How to tell my friends I have tics after 6 years?

I’ve always had nervous tics, I went to the doctor because my mom was worried. My doctor wasn’t worried, he shrugged and said if I was having tics then I have tics. My mom used to have tics too but she grew out of them.

my were really small and only happened when I was nervous, I never really told anyone about it I never thought to because honestly I forgot I even had them. They so small so rare, so easy to ignore I didn’t bother.

But recently I had one constant tic, which involves my head jolting forward and down just a little bit, I it’s unnoticeable except my neck tenses up a lot and I look stupid. It’s so annoying. It’s like hiccups that won’t go away, and when it happens I can’t stoping thinking about it so it happens more. It makes my neck sore and hurt. I noticed when I hear a word or see, or hear something that reminds me of a thing I can’t quite put my finger on. Say I hear a bell, and it reminds me of school I’ll tic. If someone said a random word like “lay” I’d probably think of lays barbecue chips and I’d tic.

I kinda feel like I’m faking it, I try to suppress it the best I can so I don’t look like I’m a tweaker at school. The more I suppress it the stronger the jolt is. one of my friends noticed and I blamed it on a muscle twitch… my girlfriend noticed it and is clearly ignoring it. If it’s just gonna get worse I don’t want them to think I’m crazy? Do I tell them? And if so how?