A sense of onlyness

Parkinson’s makes me feel like the American President on a state visit; an army of bodyguards controls where the President goes, when he eats, what he does, whom he meets… For the most powerful man in the world the President has very little personal control; he sits in the eye of a storm alone, feeling a sense of onlyness and disconnection from the world. Who is more powerful, the President or the bodyguards controlling access to the President?

Similarly, I feel a sense of onlyness as I am surrounded by my Parkinson’s and feel increasingly cut off from the world; each symptom is a bodyguard shielding me from view and escorting me from place to place. Each plan I formulate and each move I make is carefully scrutinised and controlled by a symptom bodyguard. I feel detached and alone, surrounded by a closed circle of symptoms that control me more and more…