Is this part of the thing, or is it just me lacking patients with everyone else around me, as well as myself?

iI feel like my patience is getting shorter and shorter every day. If my hands aren't working the way they should, or if I stumble, get dizzy, or have trouble with my speaking, I just want to haul out and hit the nearest person next to me. Arrrrgh! To be honest, I wouldn't want to take any piano lessons with myself. I'm pretty evil to my hands when they don't work. If any strangers were in the room, they'd wonder who I was talking with!

If someone else makes a mistake, I'm ready to lash out and rip their head off and then some. Stay clear!

Overall I used to have a pretty quiet personality. I worked in a customer service/support environment for perhaps 15 years now in some form or another. Other people always looked forward to talking to me, and I've mustered up quite a list of follwers. However, this seems to have changed lately. I've been pretty curt on the phone with people, which isn't like me.

So is this part of the deal? If it is, I better find another job and a place to live because I'll be thrown out of both. (Just kidding).

John

John,

I don't have enough experience with PD yet to be able to tell you for sure that this is all because of PD. I can tell you that I am sorry that you are feeling this way right now. In my experience so far, when I don't feel good or I am symptomatic I get grumpy too. I have a lower tolerance for things that never used to bother me. EX: My two kids plus three or four others making a bunch of noise and horsing around! I have noticed that when my body feels stiff and achy, or my arms get really ratchety and my hands shake...or I drop things like my keys in a rain puddle or a special knick knack and it gets broken...I too get frustrated with myself. What I have learned this far is that I need to be kinder to myself. It really is a battle we fight every day. There are only so many things that we are able to control in our lives. My advice is figure out the things that you have the ability to control and do your best with them...but let the other stuff go a little bit. I guess it's kind of like choosing your battles...how much energy do you have? How many battles do you want to take on in a day? I am a neat freak about my house. The Mirapex hasn't helped! The fact of the matter is that for me to have a perfect house is pretty unrealistic. I have kids in and out of here all week long! There came a point when I had to let go a little bit...or I would have wound up locked in a padded room somewhere! I am really just learning to live with this and what I have said is not meant to minimize what you are feeling in any way. I hope that this helps you feel a little better. I hope that you have a better day today.

Evonne

Evonne,

Thank you for the response. You're absolutely right. I should ease up on myself and let things go along rather than try to control them the way I used to. Overall I'm moving well, but still very fatigued, which I think brings on my frustration more. THe very noisy home environment doesn't help either, so this has become one of those vicious cycles.

Thank you for the hug.

John

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???

it helps to have a "quiet" room where you can go and veg or read or whatever. my kids are old enough to understand my needs. a couple of thoughts.
1. Being in pain makes you grumpy
2.not having your mind engaged in something meaningful is not a good thing either.

These are problems that can be addressed.

Charlie

this is my only solution?
hope it helps you...

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.