On Being Afraid

[Joealt]

Some days I feel afraid for no reason. Afraid to do things that I used to enjoy. Today I am afraid to go to an open house work party that my wife is participating in. Last week I asked her if it was a bad thing to not want to go and she said "no", but I think that she might have been trying to be nice. Today my daughter asked me about it and I tried to explain that I was worried about getting The Shakes or that I might start to weep, something that has been happening alot lately because of The Depression that doesn't go away. Parkinson's does that. My daughter gave me a hug and told me to go to the gym. "I want you to use your cell phone and take a picture of yourself at the gym and send it to me". I will too because I'm afraid that if I didn't do it it would let her down.

[compucure]

I have similar feelings and often end up making excuses as I just do not want to face people since I feel like a churning inside my whole being

[Joealt in reply to compucure]

I went to the gym.

[compucure in reply to Joealt]

Did that help?

[Joealt in reply to compucure]

It always makes me feel like I beat The Demons back a little.

[jazzfan53]

I understand exactly what you are saying. I go through the very same thing - the pd seems to intensify any feelings of fear, anxiety, a sense of "impending doom"....it can be quite debilitating. I try to "stay calm and carry on" but it's hard.

[steveb]

i had the same feeling and the doc put me on 20mgof citalopram now i am ok

it worked for me

[Joealt in reply to steveb]

I was prescribed this in the past but it made me edgy and dark. For some reason antidepressants make me more depressed. There's a word for that but I can't recall what it is. I wanted to look into getting a med that will "cheer me up". Unfortunately I no longer have healthcare Insurance, but my therapist told me that my shrink might cut me a deal.

[blackcat]

I often wonder if it the pd playing with my mind or the medicnes i was getting ididn;t want to go anywhere but my husband didn;t help because he was always on me about driving and several different things, my medication have helped with the shakes when i had worse tremors i felt every one was very aware of my shaking and contantly watching me. i still back out of things when i can so i am not the center of anything

[Johnsilk]

Look up on Goggle DASH to the infoline.'It may answer some of your questions.

It is a Brochure on Parkinson's Depression,

Anxiety, Sleeplessness and Hallucinations written by two eminent Doctors from Sydney University's Brain and Mind Institute with funding from the Australian Govt and support from Parkinson's NSW.

It is also printed in Cantonese.

John Silk

[DeParkiePoet]

I stoo, suffer from intense anxiety when confronted with the choice of disappointing my wife, who is extremely social and vivacious, and feeling comfortable with myself. I don't need any other stressors in my liffe, so I play the ball as it lies. If it's a "good day", I go with pleasure , if it's a "OK" day I usually go with patience, this allows me the option of leaving if I am overwhelmed with grief or tremors or such. If it's a "bad day" I medicate and meditate and ususally don't go. I have to accept who I am (or may be) in 15 minutes, my wife does too, because we're fighting as a team. The uncertainty is sometimes the worst part ...

[Court]

I am glad to see that I am not the only person whose tremor gets worse and doesn't always respond to medication when I am under stress. I quite often don't take part in activities because of this. I find my meds do not work well in the evening when such events take place and in any case I am always too tired to make an effort. What a sad person I have become!

[sbtexas]

I know this one too. I work from home but had to go to luncheon with my 3 Sr vice presidents. I was so nervous and stressed. I was shacky at table studdering they gave me some looks. But 1 of them knows. So he helped to play it off of my attention. Flipping sucks though.

[Susie01]

I find myself afraid to drive and for whatever reason, a fear of not being able to fall asleep. I have laid in bed so many times and not been able to fall asleep, I think that is where the fear comes from. I will stay up until I feel exhausted and can fall asleep.

It takes me a while to get going in the morning, I will not drive until I feel completely safe to do so.

[srarndt]

I ain't afraid of anything!!!...except maybe the next time i pee my pants in public, or that I might soon become so depressed about this whole PD thing that I need to do a Kevorkian, (and worse yet i don't do it right and come out half dead or the insurance company figures out that I offed myself and refuses to pay my survivors), or that my loved ones cannot handle the stress and pain, or that maybe my next meal might kill me, or that the next time I drool in public that yet another lovely lady is going to see me and think I'm some sort of old pervert, or that I'll have to stop driving and riding my trike soon, or that I'll never have sex again, or that I've lost my retirement savings due to PD bills and I have no idea how we'll survive when my wife, (God bless her!) retires... Aside from those things, I ain't afraid of nothing! (At the moment that is!)

[srarndt]

Oh yeah, and that the bozos and bozoettes running our government into the ground will reduce our Social Security Disability benefits! Sorry to have omitted this fear on the list above!

[Joealt in reply to srarndt]

I sort of think that we are all running our government into the ground.

[Lionel]

Reading all your comments seems to confirm that we all are living with anxiety and fear, something which most normal people do not realize - they think we are a bit clumsy, slow moving and shaky but have no idea the real tremors are those inside that grab our psyche and "rattle our cage" all the time.

I think it was Roosevelt that said "We have nothing to fear but fear itself."

He was right, but it's far from easy to control that fear within, a subtle sense of dread as though I can sense that disaster is just around the corner.

When I lost my job because of PD I tried to live in denial and slowly spiralled down into a dark space in my mind. I eventually made it back to reality by focusing on exercise and inspirational quotations from real and imaginary people... these became my mantras that I repeated to myself constantly. Feed your mind with fear and it grows, feed your mind with determination and the fear wastes away.

My best meditations recalled the words of Britain's world war 2 prime minister Winston Churchill. When the Nazis had conquered Europe and it looked like Britain was doomed he gave his famous speech "We will fight them on the beaches" which culminated with the words "We shall never surrender!"

Okay Winston, if you could say that when the odds of surviving looked hopeless then I can also hang on and win my own internal battle.

Or maybe imagining you really are in a fight with fear and you are winning would be more helpful - in the last Rocky film as his son complains about tough times in his life Rocky tells him " Life is not about how hard you can hit, but how hard you can be hit and still keep moving forward." So I would open up to that fear inside, feel it and swim in it and say "come on hit me, harder, harder.. is that all you got? You try to bully me and you got nothing!"

Now that sounds daft or corny I know, but act it, believe it and your inner mind thinks it is as real as any real experience you have, that's why top athletes visualise their events in their heads because it really works to improve performance. In my case I recovered from my breakdown and came off antidepressants. Am I cured? NO! But I am mentally tough enough to live with the fear because I know it's a toothless dog - growls a lot but it cannot really bite hard enough to wreck me again.

Joealt, I know exactly what you feel, most of us here probably feel the same or had similar experiences, I backed out of many parties because I could not face people without shaking or freezing. But now I go and talk to people - still shake but tell them about Parkinson's and the anxiety goes away because they expect me to shake so the pressure not to is gone.

Good luck, do go to the gym exercise is really helpful too, and maybe try some visualisation yourself, I guarantee it will help you. Get in touch with me if you need help with it or want someone to bounce some feedback off.

[Joealt in reply to Lionel]

Thank you.

[Lionel]

Sorry the comments I put on have come up 5 times - tried to contact admin to ask them to correct it but had no luck.

[Moderator_1]

Hi Lionel, i have deleted your extra postings. Sorry you didn't hear from admin, maybe due to time differences between US and UK or the weekend. I will followup.

[dottie]

Joealt

My neurologist calls Parkinson's a "disease of mood and movement"

I lived for 40 yrs. with my mother's depressions. No physical manifestations.She was diagnosed with Parkinson's in the nursing home. She passed at age 83.

I take Neurontin, a mood stabilizer. And it helps. Check with your doc.