Denial

Anyone struggling with a family member in denial of their illness? Is be interested to hear your experiences. Dealing with this at the moment, and while my family member desperately needs help, he and his partner are both seriously in denial and sometimes attempts to help them result in anger and shutdown. It also sends his anxiety into tailspin and gives him panic attacks which negatively impact on his illness. Any thoughts on how to deal with this? We are in crisis.

Hi iris11,

I'm really sorry to hear about the difficulties your family are dealing with. I'm sure you will get lots of great advice from other members.

In the meantime, our Helpline team can offer you support or just someone to chat to. Please do feel free to call for guidance on 0808 800 0303. We are open from Monday-Friday: 9am-7pm and Saturday: 10am-2pm. Hope this helps.

Best wishes,

Edwina

Moderation Team

Hi Iris,

Just read your post and was wondering how long has your family member know about their Parkinson's? It must be very difficult to watch them refuse help, but realistically, until they accept the illness, there is nothing you can do, except show them you care and are there for them, Trying to force them to accept it, will not be helpful and as you say, cause more harm than good. It took me a good year to accept that I had Parkinson's and even now, don't like to talk about it with loved ones. I am in my 4th. year since diagnosis, aged 66. How old is your family member? We all have to decide for ourselves when to accept help. Since there is no cure and the drugs we are given can have bad side effects, I can appreciate that some people would rather see how they can manage their symptoms alone.

Please don't beat yourself up about their denial......just be as loving and caring as you were before they were diagnosed and keep a positive, happy attitude, around them.

Twinks.