(That's the name of my new children's book )

In the potassium thread, I mentioned that curly toes were back this morning. That got me to wondering about the pattern that I have noticed several times. Something will do some good for a few days and gradually lose its effect.

That doesn't strike me as a placebo effect because that would not fade, at least not so soon.

Just brainstorming, but doesn't PD sometimes seem to be about maintaining itself or, rather, maintaining a particular state of being? Bear with me because this is a little tricky.

We have all heard about the PD personality and we know that it is generally dismissed as being non-existent. And like many of us, I know that I am eaten up with it. I seek stability and always have. Whether as a child when my drunken father came home or as an adult who sees nothing wrong with the color blue in my wardrobe. I do best with little change in my life. It is sort of a psychic version of the way a biological system seeks homeostasis or equilibrium.

And there aren't many hang gliders or similar risk takers on this forum. OK, we've got a tornado chaser but we'll count him as our mascot. And even he is counting on stability in wind direction.

Back to the rebound effect, it is as though our subconcious, confronted with a change in our systems wants to restore things without being influenced by whether the change was good or not.

It is even echoed in our symptoms. We walk better in a straight, unchanging line and freeze as we approach doorways. Force us to turnaround and we lock up. Keep us away from doorways and we do better.

Our hormones, especially cortisol, don't fluctuate through he day like normals. Our cortisol pegs at an elevated level and stays there. And we all know what happens when a big stressor comes along and *forces* change in that level, even for a little while.

So we seek stability and avoid change. Unfortunately, as the respnses to my stress survey and conversations here have revealed, life has been tough for many of us.

So, what happens when a creature that has difficulty adapting to change gets hit between the eyes with life? PD, perhaps?