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It's the "should' word that triggers it. A sort of tingling down my spine, a stiffness in my neck that has nothing to do with Parkinson's. Usually the should word is preceded by "Ithinkyou". As I wind down this Parkinson's path, I am frequently met by those who want to help me. This is a good thing. Better than the alternative. From my dear students, and as well, from some of my teaching colleagues, I learn that People with Parkinson's are the "nicest people", the "dearest grandparent", the "favorite aunt". My immediate surface response is warm and cordial. (It usually is. Not from any training I was given in good manners, but rather from a stunned "what do I do with this?" reaction that lies beneath my disembling brain cells.) One thing my Parkinson's presence is doing for my friends and working buddies is asking that they look at their own helplessness as I deal with mine. It's not an eternal state. I am slowly finding that if I actually sit down (or rather lie down as Yeats says: "We must lie down where all the ladders start/In the foul rag and bone room of the heart.") that in fact I do have resources, emotional, creative, psychological, that I can activate to challenge my feelings of helplessness. But for those who can't take or make the time to sit there and feel that initial despair, it seems that doling out unsolicited advice gets them momentarily off the hook: (even when it comes from the RN who has been working forever with Parkinson's patients.) "Barb, I think you should just forget you have Parkinson's and get on with your life." If this "advice " had been given to me at any time during the intitial stages of the diagnosis, I would not have been warm and cordial. Instead it came at a time when I could, in my own defense, smirk and say to myself, "This one's for the book." When I dig into my tingling spine and see just what it is that is so offensive to me about unsolicited advice, I find it summarised in a statement that goes something like this: "Barb you are such a bonehead that you couldn't possibly figure out for yourself what to do in this situation so let me tell you. Ithinkyoushould......" Instead of achieving the desired result, the "advisor" has undermined my own strengths (latent and wobbly though they may be) and taken a responsibility which is in fact mine. It is hard to stay there in that foul rag and bone room, whether it's your own or somebody else's. I shared a friend's pain in the hospital yesterday, the physical pain of her most recent operation and the psychological pain of facing an uncertain future that at this time offers nothing (as she sees it now) but more pain. I wanted to say "I think you should".... I wanted it to go away, to release us both from the pain that was engulfing our love for each other. And the parallel did not escape me as I left my friend in the hospital with her pain, as others leave embraces with me, collecting up their healthy lives and moving on. There is, however, one type of advice which is a bounty, which fills my sails, which gives me direction, purpose, a plan. And that is the advice I ask for. Barb Rager