Ever since I have been "announced" Cancer free, I have been feeling less and less like me. Which as I am saying it makes me feel pretty silly. I knew things would be different. They, the doctors, the nurses, others who have had cancer, they all told me, "You're life ill never (emphasize NEVER) be the same. I thought, "Yeah but you don't know me" and then here I am.
Sad
Depressed
Feeling neglected
Feeling insecure
Feeling out of sorts
Just...feeling...not me.
Damn.
I don't want to just be another statistic.
I don't want to be like everyone else.
I want to be the overcomer
I want to be the one who rises above it all
THAT'S ME!! THATS WHO "I" AM!!
Damn it.
So frustrated right now I wanna scream!
I haven't shared on here for awhile and I came home tonight, from being with a group of girls all watching the Bachelor at one of the ladies home and the whole time I am sitting there, I am feeling completely insecure. I got in my car and cried all the way home.
The rational me says to myself "What the heck are you feeling insecure about? You are here with friends. You love them, they love you. You are safe"
You see, I did not feel safe. I did not feel validated for my words. I felt like I was in the wrong tribe.
I learned something tonight. In that group of women are a CORE group of fabulous ladies that I get along with and I adore them and love them. The other ladies, not my cup of tea. The external people just kept getting weirder and weirder and the more the other ladies spoke, the less I wanted to. and I had an epiphany.
You don't have to like your friend's FRIENDS. Simple as that.
Being kind and respectful is still desired.
I realized after tonight, some groups of people just are not healthy. As much as I love my friends, I just can't be with those other women.
I also realized, Cancer remission sucks.
I am struggling to overcome the lack of support.
It really is a struggle after you have been dealing with this battle, fighting and fighting and you have fought for so long you forgot to stop fighting. Then there is the fact that all through the battle, everyone is in your corner, people constantly telling you how much they love you and care for you and you can pick up the phone at any time and then when you hit cancer remission...
crickets...
I feel lonely.
I feel anxious.
I feel insecure.
I found some articles that explain and I am linking them here in case you, whoever might be reading this, might want to go check them out like I did.
This one was the first one I read and it hit home so hard, I cried again.
"Everything you're feeling right now is normal for cancer survivors. Recovering from cancer treatment isn't just about your body — it's also about healing your mind." https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/cancer/in-depth/cancer-survivor/art-20047129
Here are the other links if you want to check them out. They all say the same thing in different ways it seems to me, but all still worthy of reading.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-2003214/Cancer-survivors-Depression-exhaustion-anger-downside-beating-disease.html
https://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/07/12/anxiety-lingers-long-after-cancer/
https://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/09/29/after-cancer-treatment-waiting-for-the-sadness-to-lift/
https://bmcpublichealth.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/1471-2458-12-538
Know this...
you are not alone.
Others feel this way too.
You don't have to have cancer to feel this way. Illness, trials, adversity, life, can all make you feel this way. What you do with it is up to you.
Take care of yourself.
Get help if needed.
Love yourself.
We will all get through this one way or the other.
The silver linings are in the clouds.
You can choose to look at them as storms or fluffy unicorns.
I vote unicorns. :)
