Accept, Adapt But Never Surrender
My journey with Parkinson’s has taught me to be more patient and accepting of myself, to adapt and understanding it’s okay to have bad days, just don’t back out of the fight. To help people outside our Parkinson’s community understand what it feels like living with Parkinson’s I say,
“Parkinson’s is like being in a war you know you can’t win, but along the way you do the best you can in the smaller battles to try and prolong the war, in a hope that in time you can help change the outcome.”
A new word has somehow come into how I live my life ………Resilience.
I’m starting to hear that word more and more, I’m even being asked to speak to groups, share my story to encourage others and show that it is possible to be Resilient. When I first heard myself referred to as Resilient, I was quite confused, when did this arrive and how did this fit into my journey, my life.
My power words are tattooed on my arms with the two most important words we need to win back from Parkinson’s - Believe and Hope. Resilience isn’t tattooed on my arm – yet.
A dictionary meaning of Resilience is – ‘an ability to recover from or adjust easily to misfortune or change’.
I started to understand, Resilience you must win, like a trophy. So, we want Resilience, but to get there is an invisible process for visible change. For that process of change we need any number of power/action words, but the key ones to bring in early are:
Accept, Adapt and keep fighting (Never Surrender).
It took over 12 months from being diagnosed for me to decide to take up the challenge against Parkinson’s and fight, take back some control of my life. I had accepted the diagnosis so ticked that word off the list and filed it away and replaced it with fight.
Fight - lasted a couple of years and seemed to be working, I was taking on multiple physical challenges I thought I could never undertake even pre-Parkinson’s. I was winning, well that’s what it looked like from the outside. Inside it had become harder to get motivated, I needed more and more time recover, regroup to get back into the fight. I was fighting more with myself than I was with Parkinson’s, who was snapping at the leash reminding me that it’s not going away, it’s growing stronger, how long could I keep up the fight …. No, No, No way I’m giving into it there must be a better way.
I realized Accepting the diagnosis was only a small part of the acceptance of Parkinson’s. Fight is the word many people use when challenging the impact and control of Parkinson’s, but that alone is not enough, you need to identify and interlace other power and action words, build a team to bring into the challenge. Understand that the leader of the team can frequently change depending on the priorities and demands of each day.
There is more to share about how to Accept, Adapt and never surrender to Parkinson’s, but that will be for another day.
On May 19, I will be speaking more on about my mantra, Accept, Adapt but Never Surrender, with follow-up Q&A session on May 20.
And yes, I am still taking on those Physical Challenges and even more so than previously, the best is the changes I have made mean I’m no longer alone in those challenges others are now with me and building their way towards that mystery word …Resilience.
Geoff Constable is CPS CAD Lead at the West Gate Tunnel Project in Melbourne, Australia. He attended the WPC 2019 and was inspired. He is currently a WPC 2022 Ambassador and will be speaking on Living well with Parkinson’s in May at the WPC Virtual Congress.
Ideas and opinions expressed in this post reflect that of the author(s) solely. They do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the World Parkinson Coalition®