Art & Parkinson’s
Anger & Perspective
The Screaming Room
I had been struggling to get Hal upstairs on the stairlift one day, take his coat off, get him settled in his recliner. He looked at me and said, “How are you so patient? Do you have a screaming room?”
I have different places where I go in my head while I’m waiting. Sometimes I name my different caregiver selves: Angie-the-Angry-caregiver, Sally-the-Sad-caregiver, Ina-the-Impatient-caregiver – and figure out which one of those has shown up that day.
One day, I was working on a series of self-portraits to try to capture Ruthie-the-Rageful-caregiver. I took some selfies with different angry facial expressions, feeling a bit like an imposter acting out the feelings. The photographs were disturbing to look at, but still too tame. They didn’t show quite how it really felt from inside. I then made some drawings from the photographs and overlaid the drawings one of top of another in a digital imaging program on the computer. It began to feel right.
Hal said we should invent a new reality TV show entitled, “Will She Crack?” It’ll be about caregivers competing with each other to see who takes the longest to crack. So he knows.
Kitchen Thoughts on Labor Day Weekend
I’m in the kitchen on Labor Day weekend, feeling resentful about my many caregiving duties, when Hal announces to me that he finally understands what, “Let the devil take the hindmost,” means. It means, he says, “No matter what, I accept the consequences.” I think about it and agree that that’s a great interpretation. He says that if it’s not the correct interpretation, then let the devil take the hindmost – at which we both laugh.
It reminds me how important humor is for getting us through this. But even more importantly, I see the contrast between his brain and mine at the moment. I’m obsessing over my anger. He’s obsessing over his wordplay. But also, he’s trying to make me laugh, possibly because he is picking up on my quiet tension.
Maybe the way out of this divide is to somehow merge our two selves, to gather together my stuff with his stuff. To be, metaphorically, just one being, one who holds anger and releases it, who is frustrated and laughing. Rather than worrying about or holding on to my anger; I can let it sit side-by-side with silliness.