Hi Karen,
I agree with Dr Johnny. We are all different – personality, family grouping, age, background, set of beliefs, current circumstances, etc and that will affect how we approach it.
I believe I’m of the ilk where telling people helps make it real for me and then I can move on with my life. I am much more comfortable doing it in the written word than verbally.
In my case, I was dx’d out of the country staying with my family, so they were the first to know. My hubby got a phone call, and my kids got an email.
As it was December, anyone I wrote a Christmas card to found out.
I emailed or rang some special friends, but was not up to emailing the others, due to the extreme summer heat and Parkinson’s apathy. So most found out gradually on Facebook, when I posted about my MRI, etc.
Back here in the States, I still have not told other social groupings whom I don’t know well. One example is my neighbours. I am not close to any of them, so it would feel weird to just bring it up.
I do have a home-made PwP card in my wallet, but as yet haven’t felt the need to show anyone, as I still look pretty “normal”, more normal than I did this time last year.
Telling people (strangers or neighbours) is still in my future, and I am a little preoccupied with how I will do that. I have been advised to just casually mention it, something like,”BTW, I have Parkinson’s.”
Another PwP and I did toss some ideas around as to how to do it with humour.
One idea was to wear a PD Awareness t-shirt to the neighbourhood soup night. Or to talk casually about my tremor. Or say something about my support group meeting.
One of our support group members has a large PD Awareness tattoo on his forearm, and he has needed to show it to people when he has bad dyskinesia.
