- His dad suffered from paranoia.
The Hollywood superstar Ryan Reynolds (47) was 22 years old when his father, James Chester Reynolds, a former police officer from Vancouver, Canada, received a Parkinson's diagnosis. He passed away in 2015 at the age of 74, leaving his family deeply scarred by his long-term illness. "As far as I know, he only said the word 'Parkinson' maybe three times," Reynolds now reveals in an interview with People magazine. There was "a lot of denial, a lot of hiding" in his family.
It was much later that he learned his father also struggled with hallucinations and delusions, a lesser-known symptom of Parkinson's. Around ten years after the diagnosis, these symptoms began to manifest in his father, according to the actor. "It destabilized my relationship with him because I didn't really know what was going on," Reynolds says today, as he lends his support to the "More to Parkinson" awareness campaign.
His relationship with his father, whom he describes as a "boxer, cop, tough guy," was always complex, as he was a man who didn't share his feelings. While he was always present, he lacked the ability to "feel or share the full spectrum of human emotion." When the symptoms set in, Reynolds thought, "My father is losing his mind." He slipped into a "rabbit hole" where he struggled to distinguish between reality and fiction.
Ryan Reynolds also blames himself
His father developed paranoia, sensing conspiratorial plots against him and believing his surroundings were out to get him. Consequently, his friends started to distance themselves. "And all these things were so different from the man I grew up with and knew," Reynolds admits. It's only in the years since his father's death that he's been able to piece together the events. However, the process is still ongoing: "I'm constantly putting pieces of the story together."
Reynolds also blames himself. He didn't fully acknowledge his responsibility as a son and young adult at the time: "It was very easy for me to feed into the idea that my father and I were in no way alike and that a real relationship with him was impossible." Now, he sees that it was also his own resistance: "I could have been there for him until the end, but I wasn't. We drifted apart, and that's something I have to live with," Reynolds says.
The Parkinson's diagnosis had a significant impact on Ryan Reynolds' father, causing hallucinations and delusions many years later. Ryan now feels a sense of responsibility, acknowledging that he could have been more present during his father's struggle with The Parkinson's, but the complex nature of their relationship and his own resistance led to a drift apart.
