(A continuation of “Embracing Uncertainty: Navigating Parkinson’s and Emotional Crossroads” – from June 30, 2024)

I arrive home, parking my car in the driveway. I say to my passengers, my emotions, “Everybody out. We’re home”. Yes, I am bringing them back home. I’ll be able to work on my relationship with each of them better if they are in my immediate presence. This is a very daunting plan for someone who has increased anxiety and gets overwhelmed easily.

“Apathetic Annie” steps out of the car and stands next to me. We are both looking at this unbelievable, huge ball of squished emotions that rolled out of the backseat and is now sitting in front of us in the driveway. It’s a behemoth! They are all mixed up and intertwined with each other. “How am I going to sort them out?”, I exclaim with panic. “Apathetic Annie” says “How about we do an emotional inventory first? Let’s pull them out of this ball one at a time and name them.”

“Okay, Annie. Thanks.” We reach in and start pulling them out one at a time. After Roll Call, we have “Doubtful Dennis”, “Worrisome Wanda”, “I’m too tired Tucker”, “Indecisive Izzy”, “Grieving Gertrude”, “Lonely Louise”, and “Sad Sammy”.Then curled up in the nucleus of this heap was someone new, “By-the-book Benny”. 

We ushered them all into the house. I look at them all sitting in front of me, not knowing where to start. “What am I supposed to do here?” Feeling overwhelmed, I collapse on the couch and start crying. I am desperate for all this confusion and my responsibilities to be gone. I feel like I am breaking into pieces. I am a shattered stained glass window. I don’t know where they came from but there are lots of mixed up colored shards and slivers of glass all over the floor. I looked at them and realized that each color and shape and size of the broken glass is a different aspect of who I am. Then my emotions start picking up the pieces. It is interesting to see each of them gravitate toward certain colors. Most of them wanted blue, because it reflects Doubt, Worry, Grief, Sadness and Loneliness so well. “I’m too tired Tucker” wanted green because it was so soothing. “Indecisive Izzy” couldn’t decide what they should have so they took some of each color. (Blue, green, red, yellow, white, etc.) “By-the-book Benny” just watched this play out before him and took notes. I’m not sure what they are going to ultimately do with the glass, but for now they’ve each picked out some kind of container to keep it in.

I’m still sitting on the couch with a tear-stained face and am trying to figure out what these emotions have to do with my constantly feeling overwhelmed. Then it dawns on me that Benny has surfaced through all these other emotions to bring back some core memories from my early career as a stage manager. I loved being a stage manager. I was damn good at it! Being a stage manager was everything to me. So much that the stage manager skills and tasks I performed over the years became a way of running all aspects of my life. As a stage manager, I created a “call book” for every show. It’s the stage manager’s bible. It contains all the notes, directions and cues needed to run the show. Without it chaos reigns. It’s critical to every aspect of the production. 

Thinking about it now, I am struck with the realization that I have been creating multiple call books for all the aspects of my life. Having a call book to follow through my everyday life gave me peace of mind. I was organized and knew what to expect. I also knew how to deal with the unexpected because contingency planning is an integral part of every call book.

But something happened that caused me to lose the ability to create and follow my life call books. Parkinson’s (PD) happened. It stripped the veneer I had built up to manage my personal life. It’s also called “having no filters”. No protective barriers. No controls. That is why I am anxious and get overwhelmed so easily. No filters to protect my nervous system. I feel like a raw, exposed bundle of nerves most of the time. Regardless of taking medication to treat my PD symptoms, medications do not fully work to quiet the internal tremble I have. Medications do not restore the confidence and organizational skills I once had and so desperately need to run the business of my life.

So what’s the resolution here? There isn’t one really. Remembering how good I was at my job and managing everyday life before PD is just an irritant and only serves to injure my ego. But maybe some memory, stored inside a vaulted section of my brain will still surface to bring me closer to facing this new nemesis, constantly feeling overwhelmed.