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An Irreverent View of Parkinson’s and Insanity
“I don’t care if I go crazy. Crazy go I if care don’t I” That was part of a little singsong that we used to recite as kids. It meant nothing and rolled off the tongue so easily then. Now the words take on a more sinister meaning and the backwards part takes some real thought.
Many of us worry more about the cognitive and emotional impact of Parkinson’s on our lives than we do the physical effects. Some of us have asked friends to let us know if we start getting a little “weird.” What if one of your friends actually came to you and declared that you were becoming weird? Wouldn’t that be weird? How would you respond? Is forgetting where your glasses are when they’re on your head weird? Is it weird that you freak out when someone stares at you in a store? Is it weird to be eccentric? Actually I can’t think of anyone I know who isn’t a little weird sometimes,
except for me of course and I bet you feel the same! (You may question my use of “crazy” and “weird” in this article to describe some serious behavior, but to be honest with you, my vocabulary is not what it once was and I have fallen back into old stereotypes.)
So, given that your friends likely won’t tell you, how can you know when you’re really losing it? (If you have already lost it, you likely won’t know or care, so there is one less worry.) Many of us give ourselves periodic mental tests to ascertain whether or not we can still do things like add and subtract, but that can be scary when you find that your list of numbers had added up to three different totals. So the math-avoidant can’t count on that as a measure. There are IQ tests on the Internet but we all know that those results don’t really mean anything anyway and are only geared
toward certain populations, so they’re out. Finding the peanut butter in your bathroom cupboard and your talc in the kitchen might be a sign of something going on, but I’m not sure what. Having three hissy fits in one day and finding that your family has quietly tiptoed away leaving you alone in the house may signify emotional instability, but that could also be hormones.
Ah, Hormones. When you factor hormones into Parkinson’s and brain talk you enter entirely new realms of craziness and weirdness. Suffice it to say that hormones affect the balance of brain chemicals. Parkinson’s affects the balance of brain chemicals, as do Parkinson’s drugs and other medications. In combination, they can all cause a lot of craziness and weirdness. The medical field does not understand how the chemical balance of the brain really works but they have some medications that might alter the brain chemistry but they might interact with hormones and Parkinson’s to cause
craziness and weirdness. So, there you have it – a Catch 22. We are all likely destined to be crazy and weird.
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