We need a 12 step program for PD. There is probably not one person on this forum who cannot relate to this thread. None of us has discovered the magic formula or manages to stay on the "sunny side" all the time. What happens is someone posts something like this thread and those of us who do have our act together at that particular moment jump in with all the "fixes" or as close as we can come.

12 step programs really do work for the people who want to have sanity in their lives. It is nothing more than a pattern for regaining your sanity, and PD can certainly push our "I'm going to lose my mind!" buttons. The natural response is to want to lash out, but in the end that is not helpful. We have these high expectations of ourselves which we just cannot meet anymore and we get angry, or depressed or both and a lot worse.

Why don't we put our heads together and come up with a set of self management behaviours that we can fall back on when we fall into a hole.

I know some of the 12 steps.....How about this?

1. We admit that we have limited power over Parkinson's disease and our lives are becoming unmanageable.

2. We have come to a place where we recognize that only a power greater than ourselves can restore us to sanity

3. We will make a decision to turn our lives and our limitations over to the care of God, as we understand him.

4. We will make an honest and thorough inventory of what we are still capable of doing for ourselves and acknowledge the areas where we need help.

5. Calmly and graciously ask for help from those around us.

6.Willingly give up our feelings of diminishing self worth and the personal pride that is keeping us from feeling fully alive.

7.Humbly ask for strength for the journey from Him who rules the universe.

8.Live according to these precepts so we can help others who need our support, when they need it.

9.Ask forgivness from those who we have hurt out of our own self- centeredness and ingratitude.

10. Continue to monitor our own attitudes and stop to renew and restore our own spirits when we need to.

11. Seek through prayer or meditation or other spiritual practice to improve our relationship with God as we understand him, and strive to accept His will for us and allow His strength to carry us.

12.Having had a spiritual awakening through these steps, and coming to understand our individual worth as children of the universe, we carry this message to others and strive to practice these principles in all our affairs.


Well what do you think???