The Aftermath of Lost Independence

I’ve achieved numerous milestones in my lifetime from boyhood to adulthood. I got my first job at 16. I got my drivers license at 17. I went to college during my senior year of high school and went on to earn a bachelor of science in psychology and spent a short time in the field. I got married and fathered three children. I’ve been married twice and now to a wonderful wife with a step-daughter who I care for as my own. I spent twenty years in the restaurant business learning the ins and outs of it. I became a pretty good cook doing so. 

I’ve also reached a few milestones I would’ve rather done without. But with the grace of God and His strength I overcame years of alcoholism and anorexia in my past. For years I self medicated my bipolar when my medications wouldn’t work with alcohol that almost cost me my marriage. I went through a nasty custody battle that caused me to feel out of control and as a means to find some form of it I fell victim to anorexia for six years. But by finding my renewed relationship with God He restored me and I can add the milestones of recovery to my list.

With the diagnosis of Parkinson’s and dementia I’m making a new list to mark off. A list of losses. I’m only 40 and I haven’t driven in over five years. February 18, 2010 was the last day I drove. I no longer even have a license. I remember my wife and I having “the talk” with my neurologist about me driving. It was the first step of losing my independence. I don’t drive because it’s too dangerous. I can’t react fast enough and I get lost. I get disoriented and confused. I’ll admit I’ve driven our car a couple of miles illegally a couple of times, but we won’t tell everyone about it. But for me to drive on a regular basis is too dangerous. 

I’ve accepted my diagnoses. I’ve faced reality by now. I can count that on my faith. I have found peace. But it wasn’t always that way. For a while it was depressing. For a while I was angry. The loss of independence is very life shattering. You lose your identity. You are no longer who you were. You are less of the person of who you were. You are broken. Unfixable. Childish. A burden. It is a pain that comes and goes with each and every loss.

Pick a fight

Each one of us is a unique and unrepeatable miracle of God’s grace. My wife is a miracle to me. My children are miracles.

But I do not always feel like an unrepeatable miracle of God’s grace sometimes. Unique yes. Much of the time I feel alone in this world. I mean after all, how many other people do you know who for years self medicated with alcohol and addiction and had an eating disorder, anorexia for six years and recovered from all and struggles with bipolar, migraine, Parkinson’s and dementia now. But more often I behave as though God puts up with me because He made me and now He is stuck with me. 

Logically I know this is false, but deep, and sometimes not so deep, inside it nags and gnaws at my heart, at the security and love I feel from not only others but also about myself. It creeps into my prayers, into my thoughts, into how I love and relate to my wife, to my kids, and to me.

Bipolar disorder is one of the most elusive illnesses we know of. The lives of those who live with are written like a bestselling mystery novels. The beginning opens in the middle of nowhere and every page is a twist and turn full of surprises never knowing what is going to happen next. Recognizing our thoughts are awry and our judgment is impaired is a risky business for anyone dealing with a mental illness. It all seems so sensible in our delusional state. We need to come to the conclusion there is an impairment in our functioning that prevents us from living life normally. Then again I hate that word, “normal.” Who says what is normal?

Why I'm Not Angry At God for Parkinson's and Dementia

Once I was asked, “do you blame God for all your illnesses (bipolar, anxiety, migraine, Parkinson’s and now dementia)?” Another time I was asked I was asked if the Parkinson’s with dementia made me angry. My quick and easy (for me) response was “no, not at all.” I don’t blame God for making me sick, I don’t think he made me sick, and as a matter of fact I think he’s equally sad as I am that I’m sick. I would even dare to say that He himself is angry that I’m sick.

Hold on.

Before I dig deeper here let me make sure you’re fully aware that in no way am I going to make an argument defending God, defending the idea that if God has the ability to heal me and does not he is somehow in the wrong and guilty of killing me, etc. Some of you are raising your hands, shaking your fists, and demanding that God be put on trial (rightfully so maybe). Others of you are standing up, shaking your fists, and are making a list of bullet points to absolutely prove why God is just in slowly killing me ’cause he’s teaching me a lesson (or disciplining me or what have you). Or some may argue I’m getting what I deserve. After all I fought years with alcohol and addiction and even years of anorexia. Some may argue I’m being punished for how I have treated my body as the Temple of God. Well let me say that I’m not going to please any of you because first off I don’t want to attempt to articulately figure all this out. Secondly I don’t believe that it’s my job to defend God. He can do that himself if he so desires. Quite more adequately than what I can if I say so myself. Thirdly, I don’t know if I’m able to make an adequate argument. Nor will I fall into that silly query of, “why do bad things happen to good people?”

So.

I don’t believe that God is responsible for my Parkinson’s and dementia. One of my most foundational beliefs, something that everything else builds off of is that God is good. The clearest

picture I have of who God is, is in Jesus. My belief is that when I see Jesus I am seeing God. Therefore if I want to know how God feels about sickness I look at Jesus. If I want to know what God thinks about humanity I look at Jesus. If I want to know what God would do at a party I look at Jesus. If I want to know about God one of the most clear ways is to look at Jesus…’cause they’re kinda one and the same. When I look at Jesus I see a guy who grieved over the brokenness of the world, who wept over death (to the point that he occasionally reversed it), and who didn’t seem to be satisfied with sickness (and healed accordingly).

Parkinson’s and dementia are reminders that this world is utterly broken. Things have spiraled out of control and continue to do so. War, hatred, sickness, disease, addiction, abuse, lust, and greed (among so many other things) fight to control our world and transform it into what it was never intended to be. These things, as we experience them, remind us that things are not as they should be, things are not right! And in no way do I have space to believe that God is the culprit. Nope. Instead, my belief is that God is the source of all things good, of love, of hope, of peace, of beauty, of sex, of joy, of kindness, of generosity, of gentleness, and of fresh organic strawberries. Those things come from God because that is who God is–he is good. Parkinson’s with dementia is not one of those things. It does not come from God. Parkinson’s with dementia is in opposition to God–hell on earth, if you will. God hates Parkinson’s with dementia because it is in opposition to what he is all about: life.

So do I blame God for my Parkinson’s with dementia? Absolutely not.

The question, though, that we’re all obviously stuck asking is “But God, why don’t you heal me of it?” If he is able to heal me and does not isn’t he still equally responsible? Let me throw out some random thoughts here. This isn’t an attempt to defend things fully, but rather a random collection of my own musings about this question that obviously plagues me from time to time…

At some point every single person is going to not be healed. What I mean is that even if I get healed now, at some point I won’t be…’cause at some point I’m going to be deader than dead. Whether it’s now or later it’s gonna happen. Healing is not the ultimate Band-Aid, it’s only temporary.