Parkinson’s takes things. That part is obvious.

Movement. Energy. Independence. Sleep. Confidence. Sometimes the ability to button your damn shirt without turning it into a twenty-minute neurological engineering project.

But after living with this disease long enough, I’ve realized there’s another kind of loss nobody talks about nearly enough. Parkinson’s can make you question yourself.

Was I always this tired? Am I being lazy, or is this apathy? Did I forget that because I’m getting older, or because Parkinson’s is screwing with my brain? Am I actually anxious, or is my dopamine dropping? Why don’t I want to go anywhere? Why don’t I care about something I know I care about? Why can’t I just get up and do the fucking thing?

Those questions can mess with your head more than the symptoms themselves. Because when your leg doesn’t move, you know something neurological is happening. When your motivation disappears, it feels personal.

That’s the cruel part.

Apathy feels like laziness. Fatigue feels like weakness. Brain fog feels like stupidity. Depression feels like failure. Freezing feels like fear.

And after enough years, it becomes dangerously easy to confuse what Parkinson’s is doing with who you are.

I’ve done it. I’ve looked at myself on days when I couldn’t get motivated and thought, Come on, Richie. Get your shit together.

As though Parkinson’s had somehow forgotten to check with my work ethic before messing with the circuitry responsible for motivation.

But understanding why something happens doesn’t mean surrendering to it. That distinction matters.

I can recognize that Parkinson’s is affecting my motivation and still look for ways around it. I can understand fatigue without letting fatigue make every decision. I can accept that my brain works differently without handing the disease the keys to the entire damn house.

The goal isn’t to blame Parkinson’s for everything. The goal is to stop blaming myself for everything Parkinson’s does.

Those are two very different things. Because eventually you have to separate the symptom from the person experiencing it.

I am not my apathy. I am not my fatigue. I am not my bad day. And I sure as hell am not the worst thing Parkinson’s has ever made me think about myself.

TODAY’S DEFIANT TRUTH:

Before you decide there’s something wrong with who you are, make damn sure you’re not judging yourself for something your brain is struggling to do.

Give yourself the same understanding you’d give somebody else. Then keep moving. However you have to do it.

Live Defiantly. — Richie Pikunis