The end of April, Parkinson’s Awareness month, is not the end of the effort required to increase Parkinson’s awareness. The work to develop ways to make life easier for those living with the disease, as well as to find a cure, continues year-round.

Parkinson’s disease (PD) is an immensely complex and multifaceted illness affecting millions of people around the world. Characterized by “progressive dopaminergic neuronal dysfunction and loss,” it is expressed in motor, cognitive, mood, and behavioral symptoms. Alleviating symptoms, and fighting the disease depends on improving our, at present, incomplete understanding of it: as sufferers, as activists, as researchers.

In my reading of blogs, articles, and social-media posts about PD written by people living with it, and others, I come across presentations that seem to fall into two broad categories: On one end of the spectrum are accounts wishing to convey what the disease is “really like;” these writings are often of the pain, emotional and psychological impact the physical deterioration has on those suffering from it. On the other end, whatever the manifestations of the disease are, the emphasis is on ways the writers have found to deal with their symptoms and even slow the progression. There are, of course, presentations that, to some extent, balance these two extremes, but they are only a few. Both strands are discernible in the contributions featured this April.

So what is PD like? One moment the person with PD looks like the acute sufferer according to the former category; the next, like the exercising enthusiast keeping the disease at bay. There is clearly a disease that is highly variable, multi-faceted and in urgent need of attention. And yet, if you search for depictions of PD, you will most often encounter an infographic like this

Well, I look nothing like it!

Norwegian video journalist Anders M. Leines used still images to portray younger, “early-onset” Parkinson’s patients in a series of portraits at his exhibition “This is Parkinson’s.”

In an interview by Geoffrey Chang, a post published in 2015 in Parkinson’s Life, the online lifestyle magazine for the international Parkinson’s community by @euparkinsons, he says

The idea is to give the image of Parkinson’s disease a ‘total makeover’. There is huge potential for better and more powerful storytelling within the Parkinson’s community. In medical textbooks, as well as in the media, people with Parkinson’s (PwPs) are traditionally depicted as tiptoeing, shaking and stooping seniors with whispering voices and a staring glare, imparting the impression of an apathetic or asocial person who lacks empathy and is uninterested in taking part in normal social interplay. This image is of no help to the patient as it fosters prejudice.

Journalist Teresa Borque when diagnosed with PD at an early age, underwent a huge identity crisis. In her post on Parkinson’s Life, she says

Being a woman is a daily struggle in this society. At work, we struggle to be considered as good as any man there; we struggle in relationships to be respected as a whole person; we struggle during motherhood not to be reduced to the role of just a mother. But with Parkinson’s disease diagnosis, the fight increases by 100.

While we all base our self-esteem on the other people’s recognition of ourselves, she points out – women have to learn to be their own highest priority in life. “Parkinson’s disease feels like an ally of sexism,” she writes, emphasising why it’s crucial for women with PD to learn to prioritize their own wellbeing.

Then there are depictions of PD outside the two poles. So negative depictions, or silences, that are painful to read; many of the writers drove themselves to suicide. Or, so positive, so glowing with challenges, achievements and enjoyment of every minute of the day, that upon reading them, a healthy person might wish they had Parkinson’s. I appreciate the motivational power of such accounts and often read them to inspire myself to do more.

We need to keep talking. We need to keep listening. We need to keep producing the pieces that will one day complete the puzzle that is Parkinson’s.