Relationships and Parkinson’s Disease

Since my diagnosis with PD I have received an incredible amount of support from friends and family members. I don’t exactly know how to be worthy of this, but it has touched me very deeply. But I always suspected that my diagnosis with PD would mean the end of intimate relationships. I figured that no woman would be interested in a person like me, and my experience with on-line dating certainly confirmed this: as soon as I added a sentence about PD to my on-line profile the number of my contacts fell to zero.

I also figured that I didn’t really have the time for a relationship, given how much time I spend coping with my symptoms, and my generally low energy level. I thought that at most it would be possible to have friendships, or perhaps casual affairs, this despite the fact that I’ve never been good at having casual affairs.

Nevertheless, about nine months ago I started dating someone, and I’ve been pleasantly surprised to find that most of my assumptions were wrong: I do have enough time, and I don’t have to try to limit myself to casual affairs. Furthermore, I’ve wanted for some time to have a relationship where my partner and I could use the relationship itself as a way to resolve some of the old baggage that I seem to bring to each relationship, and my partner is definitely up for this with her equivalent stuff. I feel incredibly fortunate.

On the other hand, it’s not a walk in the park either. There’s an old Buddhist observation that the purpose of relationships is not so much to make you happy as to help you grow. In practice this is somewhat equivalent to saying “you will now get to face all of your fears and all your confusions about intimacy, love, expectations, sharing, not sharing, and your partner’s fears and confusions about the same, ready or not.” I’m having to face up to a lot of my own baggage, and while that’s a good thing, it hasn’t exactly been fun. Fortunately most of our time together is fun, and that helps a lot. I’m learning to be myself more genuinely, to be patient with myself and my partner, and to finally get some shit resolved. And yes, sex is still great. That helps too.