When I was in seventh grade, I began to notice I hiccuped more frequently than the average person.

I started to get hiccups twice a day, and my hiccups steadily increased until I had the hiccups as many as 10 times a day. I found it weird that I would get the hiccups more times in one day than most people did in a year, and after about a year of being sent out of class because of my disrupting hiccups, I decided to see my doctor.

He told me there was nothing life-threatening, but I do have a condition where my diaphragm spazzes out frequently. He said a medication exists to help lower the number of times I got the hiccups, but my mom and I deemed it unnecessary because the hiccups don’t cause me any pain. My doctor told me I would grow out of it.

When I first started getting hiccups on a regular basis, it made me self-conscious. It made me mad that my friends thought I was faking my hiccups when it’s something I can’t control. People would try to scare my hiccups away by coming up behind me and screaming, and my eighth grade social studies teacher even threw a water bottle at me when I was hiccuping in her class. My friends would tell me to drink water or hold my breath, I’ve tried all the remedies, but nothing seems to  work.

Four years later, I still get the hiccups multiple times a day. As I’ve grown up, I’ve come to accept my hiccups. I’ve gotten the nickname “Hiccups” at camp and on my Ultimate team. While I may annoy the people around me, I think it’s a funny quirk that I’m able to laugh about. Everyday in Hebrew class I get a “here we go again” from my classmates who at this point are used to my hiccuping “disease.” It’s just something I  learned to live with.

Now when I get the hiccups in class, I try my best to control them and make it less noticeable. I always have a water bottle with me in case I get a burst of hiccups. As I’ve learned to laugh about it, so have my friends and family, and it’s become a part of my personality. While it may be annoying, it’s something unique about me that I can’t imagine living without.

My hiccups have become a part of my everyday life and yet it’s something I barely even notice anymore. Accepting my hiccups gave me a boost of self confidence and the ability to accept my other quirks.