When applying for SSDI, it is depressing to catalogue all the things that PD hath wrought: how it has affected you so far and what it has done to the expectations, hopes, and dreams, you have/ had for your future. But, (and this is coming from a glass-half-empty kind of person) it is a good time to think about and reflect on what your PD means to you and your life. We are given so little space to come to our own terms with our PD. Everyone wants us to have a positive attitude with a chin-up slogan and a "can do" smile. Which, if you can manage it may serve you well, but that is only half the story.

Do you know any Grimm's Fairy Tales? Cinderella, for instance. The part about the glass slipper not fitting the ugly stepsisters? In Grimm’s, the one stepsister cuts off her big toe to make the golden slipper fit and when the bloodied slipper gives her away, the second stepsister cuts off her heel in order to make the slipper fit. Only when the again bloodied slipper gives away the imposter does Cinderella get a chance to try it on…and, well, the rest you probably know (except maybe the part where the stepsisters are blinded by birds who peck out their eyes).

Mostly, people would like to deal with PD—either their own or a friend’s or family member’s—like a Disney’s Cinderella: no knives, no mutilated feet, no bloodied golden slipper only a glass slipper that fits the heroine, a prince, and a lived-happily-ever- after ending. But the Grimm’s version can’t be denied or totally eclipsed by it. If you don’t come to grips with the darker, elemental, existential Grimm’s version, the Disney one is, if not meaningless, at least weak and insubstantial: it won’t sustain you.

Don’t get me wrong: I like the Disney film. But the power lies in the Grimm’s tale.