Originally developed as a model of preparation for death, Dr. Edith Kübler-Ross’ five stages of grieving-denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance- are often applied to life-changing events. Receiving a diagnosis of Parkinson’s disease certainly qualifies as life changing and Kübler-Ross’ model is helpful for guiding an individual in a quest to come to terms with the diagnosis.

It is almost standard practice to approach the model as a step-by-step sojourn, beginning with denial (“It can’t be PD. The diagnosis must be wrong”) and ending with acceptance. However, this practice presumes that the stages are sequential and unidirectional. They are neither. One does not simply progress through the stages one after another, completing one then graduating to the next. In fact, it is quite common for an individual’s journey through the stages to be marked by advance, retreat and even leaps over a given step altogether. Some people get the sequence scrambled, some get stuck in a given stage, and some people find the whole Kübler-Ross model doesn’t even apply to them.

My last blog discussed the difficulty in making a transition back to the family home because of Parkinson’s Disease. In that entry, I discussed the relationship challenges such a transition entails. In this entry, I want to discuss the loss of independence.

In some ways our Western ideas about independence are a part of a devastating paradigm that produces unnecessary guilt when we must live with family. We equate a return to the bosom of our family as failure. We are relinquishing control of our lives.