Feedback loops in PD
 

Just speculating, but...
We all have experienced the shrill sound of feedback from a stage sound system but may not know the cause. It occurs when a microphone picks up the sound from its own speaker, amplifies it and puts it out through the same speaker to the same microphone which then picks it up.... and on and on.

(BTW, I am going to start using the word "distress" for the psychological effect to seperate it from things like "oxidative stress" etc.)

So, suppose I am hypersensitive to distress. I find that I am going "off" in a restaurant. I am going to experience distress, right? That is going to negatively impact my "off". Which is going to increase my distress. Which is... etc.

Had I been sitting home in a non-stressful environment, I suspect that the experience would have been quite different.

Now, I did not react this way, say, ten years ago. So, if this is a true factor then it comes on as PD advances. Or, perhaps, it has been there all along but worsens or some dampening feature fails.

It might just be an inconvenient symptom, but I don't think so. We know enough to understand that stress of all sorts is destructive when chronic.

Also, no one has ever explained the cause of "freezing". In myself I have noticed that distress is linked to freezing. If the feedback effect is considered, it would seem plausible that my system quickly goes into a catatonic state as the feedback loop amplifies the distress. After all, trying harder doesn't do it. In fact it makes it worse. Relaxing helps, however.

Anyone have thoughts on this one?

Yes!
 

I know what you are talking about...I just wrote a whole comment and then sent it off into space accidently.

This loopy thinking happens to me all the time. It appears to run counter to rational thinking. I'm not sure if rational thinking is rational at all!

I'll be back later to comment more....but have to go out the door in a few minutes.

Rick, I tend to lose focus when I'm stressed or exhausted. And when I lose focus, I lose my internal metronome ( the rhythm that I provide because my automatic rhythm is defective). When that happens, my movement suffers and I can shut down.

Distractions do the same thing. I can be walking okay, and if someone crossed in front of me, I freeze and have to get myself going again with great effort. The guy who passed me broke my rhythm. With focus and effort, I have to get the rhythm back.

When I'm anxious or upset, I feel discombobulated....like a doddering 100 year old.

When I move, I have to pay close attention when I step backwards or sideways (in the kitchen or lab, usually). If I don't do it slowly with great attention, I lose my balance. If I'm distressed, I may not focus like I should, and that could make me fall.

As for feedback loops, I think we need to provide our own feedback, to supply old loops, or to create new ones.

Similar
 

Yes, that is much like what I experience when tending toward "off". Listening to someone else is almost impossible while walking. Even a cluttered room is a terror at times, almost as though each item in the room was shouting "Look out!" and the combo was cacophany.

Some interesting parallels-
If a rat is exposed to those bacterial toxins I keep mentioning while he is in utero, then if you take him as an adult and suddenly put him down in an open space, he tends to freeze. The assumption of fear is first to mind, but I see no reason to rule out sensory overload.

Schizophrenics and autistics both have a form of sensitivity that makes it extremely difficult to separate important date from auditory "noise". Both also seem to arise from the fetal environment. I believe the term related to this is "sensorimotor gating"

Good questions Rick

I think once you start experiencing dramatic symptoms such as freezing, on/offs it is the domino effect. We forget how to relax and enter a fright/flight response. If I am out in public and I start becoming symptomatic my immediate response is.......like I am so out of here, I just want to go home tear off these cloths, put something comfortable on and get into the most comfortable position possible. Fear seems to be part of that. Fear equals big time stress. Our defenses get worn down. The inconstancies of pd can drive you nuts alone. I have some comments on freezing but I am off to bed. Catch up later.

I agree with...
 

...and have experienced all of the above. And the explanations all seem to make sense.

I recently read a book that I found very helpful - mentally,and psychologically, if not always physically. The subject is to stop or derail the origin of this "downward spiral" that most of us go through.

It's called' "Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway" by Susan Jeffers, PhD. At least for me, it gave me a new way of looking at and dealing with fear.

If nothing else, wouldn't it be great if we could stop fear in its tracks from causing or exacerbating the symptoms that we KNOW it causes?

Anyway, I hope you take a look at this one.