Ida K.
You sound (an odd word to use in this silent medium) like such a terrific
woman! From reading your posts, I've come thoroughly enjoy the way your
mind works...
Warmly...
Barb Mallut
[log in to unmask]
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From: PARKINSN: Parkinson's Disease - Information Exchange Network on behalf
of Ida Kamphuis
Sent: Tuesday, November 19, 1996 3:29 PM
To: Multiple recipients of list PARKINSN
Subject: Tears, emotion, depression.
Tears, emotion,depression,
This message too will not give an all clarifying answer. The most impor-
tant questions where : what makes tears coming so easily in PD patients
and what causes the lack of control some Pd's have on them. Do the easy
coming tears tell us we are depressive and if so does is this a symptom of
Parkinson itself or a med side effect or is it psychic. I write this not to
come with eternal truths. Maybe it can make some people formulate their own
thoughts.
The way I have viewed these things for myself is most similar to the view
Mark Hardy has. This means I saw my tears as psychic e.g. a reaction on the
tough problems I had to face. It was not a depression but sorrow, not a
symptom of any disease nor a side effect of any med. I know that depression
as one of the symptoms of Parkinson exist and it is possibly the most ne-
glected symptom. But I cosidered myself always as not having this symptom.
People who take part in writing to this list are the ones in which depr. as
a symptom is seen much less than in an unselected group of PD's.because
having a depression means not having much initiative. In the writings of
caretakers we see more of it. A caretaker complaining of negativism may
have a depressive patient.
The difference between being sorrowfull as a psychic reaction and being
depressed as caused by some neurotransmitter who hasn't the adequate amount
is that the latter tends to make it impossible to enjoy anything. It means
living is something one has to drag oneself through. Nothing is done with
pleasure. A Dutch writer who suffers periods of severe depression wrote: it
is a period in which even the fresh green grass is black. It is this aspect
which can make makes life for caretakers so difficult. Everyone who gives
care needs feeling the cared one realy appreciates what she\he is doing.
Nobody with a full blown depression is able to give that feeling.
This is not the whole story .A reaction to a severe loss can give the same
symptoms as a "real" depression. A depression caused by parkinson as one of
the symptoms is possibly something else as another depression . In fact we
don't know much of this for sure.
I tell things as I experienced it
I was full of sorrow for a time after I got the diagnosis PD. But the
colour of the grass did not turn black. During some time,however I really
could not be interested in anything else. Looking tv. I only saw people
moving normal, sitting down and getting up again. It was not far from a
depression.
My reaction was dramatic because Parkinson started verry dramatic. During
summer holidays 1984 I had climbed to a top(not a very high one ,but it was
a top) in the Alps with my husband and children and two months after that I
could hardly walk at all. It was soon clear I had to give up my work.
The prospects in 1984 were worse than they are now.
I never stopped to feel responsible for the children who were 10 and 12
years old. Having a mother with an incurable and limiting disease is far
less damaging than having a depressed mother. So if not for my own sake it
was for their sake I had to learn to cope, and for the time being protect
them. In their presence I tried to let them not feel all my despair. I did
not lie to them, but the same story can be told in much different ways. The
other side was I needed to talk much about it without being inhibited by
having to keep control. People asking me in presence of the children how
are you and what can you expect, didn't make things easy for me.
It was from the beginning impossible to hide my Parkinson. I was sometimes
able to see humor in the absurd situations I met. For instance somebody who
saw me on the street walking said: I bet you have been skiing,I remember
you told once you never would learn that.I told her the reason of my
disturbed walking and she felt quite embarrassed. Whenever I was asked: how
are you I found myself in a puzzling situation. Did they really want to
hear. Didn't I toke them to much by surprise. It seemed impossible to say
nothing and as impossible to say it halfway as: I am fine, I only have Par-
kinson.
In the mail of last week some of you (Mary Sheehan, Rick Barret, Ernie
Peters) refered to the same situations as being difficult. I felt myself
emotional unstable in them too, not in control. I experienced that aspect
,the crying, not so much as the heart of the problem as you did. And Mark
Hardy did it neither. So the thought of needing anti-depressives never
crossed my mind. Being only able to guess in these matters it makes sense
that anyone who makes a different guess tries anti-depr.meds.
Besides this the difference puzzles me. Honnestly the thought forced upon
me it is a cultural difference, something as another appreciation of the
darker sides of life.
As a student I lived in the north of the Netherlands. When anybody in that
area is asked "how are you" and all is perfekt, he answers " 'tkon minder"
"it could be worse". How would an answer like that be appreciated in the
US? If you all are going to try, I guess I was wrong with my cultural
difference,if not,the question remains open.
Ida Kamphuis
Holland
