Stand With Us to “F*ck Parkinson’s”

bromack
1 day ago
3 min read

At the recent World Parkinson’s Congress we had a simple flip book on our Yes, And…X table titled: “How we’re Fucking Parkinson’s.” It got a lot of attention. I was ready for people to be offended. If they were, they kept it to themselves. What I did hear a lot of was “oh yeah…”...like there was a Kool Aid convention nearby.

There’s real power in claiming the phrase “Fuck Parkinson’s”, popularized by Michael J. Fox and Harrison Ford in the Apple TV series, Shrinking. Not as an empty rebellion, or a slogan slapped on a t-shirt and forgotten by morning. But as a declaration of action. In other words, we must show people how we’re fucking Parkinson’s.

The good people of Shrinking lit a fuse. They took a phrase people might once have whispered in frustration and turned it into something public, human, funny, raw, and deeply connective. They gave people permission to stop pretending. Permission to be angry, laugh, and fight – all at once.

But even the brightest of explosions fade. We can’t afford let “Fuck Parkinson’s” die as a rebel yell with nowhere to go. That’s where Cinema Therapy comes in.

At Yes, And…X, we believe stories are among the most powerful tools we have to change the world’s understanding of Parkinson’s disease. Not because well-told stories are “nice” or “entertaining.” Because they are everywhere and they have the power to slip past statistics, pamphlets, and medical jargon and go directly into the human nervous system.

Storytelling is the vehicle of our species. We all do it all the time. Birds and bees and got nothing on stor-ies. Understanding Parkinson’s is the medicine tucked inside the tasty treat of a delicious story told well.

People don’t even have to realize they swallowed their new-found understanding of Parkinson’s – it’s enough for them to know they were moved, entertained, connected, and somehow changed by the story.

That’s how movements start and cultures shift.

A great story doesn’t stand on a stage begging for pity. And as long as we’re fucking Parkinson’s we really ought to fuck pity, too. Because a great story pulls you into someone’s life so completely that you forget your assumptions. You stop seeing “a Parkinson’s patient” and start seeing a father, a wife, a comedian, a fighter, your neighbor, a dreamer, a mess, a hero, and a human being navigating something impossibly complicated. All at once.

And then comes the reaction we live for: “I didn’t know that was Parkinson’s.”

That sentence is an open door. Every single time someone says it, consciousness expands.

Because most people still think Parkinson’s is just a tremor. They don’t see what’s beneath the surface of the iceberg: the hallucinations, anxiety, sleep disorders, delusions, shame, and resilience. The hidden labor of trying to appear “normal” while your world rearranges itself inside of you.

Outstanding storytelling breaks that echo chamber wide open.

That’s why we use films like Stand by Me, Star Wars, Field of Dreams, Rocky, and Deadpool in our Cinema Therapy classes. These stories help people safely explore fear, vulnerability, courage, mortality, family, identity, and transformation through aesthetic distance. They allow us to approach difficult truths sideways — through metaphor, character, laughter, and emotion. If our heroes can do it, why can’t we?

That’s not escapism. That’s access. Once people access their stories through someone else, something extraordinary happens: they stop merely surviving Parkinson’s and begin authoring meaning from it. They become lighthouses in the storm of Parkinson’s, shepherding other wayward community members into the safe and brave harbors of connection.

That doesn’t mean the disease becomes beautiful. It means the humanity surrounding it becomes undeniable. We fuck Parkinson’s every time someone tells the truth instead of performing perfection. We fuck Parkinson’s every time a care partner feels seen. We fuck Parkinson’s every time a story reaches beyond the PD community and touches someone who thought this disease had nothing to do with them.