hi cyber-siblings

i have put several previous messages of mine together
as an intro to the pub-med abstracts on
drug-induced psychosis in
the following post

--------------------------------------------------------
intro to non-physical symptoms part one
--------------------------------------------------------

when my ex-brother-in-law, willie, was a child,
he was part of a large, hard-working, loving family

during his teen years
willie witnessed a profound personality change in his father
who became generally very angry and argumentative
to the point of physically abusing willie's mom

willie felt his love for his father turn to hatred

a few years later
willie's father was diagnosed with a brain tumour
and died not too long after the diagnosis

on a more personal and slightly less traumatic level
during my twenties i shared an apartment
with my then love maurice for about four years

my temperament has always seemed pretty happy and easy-going
both to me and to all my friends
certainly i rarely got angry or raised my voice

in spite of that
maurice and i had horrific yelling arguments once in awhile
and i can still feel the full-blown glorious rage
surging around inside me from those fights

finally maurice took note of the calendar

he was the one to make the connection
between our arguments and day 23 of my menstrual cycle

it was like clockwork
and i never made the connection for
hmmmm
27 - 13 = 14 years x 12 = 168 months

i virtually became another person
i was angry at everything and anything
no matter what maurice said
or even if he said nothing
it made no difference
i just got angrier

maurice could have propped up a cardboard replica of himself
and gone out for a walk
i doubt that i would have noticed

am i going anywhere with these two sad tales?

yep

straight to my favourite subject

brain chemisty

we are all familiar with pd's physical symptoms
and while some of us may be embarassed about showing them in public
we are all used to
and even probably expect
some level of empathy, understanding, compassion
and accommodation from the rest of the world
for our physical plight

however
when it comes to symptoms which may be deemed
'psychological' or 'emotional' or 'cognitive' or whatever
it seems to me that
a lot of people may be tempted to rush in
and make judgments and condemn such behaviours as 'nutcase'

call me weird
but if someone i know starts behaving
in an extreme and hitherto un-noticed manner
i find myself sitting back and
saying 'hmmmm' to myself

between 'hormone hell' and cd
i have experienced a ton of 'emotions'
that have been purely chemically induced
and had nothing to do with my so-called 'mental state'

i keep thinking over and over
these brain chemicals
are no joke

medication induced psychosis
is just that
medication induced

not a 'mental condition'
and not even permanent

we all 'play' with our brain chemistry
on a daily, hourly, minutely basis
fine-tuning and tweaking
as well as we can

the way i see it
medication induced psychosis
is as real a possibility for me and for any parkie
as any other drug side effect

it seems to me
that constant vigilance
and intimate knowledge about our disease
are both critical to our well-being and to our safety

i have to consciously work at the former
i am grateful every day for this list for providing the latter

--------------------------------------------------------
intro to non-physical symptoms part two
--------------------------------------------------------

our brain chemistry is a living miracle

it's a miracle that i can understand the words i am writing now
it's a miracle that you can understand the words you are reading now
let alone all the miracles that took place to get from me to you

fooling with or making adjustments / changes to our meds
can be, at the least, a tricky business
and, at worst, a dangerous one

if that miraculous brain chemistry 'stew' recipe is out of balance
our symptoms, whether pd-induced or drug-induced,
can manifest as physical ones or cognitive ones:

nausea
despair
tremour
drooling
rigidity
paranoia
hostility
delusions
obsessiveness
shuffling walk
total withdrawal
tiny handwriting
olfactory changes
frozen facial muscles
full blown glorious rage
uncontrollable profanity
wild dyskinetic movements
seeing puppies on the kitchen floor
hearing things that go 'bump' in the night

even tiny changes
in our brain chemistry
can alter the way we perceive our world
sensually, emotionally, intellectually, hormonally, morally, you name it

the range and breadth of potential symptoms is breath-taking
and all caused by the 'recipe' being wrong:
'a pinch of something' missing there and
'a dash of something else' extra here

so many of these physical and behavioural symptoms are still tainted
by the associations in our minds with so-called 'craziness':
'psychiatric hospital' 'nut house' 'loony bin'
and my all-time favourite 'insane asylum'

but they are all 'just' symptoms of an imbalance in the 'recipe'
and indications that the chef has work to do

yours in nutziness

janet

ps
my thanks to simon coles for all his hard work
on maintaining the pd list archives at his site
http://james.parkinsons.org.uk/

pps
do you have a website?
is it part of the pwp web-ring?
mine is

janet paterson - 51/10 - almonte/ontario/canada
http://www.newcountry.nu/pd/members/janet/
[log in to unmask]