MY BEAUTIFUL BRAIN It would have been so easy to write about the negative side of my life but it isn't as bad as you might think as I get a great deal of pleasure out of my writing which I suppose is my emotional outlet in a way for what I can't translate into the spoken word. Self-belief in my ability to live with this condition is another determining factor because, without my mental attitude to overcome my disability, I would have probably collapsed in a heap and given in to Parkinson's long ago. But I found my inner strength the willpower and the spirit to carry on and overcome. When you look at the facts of living with Parkinson's it doesn't look good, but it isn't all bad either. In the early days, I didn't have to think about the problems I would have to face and shrugged them off and carried on with a relatively normal life. Parkinson's doesn't change overnight so you have time and that depends on whether you decide to look after yourself and stay as physically fit as possible. In the early days, I kept playing competitive sports for as long as I could and then I started cycling. I could ride a bike much better than I could walk. The main problem was getting on and off the bike because that was when I had balance issues. But I worked my way around the problems and off I went. Riding a bike gave me independent mobility for quite a few years because I was falling so much when I was trying to walk which meant that I started to use a wheelchair to get from A to B if I couldn't do it on my bike. And, if I was being honest using a wheelchair for my mobility was probably the worst decision I have made because I became reliant. The positive side was that I wasn't having as many crashing falls and hurting myself but the negative side was that the less I walked the harder it became. I began to freeze and lose faith in my ability to walk. I was freezing in doorways, falling off curbs, falling backwards and yet I could still ride my bike? It made no logical sense. And I stayed in a wheelchair for nearly ten years and I was walking less. But what was happening was that I was losing faith in my ability to walk. I was losing my self-confidence. And I thought to myself is this it? Is this my disabled life? My brain was slowly but surely forgetting how to walk automatically without thinking about it I was starting to freeze and seize up which created a lot of anxiety for me. However, I have always been a positive person and thought proactive about dealing with my Parkinsonian symptoms. So I sat down and figured it out. If I couldn't walk automatically without thinking about it I would have to tell my legs what to do and give them orders instead. So I started talking to my legs and telling them what to do. And the more I repeated the verbal commands the more my brain started to remember. I was re-routing the faulty signals in my brain from automatic to manual and it was working. And although it wasn't perfect it was good enough. I have restored my self-confidence in my independent mobility. I could walk again. And the more I was able to walk the less I had to consciously think about it the more natural the movement became. I had rerouted the faulty signals and restored my self-confidence.