Imagine stepping into the batters box knowing that the pitcher is going to throw a fastball every single time. You would hit a homerun every single time you went to the plate. That’s how your brain used to work. Everything you needed to do to function was a series of fastballs that your brain knew were coming. It was like batting practice for your brain. Walk, run, type, speak, open the jar, anything you needed to do, your brain would hit it out of park. One day you wake up and your brain has learned a new pitch.
Parkinson’s is a curveball that your brain can’t seem to hit… even though it knows it’s coming. Now batting practice has turned into a high pressure situation in the bottom of the 9th with two outs. Every single minute of every single day. No more coasting. Walk. Curveball. Run. Curveball. Sleep. Curveball. You’re constantly swinging and missing. What once was easy, what once was fun… a game, is now a challenge. It gets old fast and the slow walk to the dugout after striking out constantly can get frustrating.
All of this striking out, all of the bean balls, can eventually lead you down a dark path. It’s not uncommon to start to feel frustrated, anxious, stressed, or even depressed. You’re so used to living a life with home runs, and now you’re lucky to get a walk. Your body is no longer in the prime it should be, and adding insult to injury, it’s affecting your mood. You can’t hit the curve and it’s taking away your happiness. No matter how hard you practice, the hours of work you put in the batting cage just to stay in the game… you can’t hit the curveball that keeps getting thrown at you.
I’ve been down the dark path. I’m still walking it. The strikeouts take a toll. I’ve learned that no matter how many times I strike out I’m not losing the game, because every time I step up to the plate means the game is still going on. I’m keeping the game going and that makes me a winner. It won’t always feel that way. It mostly won’t feel that way, but having supportive teammates at least makes the game fun again. It makes life worth living. Everyone will tell you to keep fighting, but the reality is that fighting sucks. You shouldn’t have to fight through life. Whether you have Parkinson’s or not though, it’s up to each and every one of us to make the only life we have worth living. The people we chose to have on our team helps immensely.
We aren’t special. Life throws curveballs at everyone. Our teammates only care about us and very few others. We can talk about our struggles at the plate all we want, but nobody either cares or understands unless they are on the same team as us. They aren’t. We only have each other. Sure we have fans that cheer us on, and it helps to get through it, but make no mistake it doesn’t help to hit the ball out of the park. We can continue to talk, to get down on ourselves, complain, OR we can get in the batting cage, love the game, and work our asses off until we no longer have… trouble with the curve.