Urgent. I Think It Is Happening

This is perhaps the most important blog I have written. It is certainly the hardest to write. There have been many posts over the last few days, but this is one I never planned to send.

I have often spoken almost in the third person about the behavioural changes caused by PSP. The anger. The anxiety. The mood swings. The apathy. I have repeatedly said that these things were not affecting me.

I think I have now realised I was wrong.

More than that, I think I have been ignoring what was right in front of me.

I have been getting angry at people over very small things, especially my wife. I get irritated at my dog for barking too loudly. I have been rude to people I love in ways that simply were not me before. I find myself caring less about subjects, conversations and sometimes even people’s reactions. At the same time, my anxiety has risen to an entirely new level. I am relying on much higher doses of anti-anxiety medication and even using a CBD vape to try to calm myself.

It is not constant. It is not happening every hour of every day. But there are really only two possible explanations.

Either this is somehow completely unrelated to PSP and is simply a bad patch, stress, exhaustion, or some strange coincidence.

Or it is PSP.

What would any rational person conclude?

These are well-documented symptoms. I have those symptoms. I have PSP.

Of course it is possible that this is only the early stage of these changes and that I am not yet lost to them. In many ways, that is exactly why I am writing this. I do not want to hide behind denial. I do not want my family to notice it before I do. I want to confront it honestly while I still can.

Because I think it is happening.

Selectively perhaps. Intermittently perhaps. But happening.

Recently I became disproportionately angry at my wife over something that, not long ago, I would barely have noticed. I was irritated with a close relative when she came to visit, despite the fact that I love her deeply and I owe her enormous respect and gratitude. The same with my a person I truly cherish. I have started retreating from social situations because I am frightened of my own reactions and frightened of becoming someone I do not recognise.

So back to the question.

Is it happening?

I may still be wrong, but deep down I do not think I am. Awareness is at least part of the battle, but I honestly do not know what battle I am now fighting. This is not simply physical deterioration. This feels different. It feels like something that reaches into personality, emotion and judgement itself.

That frightens me more than the physical symptoms ever have.

There is no cure for PSP. There is no clear roadmap for dealing with this side of it. I can try therapy, and I will. I can try to stay self-aware, and I will. I can apologise when I get things wrong, and I will. But this is neurological, and that reality is terrifying because I do not know how much control I truly have over it.

Perhaps I am still early. Perhaps I am wrong about the timing. But if I think about it logically, I am now in Year 6 of PSP. The average progression statistics are not exactly encouraging. From a purely mathematical perspective, it would make sense that these symptoms are beginning to emerge.

Oddly, I am grateful that I can still recognise it. I think I still have enough self-awareness and emotional intelligence to spot the changes, even if I cannot fully stop them.

I am deeply sorry to my wife and to the people I love if this is what is beginning to happen. I honestly do not know how to process something emotional and neurological in the same way I processed the physical symptoms.

But recognising it is at least a beginning.

And for now, that beginning is all I have.

By The Way – It has taken me a whole tub of Vanilla B&J to write this which is a sign of its own