Coatesville’s Lauren Wolstenholme lives with Tourette syndrome. She found a home on TCNJ’s swim team.

Lauren “Ren” Wolstenholme is a junior at the College of New Jersey who describes herself as a “middle-of-the-road swimmer.”

That might be true if everyone else on that road also had Tourette syndrome.

Wolstenholme, 21, mainly competes in middle-distance freestyle and backstroke events, which require speed, power, endurance, and — above all — the ability to effectively control her body as it glides atop water.

So, having a neurological disorder that the National Institutes of Health says causes “sudden unwanted and uncontrolled rapid and repeated movements or vocal sounds called tics,” presents a challenge most college swimmers don’t face.

“It took a lot of hard work and mental training and total defiance,” Wolstenholme said in a recent phone interview. “Like people saying, ‘Oh, maybe that’s not the best idea.’ And me saying, ‘Well, you know what, I’m going to do it anyway.’ ”

Last month, Wolstenholme did indeed finish the season near the middle in three events at the New Jersey Athletic Conference championships at the University of Maryland.

But perhaps what’s most interesting about the Coatesville native isn’t her prowess in the pool.

It might be the determination that kept her in it, the resilience it took to alter an unhealthy relationship with the sport she loves, and how that has shaped her life and perhaps her battle with Tourette.

“I’m me, and I’m not changing,” Wolstenholme said. “It’s a self-acceptance kind of thing where it’s like, ‘I am who I am. And I don’t need to change that for anybody, and it’s fine because I’m awesome.’ Once you get to that level of self-acceptance it can turn into some self-love.”

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For as long as she can remember, Wolstenholme has felt at home in a pool.

It started with “mommy and me” classes, said her mother, Amy, who added that her daughter quickly began picking up her grandmother’s jewelry from the bottom of a pool at 3 or 4.

A competitive fire wasn’t far behind.

At around 5 years old, Wolstenholme had to swim 50 meters and then tread water for about two minutes to use the diving board at the family’s local pool.

“Her little face,” Amy said. “[Only] her nose was out of the water and she didn’t make it. And she was not happy. It was hard to watch, but she was like, ‘I’m doing this!’ ”

Wolstenholme practiced and then qualified the next year.

Determination alone, however, wasn’t enough when she started having tics in middle school at Pennsylvania Leadership Charter School, a public cyber school with offices in West Chester.

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Wolstenholme described her schooling as “hybrid,” with some days online and others in-person.

She doesn’t necessarily remember her first tics, just that they kind of appeared one day.

The earliest versions included quickly looking over her right shoulder, squeezing her eyes shut, scrunching her toes, and something that sounded like a bird call.

Her parents also remember bouts of dizziness and a trancelike spell they called “a reboot,” which included rapid eye movements and excessive blinking, usually during times of high stress or following some type of disappointment.

“It was definitely not what I thought of as Tourette’s,” her mother said. “We thought it was all cursing and belting out inappropriate things. And sometimes it does look like that for her, but a lot of times it’s more subtle.”

Anxiety run amok? A brain tumor? Wolstenholme said several theories concerned her back then.

She had noticed, however, that when she was focused on something, such as swimming, the tics lessened.

“It’s all intertwined,” she said. “Swimming helps with anxiety in terms of stress relief. And when the anxiety goes down, the tics go down.”

Still, they rarely, if ever, stop.

“The tics stop for nobody,” she said with a laugh. “I tic in my sleep. I tic while I’m swimming. I tic while I’m taking tests …”

It helped, Wolstenholme said, that her charter school, which includes middle school and high school, had a large “neurodivergent population” with which she bonded.

Still, it was difficult as her tics progressed in form and frequency. One included her walking into people and saying “kaboom,” whether they were strangers or friends.

“It was weird, especially because so many of my friends had known me for a long time without Tourette’s,” she said. “Then seeing me develop more and more tics was weird for a lot of people, and I struggled with that.”

Complicating matters was that she went years without an official diagnosis. At the time, the Wolstenholmes said, they were told she needed to have tics consistently for two years to meet the diagnostic criteria.

According to NIH, the criteria are now one year. By the time she received the diagnosis, Wolstenholme said, she was relieved.

“It was really, I don’t think I’ve ever put words to it before, settling,” she said. “I remember walking out of there and thinking, ‘Well, OK, at least we know.’ ”

After the diagnosis, she received accommodations during tests and during swimming.

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Wolstenholme, compared with competitors, did not excel in the pool in high school. She competed for Coatesville High School but said she never qualified for PIAA championships.

That doesn’t mean, however, that she wasn’t all-in.

In fact, that’s where she believes an unhealthy relationship with the sport began and then continued into college.

When she arrived at TCNJ, which recruited her during the pandemic, Wolstenholme said, she “overcommitted herself.”

She had told her coach, Jennifer Harnett, about her diagnosis from the beginning. Her teammates were supportive right away even if Wolstenholme didn’t always support herself.

“I refused to miss practices,” she said. “I was always early because I refused to be late. I went to every double [practice session], every weightlifting session. A lot of us were similarly minded, and it just wasn’t pretty.”

Studying biomedical engineering didn’t make things any easier.

Eventually, the combination of therapy sessions that help quell anxiety, which helps lessen tics, coupled with natural maturity over a few years in college, helped shift her perspective.

“Surprisingly, or maybe not surprisingly,” she said, “my swimming has benefited.”

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Some of her best performances have occurred in the last two seasons. In last month’s NJAC championships, Wolstenholme finished 26th in the 200- and 500-yard freestyle and 21st in the 1650 freestyle. Her times in each improved by more than two seconds.

Now instead of being a place of stress and discomfort, the pool has become a safe haven.

“Swimming is just a place where I can let go,” she said. “It’s like the rest of the world doesn’t exist. There’s no studying for tests. There’s no getting a degree. There’s just swimming in that moment with good friends.”

Harnett, who has coached TCNJ, her alma mater, for 23 seasons, said Wolstenholme is a team leader and one of its hardest workers. Harnett added that Wolstenholme has helped her learn how to better relate to swimmers going through various life issues.

“I think the philosophy of my program is that I want people to achieve their best, but it’s academics first, swimming and diving should be next, but also I want you to have fun in the program,” Harnett said.

That wasn’t easy, Harnett said, when Wolstenholme chose a six-month study-abroad program in Australia that forced her to miss last year’s season-ending meet.

“As a coach, you want everyone to finish the whole season, but I also knew how important it was for her to stretch her boundaries,” Harnett said, “so I was going to support it no matter what.”

Wolstenholme’s mother also nudged her daughter toward Australia.

“I think she’s exceptional,” Amy Wolstenholme said. “I think she’s a really impressive kid. She doesn’t care what people think. She likes to do things on her own terms. I think she’s pretty amazing. I wish I had that type of confidence when I was a kid.”

Perhaps Wolstenholme’s willingness to tell her story will help others develop confidence of their own.

“It can really happen to anybody,” she said. “You’re normal one day, and you’re not the next. There’s a bunch of disorders, illnesses, and ailments like that. I think teaching how different people experience the world is important. You never know what another person is experiencing, even if you think you do.”