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10-21-2006, 09:10 PM | #1 | ||
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Junior Member
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I attended our local PD Support Group meeting this afternoon. We discussed little shortcuts that each of us has found that makes life easier for us. We all learned a lot.
How many of you have local support groups and how many attend on a regular basis. I find I return from each meeting with one of the following emotions. 1. Severely down because someone has regressed so much so quickly. 2. I feel bad because I am doing so well and I see how difficult it is for so many of the others to cope with this disease. 3. I am elated that we were able to share and learn so much from each other. I was lucky today and come home with #3 emotions. |
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10-21-2006, 09:48 PM | #2 | |||
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In Remembrance
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IF I can stop one heart from breaking,
I shall not live in vain; If I can ease one life the aching, Or cool one pain, Or help one fainting robin Unto his nest again, I shall not live in vain.
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with much love, lou_lou . . by . , on Flickr pd documentary - part 2 and 3 . . Resolve to be tender with the young, compassionate with the aged, sympathetic with the striving, and tolerant with the weak and the wrong. Sometime in your life you will have been all of these. |
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10-22-2006, 12:26 AM | #3 | |||
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Hey Dale,
When I was first diagnosed and looked for a support group, I had all the normal fears. I didn't want to see people who were more progressed and depressed! And that's exactly what I saw at my first meeting. It was not good. Fortunately I decided to make the trip to Washington, DC for the NPF young-onset conference. While I saw many who were struggling, I also met many who truly inspired me. Recently, I started a young-onset group here in my area because one didn't exist. We met today and my heart was saddened as we had a new member who was an emotional wreck and was really struggling. You feel helpless because you want to "fix" that person but realize they have to deal with their situation in their own way. I just hope myself and the group were a positive enough experience for this person so they can move forward with less struggle in their life. I'm all for support groups. It's just a matter of finding the right fit and sometimes that takes time and effort. In the end though, I think it's truly worth it. You're always going to have some heavy emotions to deal with but at least with a support group of your fellow PD peers, you're surrounded by those that truly understand. In my mind, or what's left of it anyway, that's better than being isolated and alone. Todd PDTalks.com
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Todd . . |
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10-22-2006, 06:45 AM | #4 | |||
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Magnate
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Dale, I too have come away from meetings with similar feelings. As the leader of a support group, month after month, I would see the decline too. A couple of months ago I had my eyes opened to the fact that I had been assuming that a member was doing very poorly. From time to time, we didn't have a speaker, and when this would happen we would have round table discussion, which everyone enjoys doing. During this most recent round table, we got on the subject of what every one does with their time.
Here is a excerpt from a posting I made to another message board a couple of months back. I have 16 PWPs in my NYS support group. One is 52, and in my learned 16-years-with-PD opinion, doing quite well. But he chooses to have his wife drop him off at this parents home weekdays so that he can sit in a chair all day and have his mom take care of him. He has even stopped coming to meeting, so I formed a "phone buddy" group that is calling him "just to chat". [NOTE of today: He had given up ALL outside activities and his hobby. The phone buddy system seems to be helping.]My signature in this board had included this quote, which is where "the familiar" comes from: Courage is the power to let go of the familiar...Raymond Lindquist The single event re-opened my eyes to the fact that it doesn't matter how poorly one my appear to be, it is what we do with our time that matters the most. Enjoyment of life is a matter of personal perspective. I left this at the end of the posting. I will stop now and leave with two more of my favorite quotes:
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You're alive. Do something. The directive in life, the moral imperative was so uncomplicated. It could be expressed in single words, not complete sentences. It sounded like this: Look. Listen. Choose. Act. ~~Barbara Hall I long to accomplish a great and noble tasks, but it is my chief duty to accomplish humble tasks as though they were great and noble. The world is moved along, not only by the mighty shoves of its heroes, but also by the aggregate of the tiny pushes of each honest worker. ~~Helen Keller |
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10-22-2006, 09:03 AM | #5 | ||
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Junior Member
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... but in dealing with PD, it counts for a whole lot. I loved the MJF quote you closed with, Carolyn! It eloquently stated what I was trying to say in a post I recently made on Braintalk. The quote Carolyn used was:
"One's dignity may be assaulted, vandalized and cruelly mocked, but cannot be taken away unless it is surrendered. ~~ Michael J. Fox, in "Saving Milly" by Morton Kondrake" In a topic about "Mental Capabilities" posted on BrainTalk, I responded with my experiences with the reduction in short term memory and frequently struggling to remember the word I want to say. In that post I wrote: "Nothing I know of helps with the word search though. Stressful situations tend to make this worse. ... I often struggle to find a familiar word like "fortunate", instead describing the word I want like "Oh yes, we've been very...very...you know, like lucky?" It is frustating and can be embarrassing, but if you're a nice, likable person, people tend to overlook your struggle or chime in with the word (ala the Jeopardy game show!). Either way, they don't think less of you. I didn't word it very well in my original post, but what the underlined section really means is people tend to follow our lead when we're having PD problems. If I don't get upset and make a big deal out of forgetting a few words, others don't see it as a big issue either. It's our own attitudes that are reflected in how others perceive us. Last edited by DJM1; 10-22-2006 at 09:53 AM. Reason: Wrong topic title used. |
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10-22-2006, 12:02 PM | #6 | |||
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Member
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Excellent thread. Thank you all.
Valor is stability, not of legs and arms, but of courage and the soul. ~Michel de Montaigne Courage is not the absence of fear, but rather the judgement that something else is more important than fear. ~Ambrose Redmoon Every man has his own courage, and is betrayed because he seeks in himself the courage of other persons. ~Ralph Waldo Emerson From Answers.com: Raymond Irving Lindquist Best known for the quote "courage is the power to let go of the familiar," Raymond Lindquist was the pastor at the Hollywood Presbyterian Church in Hollywood, California for many years. The author of the book Notes for Living (Philadelphia: Lippincott, 1968), Dr. Lindquist is said to have had the following about his profession: "Every great preacher had better be manic-depressive. He or she needs to be high at 11:00 on Sunday morning, preaching with all the confidence of divine authority. And that preacher had better be low by 2:00 on Sunday afternoon, or he will be impossible for his wife to live with the rest of the week." http://www.answers.com/topic/raymond-irving-lindquist
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. There are only three colors, 10 digits, and seven notes; it's what we do with them that's important. ~John Rohn Last edited by ZucchiniFlower; 10-22-2006 at 12:06 PM. |
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