Thinking about all the ways I’ve removed cancer from my life over the last several months. How crazy to think about these last few years and how difficult they’ve been
Feels like a strange beautiful coincidence that I finally severed contact with the remaining members of my family that I still spoke to only one month before I was diagnosed with cancer.
I never felt tempted to unblock their numbers to tell them. It’s only my small immediate family anyway, and they never tried to contact me any other way even though they could have. A distant aunt and then later a distant cousin did reach out but I never responded. No need. What would be the point? They haven’t tried to or wanted to be in my life for the last 30 years. What has suddenly changed? To me, nothing. I don’t believe that they will ever change, and so that is why I must.
When something like cancer hits you so squarely and unexpectedly in the face, you want the support of your loved ones. I never once thought to turn to my mother or siblings for those things. They had never offered love or comfort before, so what would motivate me to think things would suddenly be different? All I could think about was all the ways they would fail to be there for me. All the ways they just can’t see me as an actual person so couldn’t even begin to have any empathy for me or be there in any way that I would want or need. All the ways they would pretend to care but would still leave me on my own somehow, managing the most difficult things by myself.
My brother would talk about how his cancer was worse. Which, yeah, maybe there’s a valid argument there but still. He was 15 when he was diagnosed with brain cancer, and he had been so sick for months that honestly it was a relief that we finally figured out what was wrong. But he also had a flurry of people around him for months, and let’s face it, years and never had to navigate any of this alone. The whole family was focused on him for years while I might as well have been invisible during that whole time. And as for me, a single 44-year old woman living alone in a city after moving around her entire adult life, I had no one but myself to arrange everything from doctors appointments to rides to/from surgery and pretty much completely take care of herself during the recovery. Panicking because I can’t rely on anyone to be there for me. Feeling guilty as I asked my few friends to maybe stop by to help me clean or do my laundry or drop off groceries. Making sure I ask politely and profusely say sorry for inconveniencing them with my needs. Thanking them and feeling like I now owe them all something for doing anything for me. Yeah I know, I’m an adult and he was a kid. But still. Adults have people there for them. My other friends have family and partners that are there for them without even having to ask. I feel like I’m not allowed to want that. Any positive attention I get is just a favor from someone better than me.
My sister would pretend to be there for me but everything else in her life would take precedence. Her husband would yell and get mad if she talked to me or whatever or wanted to come out here. Kids, work, whatever else, that would all be more important. And I’m fine right? Like, I don’t actually need anything right? And like, she hasn’t ever done anything mean or shitty to me, right? She didn’t ridicule me for cool points with her friends, or continue to date shitty men who treated me like crap while she shrugged.
And my mom. God the way I can see her just thinking “oh no MY CHILD just like the other time MY SON had CANCER why does this happen to ME I can’t imagine losing MY CHILD!” And then insisting on flying out here “to help” only to bitch and complain the whole time and make me do everything myself anyway because she actually does not like me and takes joy in seeing me fail. She would just LOVE for me to be pathetic and need her. Except she doesn’t actually want to be there for me – she just wants to revel in any control she can get over me while watching me suffer and telling me that I deserve it because I don’t have god (her god).
I know people struggle to believe that mothers can hate their children just for being born and ruining their lives. My most hated TV/movie trope is when a woman is having some kind of argument or struggle with their child and has to convince someone to help them somehow. It’s always the same speech: “Do you have CHILDREN? Because if you did, you would know that a mother would do ANYTHING for her child!” Yeah maybe one of them. My brother for sure. Not me though, no way.
Some people are just bitter and resentful of their lives and they are too childish to see how they contribute to their own misery. Yeah there’s plenty of psychology and therapy on this kind of shit now. Adult children of emotionally immature parents is a whole thing now that I see all over, and I’ve read plenty about it. Would have been nice to know a lot of this earlier in life – would it have mattered? My self-worth probably never had a chance, being raised with a miserable and bitter caregiver who specifically wanted me to feel the same way and resented me if I didn’t. She never cared about who I was or what I wanted out of life. She could only see my as an extension of herself. She didn’t want to see me successful or happy. She thinks she can treat me however she wants I should just be there all the time taking all the shit the family couldn’t bear. She doesn’t want me to have anything she thinks she couldn’t have. Even though she got everything she wanted.
Sometimes I see these tendencies in myself and it terrifies me. But I was raised in that bullshit. That constant negativity and bitterness and hater-ass gossiping shit-talking back-stabbing bullshit. I have tried running as far away as the other side of the fucking world to get away from it, and yet it still follows me, a blithe spirit homing in on my DNA or something, hovering over me at any instant that I might feel happy in the moment, whispering in my ear when I try to sleep telling me how wrong I am about everything, how stupid I am, and how much everyone hates me.
I did notice that negative, critical voice fade away in the weeks after I finally just said fuck it and blocked them all. Yeah there was a catalyst but it really wasn’t even anything. I was just tired and didn’t feel like pretending anymore. To be fair, I have been slowly suffering from a chronic disorder for 30 years that made my life hell and gave me cancer. So the last few years I had felt shitty and cranky in multiple ways and I KNEW that something was wrong. Turns out I was right. It was my hormones all wonky as usual, but because I had fucking cancer.
I was 15 years old when my period suddenly stopped, which had been regular and uneventful in the two years since it had started. I panicked because I had been having sex with my first boyfriend for a few months. Although we always used condoms, I knew those weren’t totally reliable so I freaked out thinking I was pregnant. My tests were negative though, so I had to tell my mom.
She took me to a white male Christian doctor who shrugged and gave me progesterone to restart my period and birth control to keep it regular along with a lecture about premarital sex. I stayed on the pill for 1 year and when the prescription ran out…well, I don’t know. My mom didn’t take me to the doctor again, or ask about my health or anything. No one seemed to think it mattered so I didn’t think it mattered. Then my mom left to work as a travel nurse while I was a senior in high school, so I was at home paying the bills and such while my older siblings did whatever (both of them tried college but failed out). I didn’t have health insurance. I spent many years rarely going to the doctor but when I did, they never seemed concerned about my periods.
20 years later I find out about polycystic ovarian syndrome (PCOS) and I’m like oh…that is totally me. Every single symptom. Weight gain, difficulty losing despite doing SO much exercise and healthy eating, acne, body and facial hair, depression, anxiety, infertility, etc. All the ways I felt ugly and manly and unfeminine and wrong and like a failure was all this stupid fucking disorder that I clearly had since I was 15. I was 35 and in my final quarter of graduate school when I finally went to a hormone specialist for a diagnosis. She diagnosed me on the spot as a textbook case, and all the tests confirmed the diagnosis. I changed my diet and took the supplements she recommended and finally felt good and healthy and was dropping weight. I realized that all the ways I had thought I was a failure were just the disorder, not my personal failings. I graduated with a master’s in applied linguistics and left the country, convinced I would never return.
My health spiraled over those years despite my best efforts, so the guilt and shame returned. I used to do everything perfectly. What was wrong with me now?
Oh, turns out it was endometrial cancer. And my ovaries were so shitty and polycystic that they weren’t even working anymore, so my estrogen levels were shit and I had been in the throes of perimenopause, which of course wrought havoc on the rest of my body and attempts to maintain my weight and my general mental health.
So they took all that out. Removed the whole reproductive system, gave me an estrogen patch, and holy shit suddenly I felt better than I had felt in years. That combined with the GLP-1 to fix the metabolic disorder part of PCOS (complex disorder effecting multiple systems – difficult to diagnose and treat and it’s women’s health so of course many doctors don’t fucking care) and I’ve lost almost 60 pounds. I’m still obese with that, unfortunately, as I’m only about halfway to a healthy weight but damn, a year ago I was ready to lay down in a ditch and die.
My body was miserable all the time, my mood was shit, I have no family and only a few close friends any more. Stupid fascist nazi piece of shits took over America and I wondered what the fuck was even the point. All the love and happiness and art and beauty I’ve felt and wanted to create and spread and share would never come to pass. I just wanted to die and knew that my life was worth nothing and no one would care.
Honestly, a lot of that is still true as far as who would even care. I still went through all the cancer stuff mostly alone. I’m not really important or a priority in anyone’s life. And that’s okay, finally. I really really want to be a priority in my own life. Even with all of my decisions taking me around the world, I still feel like I haven’t truly known myself and have centered others’ thoughts and opinions over my own. It never lasts and I run away, but then I repeat the same mistakes.
Not this time though. Not this time.
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