That's one big question and I can't even begin to answer it but I'll toss a few observations your way that are just from my own experience. First of all it has a huge impact on everybody in our family that cares about us and that has to include friends as well. I am almost grateful to be the one with it rather than the one outside myself who has to watch and be helpless to change things. Maybe because I know myself well enough to know I would not deal with it well if it were my spouse with PD. I had a good friend who's mother struggled with PD for 20+ years. My friend told me when she told her mother I had been diagnosed with it, her mother cried. I know she liked me a lot and her response said a lot to me. The one I worry the most about is my 14 year old son. He says little, and is not one to talk about his feelings. He went to live with his dad and stepmom in January almost a year ago. He sees me regularily on weekends and is usually very positive. He takes his clues from me and how I react to what this illness is doing to my life. I work hard to keep it looking like I can handle it...not always how I feel, but don't want him carrying around extra baggage worrying about me. As for me, I have felt: robbed, gyped, short changed, blessed, optomistic, pessimistic,and just about every other emmotion on the gamut. I work hard not to let PD take over and run the show. I rarely get into it with my kids because I'm a control freak and I want them to believe I have some control. I know the only thing I really control is my response to PD. I might talk about it honestly with my adult children if they really wanted to know....or maybe not. How "honestly" feel varies from day to day -even hour to hour. I have known of situations where the kids couldn't handle it. They got into drugs, hated their parent for what had happened to their lives, and just generally didn't deal with it well. On the other hand, I have seen some very positive things happen in families too. There is a woman named Jess who posts on this forum and she has some very wise and thoughtful things to say on this subject. I guess the only thing I can really tell you is that we are all different, and life is painful on the hard days, joyful on the good days and a bittersweet experience in between. Do the best you can with what you have to work with...that's all you can really do in the end.