Although she was only referred for diagnosis when she was 18, she’s been experiencing tics – involuntary spasms – since she was 12.
“I spent a lot of time in high school suppressing the swearing tics, and then I would come home and it would cause these extreme outbursts.
Now, I have more motor tics than verbal ones. My toes scrunch or my eyes blink or my head jerks.”
It was her girlfriend Emma who first suggested she learn to drive, to boost her confidence.
Although she’s unable to take her test at the moment because of the unpredictable nature of her condition, she’s glad it has entertained and informed.
And maybe even inspired.
“I’m not very tech savvy so I didn’t really understand “going viral”. It was cool but it was also a bit crazy,” she says.
“I was thinking it was just a driving lesson, a big deal to me but I didn’t think that people watching it would also see how huge it was for someone like me to be driving.”
Andrea has enjoyed becoming a role model for others.
“I met a wonderful family who actually lived five minutes away from me and we just wouldn’t have crossed paths before.
“They’ve got a son with Tourette’s. He was about six or seven at the time and he said that seeing the videos, seeing me driving makes him realise he can do that too.
“That’s the way I saw John Davidson, as someone that had a job and was able to get on with his life and so it’s kind of cool that someone looks at me that way now.”