and I truly believe that every one is "validated" to feel their own feelings, no matter how someone else perceives them. This thread was opened by me because i am tired of holding back my real feelings, just because someone here or anywhere will attempt to 'invalidate"" them.
I am deeply affected to what others say and do to me because of PD. I have lost the love of nearly everyone in my immediate family because of PD and I really don't understand why I have lost the friendship of most of my "workplace" friends because i am absent from sharing the daily grind with them. With our disease "absence makes the heart grow colder, and ever more forgetful". I have suffered too many indignities, directly related to this disease. I reply to the "clueless" less and less, because it doesn't seem to make any difference with them. I seek refuge in hiding from the world of the healthy, because it is a place where i am not welcome. I don't want their false pity; i want them to close their eyes and just THINK for a moment, think of just WHAT IS A DISABLED PERSON IS SUPPOSED TO LOOK LIKE AND HOW DO THEY APPEAR. It is mind opening to be asked if you need help with something from a clerk in a store when you think that outwardly you are having an "on" time and are not badly affected. It hurts when you get honked at (often followed by a rude comment) when you emerge from your vehicle when you park in the handicapped section of the parking lot, just because you "look fine" to them. It seems that the whole world id out to discredit the seriousness of our disease just because of ignorance. I don't park in the handicapped parking spots because they are convenient; i park there because if i go find a spot a block away, it robs me of "on" time and could make the difference of completing my appointed tasks with or without falling into an "off". My insurance company phones me to ask if "i'm still disabled" and they need reams of "documentation" every year because it is "required". Another result of not just dying with PD, but instead, prolonged suffering with insults. I remember my last year at work, and the looks and comments people gave me, and the ridicule that i received form "big mouths" who were totally insensitive to my plight. All i am saying is that we live in a world that is almost totally uneducated of what it's like to live life in a body that looks fine . but can't barely manage to function properly.