My husband has no awareness of his symptoms though he is taking medication for chorea. Despite that, he believe he is the miracle child of HD and is symptom-free and not declining in any way. I'd like to know whether anyone has experienced the following manifestations:

1. After running a stop sign (yes, he's still driving), he was pulled over by a police officer & given a ticket. The officer was a bit overbearing, but not out-of-line, and as he was telling my husband he'd have to appear in court, my husband refused to look at him, stared straight ahead with no expression on his face, and appeared to have "checked out". The officer repeatedly asked him, "Do you understand?" and my husband stared straight ahead, refused to answer. I could see the cop was approaching the end of his rope and, so, I prompted my husband to say, "Yes, I understand". So, he repeated that. The cop relented. I've heard of people trying to talk their way out of a ticket, but this behavior seemed totally weird. He engaged in the same behavior when confronted by a conductor about the validity of a train ticket.
2. My husband was straightening up and moving some things out of a room here at home. I saw that he had my exercise mat in his hand and I asked him to just leave it in the room. He appeared startled (I didn't yell or anything) and dropped the mat right where he was standing as if it were on fire. And walked off. This "startled" reaction has happened two other times.
3. Never a social butterfly, my husband can spend an entire day without initiating a single conversation, sometimes not responding to anything I say or engaging with anyone. Yet, he doesn't seem angry or upset about anything. Just missing.

Anyone experiencing anything similar?

Yes. I've seen similar. I'd say you are lucky that he doesn't seem angry. These symptoms can manifest themselves in various ways. A lot of the time it's in obsessive compulsive behavior.

I think the best way I can explain it is that HD tends to breakdown the body's communication systems. Picture the nervous system as a telephone line system. HD breaks lines here and there. The system compensates by re-routing all of the communication. After a while, enough of the lines are down that all of them cannot talk at once. After a while, some of them never talk again.

So his perception of the world is different from yours. Also, he cannot think and listen at the same time. His communication systems are breaking down.

Fred, thank you so much for that description. Thinking about HD as introducing a communications system breakdown has really helped me get a grip on what is going on. It is one of the most useful concepts anyone has shared with me about HD.

I agree - it has been helpful to me and I have used it to explain what I am going through to family members/friends. thanks Fred...

Snookie Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> My husband has no awareness of his symptoms though
> he is taking medication for chorea. Despite that,
> he believe he is the miracle child of HD and is
> symptom-free and not declining in any way. I'd
> like to know whether anyone has experienced the
> following manifestations:
>
>
> 3. Never a social butterfly, my husband can spend
> an entire day without initiating a single
> conversation, sometimes not responding to anything
> I say or engaging with anyone. Yet, he doesn't
> seem angry or upset about anything. Just missing.
>
>
> Anyone experiencing anything similar?


I haven't tested for HD, yet, but I am at the same age as my mom when she started showing symptoms. I'm 99 % sure I have it.

#3 is me to a T. Before I was married, I could go days without talking to anyone when I wasn't at work. Almost nothing upsets me either. I think the only people I have any emotional attachment to are my kids. I used to be much more of an extrovert. Sometimes I think my kids will only remember me as quiet, old dad.

That's a really good way of describing HD, Fred. Thank you for giving me a way of explaining some things about it.