I find that I curse more than in my pre-PD life, going on twelve years post-diagnosis. One word in particular, which can take many forms, and most often pops up when I'm having word retrieval difficulty. Oftentimes said in frustration. But never in public. I don't enjoy hearing other people swear and they shouldn't have to hear me. I might be thinking it tho...

Thank you all for your thought provoking responses. I will speak with my neuro about this, and see what she suggests.

Things are definitely changing and are a lot different from what they were before. I'm currently taking Citalopram 10mg every day. I wonder if I might need a boost in that so this will be one more thing to add to my list when I talk to her later in the week.

John

A few years back, someone on the forum said that PD does not kill you, but it can make you wish your were dead. I was annoyed with that post at the time, but now I am beginning to have some of those days. Am I grumpy? Is the Pope a Catholic? This disease demands courage, patience, and acceptance.

Your post is a good reminder that the scenery along the route is not static,and it changes and evolves in our thinking with the passage of time. We seem to go through cycles of believing we can manage this Madness in our lives, and then feeling overwhelmed by it. It's a good thing that we are all at different places in the cycle at any given time so we can bale each other out. I was probably the one who posted the thing about, PD won't kill you, but you may wish it would. I have long overcome my fear of death ....and yes PD has helped in that arena. Will try to spread my pearls of insight more gently in the future..LOL. I forget that not everyone is in the same place.

After a presentation on PD and how it affects us cognitively, back in 2002,and
where a specific presentation addressed PD and depression, I was persuaded to begin a SSRI, in my case, Celexa. (I've recently switched to Lexapro after hearing Celexa can worsen our motor symptoms. ) In the presentation, they said that for your family's sake, treat the depression so that the irritability and yes, grumpiness, lightens their load. It worked!! (takes 4-6 weeeks to kick in, though, but was well worth it) Afterr 4 weeks, my apathy and listlesness lifted, my lifelong activist but dormant streak returned, and off I trotted to DC to my first PAN event!
For a few years before that, I'd become uncharacteristically hypersensitive, crying far too easily, being really crabby, and had a dramatic lessening of patience, feeluing overwhelmed by stuff that used to not stress me out . I watched my previously unusually patient father have this happen as his PD progressed, years ago.
This is all organic; the increased anxiety, feeling easily overwhelmed, easily stressed out, impatient with family and friends, yada, yada, yada.
(Sort of like chronic PMS, for the female readers).
As a psychotherapist for 25 years, I watched all of that crabby nasty stuff in people way lighten up when treated for depression, which does not always manifest as sadness! It was interesting to watch it happen to me because of PD, and to get better the same way.

At this point, just in the past few months, all bets are off, unfortunately, as I shift in and out of irrititability and a feeling of well-being in a way I have never experienced before. A friend sent me an article saying this is all about PD symptoms, and not just because we are annoyed with disease, and that our mood changes don't always even correlate with our motor fluctuations.

Interestingly, one difference distinguishing PD depression from classic depression is the absence in PD depression of loss of self-worth as a primary symptom. Apathy, yes, even feelings of despair, can look similar, though...
I suspect one difference is that our PD depresson does alternate with feeling functional and highly productive when we're on.
Obviously, if you bring familial, genetically inherited classic depresson to PD, we're in a different ball park.
Anyway, I still tip my hat to all of you for strategies to adjust your expectations, be good to yourself, find social supports, exercise classes, and towards an emphasis on fiding ways to feel useful and valuable, including participating in this forum, and working with advocacy groups towards change in our political sytem, especially lobbying and fundraising towrds change that finds us a cure! And with that, the convention just began!
Oh, I'd like to add finding venues that make you laugh as an antidote. On that score, Jon Stewart is one of my daily "treatments" each night.
cheers, if you're not feeling crabby, Leonore

What an outstanding group of people in this thread. AnnT - please stay - this group needs you.

Lenore - what a post; now you are tuned in to just what a group we have here......outstandingly informed - ready to explore all the destruction [yes that does include mental,cognitive, psychological, psycho-social, exective function [my personal favorite] included.

Your post is cutting to the chase, or at least dancing at the edges of where we really are and begs to be continued. Hey John, where did you get your idea for a grumpy thread anyway? lol it has the potential to become enlightening and even ..one can only hope..humorous??


paula

This is a great thread!

John, perhaps your grumpy spell was just what was needed to bring out all of these great, thoughtful replies.

Leonore, I think you may be onto something regarding the familial PD being a somewhat different animal with respect to depression. Several years before he was diagnosed with PD, I witnessed my older brother's struggle with depression, and in retrospect, now realise that was probably what led to his early retirement as a school principal.
My own depression preceded my Dx by some 10 years. In spite of trying several antidepressants and undergoing psychotherapy during that time, it never fully lifted. I continued to perform pretty well professionally until about two months before the PD Dx, when I became unable to prepare new graduate lecture material. I took medical leave, and finally realised that I was dragging my left foot slightly, and was experiencing some postural instability and dizzy spells. After numerous inner ear tests by Ear, Nose and Throat specialists, MRIs by one neurologist looking for evidence of stroke lesions, with little to show for it, I saw the head of our Neurology department, who watched me walk up and down the hallway, then said, "I think you may have Parkinson's disease." The positive response of both the foot drag and the depression to Sinemet removed any doubts of the Dx. I found that Sinemet had greater antidepressant effectiveness than anything else I had previously taken. I was able to return to work within a couple of months, completing my career before retiring at 68 in 2006.
In my case, the profound antidepressant effect by Sinemet was likely due to relief of both the motor symptoms as well as mental anxiety resulting from the motor symptoms. In all of that time, I experienced little if any loss of positive self image.

Robert