his brain leaves the source of the demand deliberately unsettled. Tag back therefore captures both the relentlessness of recurrence and the small, repeated act of response through which he describes living with it.