What Success Stories™ are—and How they can transform our lives

For many, the words “Parkinson’s disease” (PD) elicit fear. Decline. Stillness. A gradual shrinking of life. That’s part of the narrative people in the PD know and subscribe to—the one dominated by stigma, misunderstanding, and hopelessness.

But that isn’t the whole story. It’s not even the most important one.

Success Stories™ were created to shift the narrative. They are a vibrant, storytelling celebration of real people living with Parkinson’s disease. Produced by Yes, And…eXercise! (YAX)—a 501(c)(3) nonprofit dedicated to using improvisation, storytelling, and Cinema Therapy to improve quality of life—Success Stories™ highlight powerful, transformative personal narratives of courage, creativity, humor, and growth. They help the people who wrote them and YOU, the readers, see PD differently. And that’s crucial because the old stories from people outside the PD community, including:

• You don’t look like you have Parkinson’s disease.

• Isn’t it just tremors?

• It’s not that bad.

…these stories are destructive and hold us back from accelerating the cure.

The Inside Out problem of PD

The conundrum is a classic one in the world of medicine, mental and holistic health: we treat what we see and can prove, not what we can’t or don’t understand. With PD, people see tremors - so there’s carbidopa-levodopa. People don’t see isolation, stigma, demoralization - and all too often, that’s where the PD community becomes stuck. 

One important thing to note: isolation, stigma and demoralization are broadly human issues, not exclusively PD symptoms. With that in mind, we invite compassion through another broadly human element: storytelling via the hero’s journey.  

A Counter-Narrative to Fear and Stigma

Serious illness is often framed around loss. What’s gone. What’s damaged. What’s no longer possible.

Success Stories™ are framed in the hero’s journey and serve as a counter-narrative.They remind us of everything that remains—not only intact, but potentially expanding:

Connection. Creativity. Humor. Courage. The capacity to grow. AND…the truth that the disease is, indeed, that bad. It’s relentless. The things most people don’t share or show - the psychosocial emotional below the tip of the iceberg symptoms - these are true, too. 

Success Stories™ are satisfying because they embrace fear, doubt, refusal, obstacles - things that make up great storytelling. 

This reframing matters. When people in the PD community see a future for themselves, they realize there is more and they keep going. Effort, energy and goals are the stuff of life. When people outside the PD community engage in Success Stories™ thriving in human ways they can relate to—they’re more willing to engage, advocate, connect, and hope.

Hope, when mixed with practical, engaging action, is neither naïve or weak. It is strategic and powerful. If all Andy Dufresne did was hope he would one day get out of Shawshank, he’d have died there. But because he applied constant pressure and time to that wall over the course of 19 years, strategically dumping pieces of the wall that held him in the very yard he walked daily, he became a free man. 

Success Stories™ replace silence with voice, isolation with community, despair with possibility.

Changing the Landscape: There’s Precedent

We’ve seen this before:

• HIV/AIDS activism transformed “Silence = Death” into a rallying cry that reshaped medicine, storytelling, and public policy.

• MADD (Mothers Against Drunk Driving) turned grief into a policy revolution that changed laws and saved lives.

These movements turned private suffering into collective visibility. They replaced shame with story.

Today, Parkinson’s is poised for the same transformation—but only if we raise the right voices in the right way. Success Stories™ are one step toward that future.

Why Success Stories™ Matter

Success Stories™ aren’t decoration. They’re infrastructure.

They build the bridges between science and humanity, between care and community, between despair and rebirth.

Here’s what Success Stories™ do:

Humanize Parkinson’s - Forcing us to see the person, not the diagnosis.

Illuminate Possibility - Showing us the path doesn’t end at diagnosis; it bends to our will, when we are courageous enough to do the work.

Create Belonging - No one should navigate Parkinson’s alone.

Shift the Public Narrative - From fear and pity to resilience and engagement. From “Why me?” to “Watch me.” From “I’m sorry” to “I’m with you”.

Accelerate the Cure - When the world understands the story, the world invests in the solution.

Strong narratives fuel awareness. Awareness fuels action. Action fuels research and resources.

This Is Just the Beginning

Success Stories™ are not biographies. They are creative invitations to see differently, live bravely and recognize that a diagnosis does not have to define a person—it can propel us.

Human history is loaded with the impossible shattering reality. Flight. Walking on the moon. The Internet upon which you’re likely reading this. The things we assume today were impossible yesterday. Parkinson’s disease can be the next Success Story™. But only if we keep creating and sharing these stories—loudly, lovingly, honestly and relentlessly.

Because in every chapter, in every character, in every new voice stepping forward

the human spirit still rises via the eternal hero’s journey.

To see examples of Success Stories™ created in our Cinema Therapy program, please visit our website and consider joining our Sustainers Circle to ensure these stories come to light and more continue to be created.