Forum Discussion

PETA_WILLIAMS's avatar
10 years ago

Changes

Has anyone else realised that they have changed so much because of treatment , and pain and what led up to the discovery of the diabnosis, but no matter how you explain it to family members no one else gets it and the world remains unchanged around and not for the better. That people want you be dragged back into their complcations that no allowances have been made, that you find yourself back drawning in the same river flowing the same cours and don't want to be their and don't know how to get out unless it fully jump out and leave everything behind, except the one true love that kept your head afloat. Is anyone else experiencing the distate for peoples winging about tiny matters that are so insignificant and winging to you and you just wnat to yell at them shut up. The other day after hearing rubbish winge from my father for a month and after having again two more bouts in hospital which I hated, I told him in all reality you are not in world war 2 in a prison camp getting your nails pulled out by a Nazi , Or is it just me that looks at things a different light and not prepared to go so extreme for people again in helping them when the help was not their during this treatment. I am seeing a oncologist psycholgist who is the firs psych after many years of attempt with others because of my PTSD and Depression that  I have made progress with, but inevitable the light gets turned on and shines on things you were avoiding looking at which got me to this spot. They say its just chance you get cancer but I am bot convinced. I have know people who have smoked and drunk for 50 yrs and still never got it , so their has to some other aspect..I don;t want to live with the same turmoiled stress that I did which led me to this point.I don't know how to get off the train tracks. Does anyone else feel this way?xxx Love to you all Peta

13 Replies

  • Hi Peta,

    I am not much like that now with my breast cancer as my family is hugely supportive.  However, ten years ago I was very close to death with heart failure, and was was on sick leave from my secondary teaching job for nine months.  I recovered enough to return to work in Term 4.  Everyone was lovely to me and very supportive, but on my return and until I retired at the end of 2012, I could never bear to listen to the complaints of staff politics.  I had to suppress my reaction, of course, but when someone was chucking a wobbly because he didn't get the classes that he wanted for the next year, or someone was going on and on trying to enlist my support to protest to the administration about the fact that some initiative had been rejected (for a good reason), I wanted to yell at them to shut up, grow up, and try encountering a life-threatening illness if they wanted a real problem.  Of course I was supportive where real issues were involved, but for me it was as though I had been given glasses which suddenly showed what were real problems in life, and what was absolutely petty.  It was very hard to cope with people who did not have the same clarity of vision!

  • Hi Peta,

    this is what I like to refer to as my bulls&$t meter and my levels are at an all time low. I finished treatment 9 months ago and I just have no tolerance for other people's crap. I either walk away or I say something to put things back into some sort of perspective. I remember saying to my husband "but I'm a good girl. I don't drink or smoke etc. how come I have cancer?" His reply was this. "It's a disease. It doesn't discriminate. Why else would babies get it." I think that is so true. Yes there are things we can do to lower the risk but the fact is I have met people who exercise and eat right and do everything "right" and they have still ended up with cancer. I think the chemicals and toxins in our environment play a part, I think the foods we eat, play a part, I think the stress of our lives plays a part and yes, good old luck plays a part. You do look at your life once you've been through something like this and you can't help but to be changed by it. You can't change others but you can change the way you react. Tell them things could always be worse. Interrupt them and say let's talk about something not so negative or change the conversation. But some people aren't happy unless they are miserable and I have chosen to limit my contact with these types of people. Live your life they way you want and what makes you happy. Don't let others bring you down and if that means you walk away, then so be it. Life is too damn short to be miserable.  Talk to the people who you still want in your life but let them know that you aren't interested in the negativity and the why mes. They can either come with you for the ride of their lives or stay miserable on their own. Hang in there Peta. And don't be afraid to let others know if they are wallowing in self pity. If it's something they have always done it is a hard habit to break. Karen xox