I had never experienced survivor’s guilt until very recently. Today at work we had a Macmillan Coffee Morning to raise money for cancer support, and I figured the day was going to be hard. For the first hour
I sat squeezing my stress ball trying to stop my hands from shaking. I don’t even know why they were shaking. My discomfort and reluctance to have anything to do with cancer charity related events seems somewhat illogical. I mean, the Macmillan charity has never tried to kill me. So I already started today having a difficult time trying to understand myself.
Category: Cancer Survivorship (Page 10 of 11)
I’m not going to spend long on this because I know this subject has been tackled a lot already – there are problems with the language
around cancer – battle metaphors, and so on, which seem to imply that people who ‘lose the battle’ didn’t try hard enough, or that people with cancer can do something about it, which is ridiculous.
I realised today that sometimes I avoid talking about my body for fear of making other people feel awkward. Isn’t that a bit messed up?
It’s Friday night and I’m at home drinking whisky and watching my favourite TV show, The Last Leg. And I’m thinking about why I love it so much.
Last week I was lucky enough to have tickets to go and see the show being filmed live. My partner and I went along, and we had so much fun. I can’t wait until the next season opens up for applications so I can request tickets again – it’s the best thing I’ve done all summer, and considering I visited Sweden, the Canaries, and went on a hot air balloon ride, that makes The Last Leg pretty awesome.
I’m asking because I really want to know. In a way, if it’s something that happened in the past, it kind of feels weird mentioning it to someone. But if a person is becoming a friend, you want them to know you better, right? I feel like if someone doesn’t at least know that I had cancer, then they don’t know enough about me, because now it’s a big part of me and my outlook on life.
Let me start by saying that cancer defines me. I don’t know if I “let” it define me or if I have chosen for it to define me. Either way, the outcome is the same. My Tumblr and some of my other online profiles are simply a string of self-definitions: Writer. Buddhist. Geek. Cancer survivor. And to anyone who says “don’t let it define you,” well it’s too late. It does.
Sometimes you need someone to yell at you to get off the internet and stop reading things that are psychologically/emotionally harmful to you. And sometimes you’re by yourself and you have to be that person who yells at you.
It’s difficult. But turn off the computer and go to bed.
I received an amazing message today. It might not sound quite so amazing to other people, but it has made me feel so happy and empowered and excited. I was talking to my friend about all the things I want to do – travelling, different and unusual things, spontaneous things – and this was his reply:
“You beat fucking cancer there is fuck all on this planet you can’t do!“
I hadn’t even mentioned cancer to him but he straight away tapped into why I want to do all this stuff, without me even having to say anything. He got me, and he said exactly what I needed to hear. And now I feel so empowered, and strong, and happy and excited. That’s the reason he’s my bestie. I’ve written it down and taken a screenshot so I can look at it and remember, and I hope his words never lose their effect. Just amazing. And what’s more is he believes it, and he’s made me believe it too. What a great day.
okay can we just one last thing
spreading the idea that one is only triggered when having a full blown, system-shut-down panic attack is damaging and delegitimizing to people who have physiologically and emotionally different reactions to…
Great validating post on triggers. Speaking of which, I’ve been doing really well lately. I’ve been really happy with myself. I haven’t thought about cancer or Lynch Syndrome much for maybe a month now, and when I have, I’ve been able to let thoughts drift into my head, then let them go and move onto something else. And it’s been something I’ve instigated, like looking on the LS Facebook page, and then been able to stop thinking about easily. Until Sunday, when I answered the phone to a cancer charity who have been calling me every day for the past two weeks.
I had been avoiding answering the phone partly because I was worried about the conversation being a trigger. I finally answered it and the guy on the line asked me why I had previously agreed to donate to the charity, to which I replied “personal experience”. I was then pressed further – “someone close to you?” “Myself…” “What kind of cancer did you have?” I probably should have just said mind your own business or something, but I just went along with the conversation. Then the guy started talking about his cousin who’d had cancer, and had suffered with a low immune system due to the treatment, and did I have that problem too? I didn’t think so. Apparently it was really difficult because nobody could visit his cousin if they had even the sniffles. That does sound difficult and though I sympathise, I don’t actually remember asking. I’ve had the charity (maybe not the same charity, thinking about it) call me before and they’ve always been really nice, but never as personal as that, with their questions or their own unsolicited anecdotes. It was all very strange and a little triggering, and also turned out to be totally unnecessary because they wanted me to donate regularly, which I do anyway.
So. I think that’s the reason I’ve been finding it a little difficult to catch my breath a few times over the last couple of days. Breathlessness caused by stress, I think. I’m just going to have to try really hard to kerb my thoughts and not slip back down that hill. It’s only a setback if I let it be a setback, right?
