One of the traits I have observed in my nearly three quarters of a century as a participant in this experience called life, is the embracing and engaging of behaviors easily identified as “habits”. Habits can fall into one or more of several different categories. Good habits we tend to think of as positive (good) for us whereas so-called bad habits can be detrimental to us. Often the habit itself may be good within the context of our behavioral system, but negative in its effects upon us when misused or poorly or excessively engaged. Habits often arise in the expression of “personality”. I am a hugger, which means that when seeing someone I know and appreciate, and in an environment conducive to it, I will open arms and give a warm and welcoming hug. I enjoy being close to people I know and have had little objection to being close to people I do not know if the environment seems conducive. The behaviors which have grown to be applied as normal for me are done so in a way that assumes a positive outcome of feelings of warmth and affirmation regarding others. There have been times when I am sure I have hugged someone who was infected with any number of forms of potential diseases, but either by vaccine or an active functioning immune system remained uninfected or affected by the hugging. As an unwilling (but ever growing one of acceptance) host to ever diminishing levels of dopamine leading to a multitude of symptoms that are NOT normal in the usual human experience, this host has with great difficulty, gained competence in “living with” the consequences of diminished dopamine. Add to this experience of daily frustrations in the world of PD symptoms and medication side effects, the necessary behaviors to compensate for those symptoms and effects, and the one experiencing those effects can easily fall into the mental trap of being the victim. Bring on the coronavirus and the potential for a life threatening and or life taking experience, resulting in engaging (not engaging more often than not) behaviors that put hugs in the realm of “don’t dare”, and interaction with others who have not been with you in the place and period of frank isolation and you have now another behavior (or set of them) required in the quest for daily living. This is abnormal behavior and experience for most of our lives, yet for an unidentified extended period this is expected to become the “new normal”. This participant in the exercise of living life to the fullest finds these behaviors to be abnormal. Therefore, what it seems we are destined to engage for an unidentified period of time in a new set of abnormal behaviors that facilitate our desire to remain infection free and open to the possibilities of a fully expressed and experienced life. During this undefined period of coronavirus avoidance, this unintentional participant in the PD challenges is called yet again in the world of virus avoidance, to engage behaviors that can only be understood in the context of being “abnormal”. Bring it on! We will aggressively seek to understand and engage it and mourn the loss of what we view from this side of the equation as normal life experience.
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