Is it common to feel so isolated when dealing with a breastcancer dx and treatment and afterwards. No matter how hard I have worked to continue with pre-cancer activities, work and relationships, I feel like I am making no progress in feeling like my ‘old self’ before all this happened. People I had known as friends have melted away. No support whatsoever, even antipathy, from extended family right from dx.These things underline that I am on my own in coming to terms with the destruction of relationships and the things in life that were familiar and dependable, leave me feeling so low in spite of my efforts to ‘snap out of it’. It seems that everyone else has supportive friends and family who ease them through the feelings of shock, loss and fear of recurrence and that everyone else copes so much better in getting on with living with it all.
Dear serendipity
Please call our helpline for support and a ‘listening ear’, it’s open unitl 2pm today and our team will be able to talk to you about other ways you can access support through BCC and it may help you to know that you are not alone in how you are feeling at the moment. The number is 0808 800 6000 Mon-Fri 9am-5pm and Sat 9am-2pm.
Best wishes
Lucy
So sorry you are feeling so alone.Even though I do have supportive family and friends I feel constantly aware of an uncertain future now that treatment is over.Triple neg dx means no medical safety net and I am always afraid.I dont think we ever get the ‘old self’ back but I try to work on the new self and look forward to some sort of stability.Most of what you had is still there,try to make short term plans to give yourself something good to look forward to.Do your family members know how let down you feel?Could you try to talk to whichever you trst most and explain.Sorry I cant be more help just wanted you to know we are always here.Love horacexx
I’m really sorry to hear you’re feeling so disconnected from things. Not everyone has supportive family, my Mum told me to pull myself together and haven’t even heard from my Dad. I know how you feel. It’s a bit like being in a bubble, looking out at everyone else getting on with life and you stuck inside, away from it all. I kept going because I’m stubborn, in as much as the cancer isn’t going to take the good bits of life away, even though sometimes I have problems finding the good bits. The ladies on this site and the other ladies I met at the hospital all gave much needed support and comfort. Lean on us, we all know what you’re going through. Good luck and big hugs
Jilly
yes i too feel like that. i am from lancashire but now live in shropshire so know very few people. I see the world in a new light everything carries on as if nothing has changed but our lives will never be the same.
I am newly diagnosed and have good and bad days.
I have a daughter local and a sister in Australia. no other family apart from my husbands and none of them have said they are sorry ,concerned, interested.
look after yourself, keep posting
chris
Hello Serendipity
I finished my treatment in October and feel exactly the same. I just do not seem to be able to move on. I would like to do some kind of work even voluntary but still have good days and bad days so I am afraid to start something I cannot finish.
I have a very loving husband and family but still feel very lonely and isolated sometimes. It is very difficult to explain to anyone I know how I feel. I think what we are experiencing is very common, but no one has any answers.
I hope you are feeling better soon
Hi
I’ve got a lot of support but sometimes still feel isolated so I feel for you so much. Tonight I have been crying secretly as I don’t want to upset or worry anyone, I have secondary bc, I have just finished chemotherapy so because of this some family members think I feel better but although I am so glad to have finished chemo I still have cancer and feel as bad as I did when I was first dx. I’m not sure if my husbands family even know what having secondary cancer means or if their just pretending everythings normal in front of me.
I don’t think we can snap out of it, reading the threads on here has helped me as I beleive that it is only people who have dealt with this first hand truly understand what we are going through. Have you tried or thought about counselling or can your breast care nurse help, I wish i could do something to help as I do genuinely feel for you so much, I couldn’t even begin to imagine going through this without the support I’ve had. hope you get the support you need from someone /somewhere soon but don’t forget that we are always here.
Liz x
Hi - I think your feelings are much like mine. Valued friends just went off in to the ether and I couldn’t, 5 yrs ago when dx, understand why. Now I do - they cannot cope with a life threatening disease like cancer, in whatever form. I have decided I don’t want or need, those people in my life. They are negative, not supportive, but I have found some neighbours whom I barely knew, have helped out with transport, shopping etc.
It is late and I have had a few glasses of wine… my only crutch…but I do empathise how you are feeling. I feel very isolated, far from friends in the Midlands and my only relative a sister some 600 miles away, who is an ostrich - her only comment to me is “you should have had your breast off”! Well, she is so insensitive, there is really no answer so I don;t care to discuss my situation with her. Having had a father die of colon cancer, my twin brother of brain cancer, I truly hope she does not have to walk in my shoes.
Take heart, - you always have friends on this site to shore you up, even only in cyberspace.
Hugs, Liz.
Here Here Lizzie so well said.
We will always be here serendipity.You always seem to write exactely how i am feeling. Pity we dont live near we could share how ‘crap’ this disease is and how it changes you.
I have been weepy this past week and how i longed for someone to tell it all how it is and moan about pain and fear etc. I was so kind to my dear mum when she was ill and she wrote me notes saying how she couldnt have coped without me. My daughters are lovely but not like that to me maybe because they are slightly younger than i was.
Friends DON’T understand as lovely as they are, how can they its a different world we live in.
Quite honestly i have felt like you as i have struggled to get my life back to something resembling ‘normal’ but i have had pain for 6 weeks and am at a lose as to who to turn too.
Mothers day tomorrow so will put on my ‘brave, I am fine face’
Rx
Hi Serendipity and everyone else here
I know how you feel Serendipity, I have 4 sisters and 1 brother and also a number of friends who simply do not even bother to pick up the phone let alone dare I say it visit me or offer help. I feel so lonely and confused by their reaction to this life threatening situation that I have had to face, then the surgery which I feel has mutilated my body and mind and has also stolen me as I am not the same woman I was before dx. I miss being me, does that make sense!?
They all seem to think that cos I dont need chemo nor rads then I dont need their support. They do not know how much in shock and sadness I still feel at all the worry and then losing my breast, yes I have recon and I know I am so very lucky not to need further treatment but the speed of it all and accepting it all is so difficult. I still wake up and “remember” all of it, the dx day, being wheeled to theatre, seeing it for the first time and so it goes on and on. I am also in so much pain still and its now 3 months since my surgery.
I must tell you and am proud to tell you that the love of my life, my parents and my son and my best friend ahve been wonderful. My daughters less so but I forgive them, teenage years are hard enough to cope with without your Mum getting breast cancer and being able to do all the things that she used to do.
Seems to me from this thread that there have been many of us going thru the weepy, low state that I have been thru this past few weeks, it does help to know I am not alone in that but I just wish that none of us were in this state at all. I have not seen my Mum today as I dont want to bump into my siblings and pretend that everything is fine. Went to see my lovely Mum last night instead and have just phoned her today.
I have had a reconstruction that has gone wrong Dec 2007 and have suffered really bad nerve pain since the op, no respite from it except dulling it down with painkillers and now the added pain of the recon muscle tearing away as well. Go to bed at night with my lovely man and he has to put up with numerous pillows, flanalettte pjs and fluffy sox and my ice packs to numb the pain so I can get some sleep. I take comfort in the red wine (wonderful stuff) now and again and sometimes again and again and again ha ha ha ha
Wishing that we all had never had to go thru any of this shit and sending loads of love and hugs to you all.
luvnhugsCarolexxx
Hi.
How I needed to read your posts today - have had an awful couple of days where absolutely everything seems to be wrong physically and emotionally. Wrote my post in tears and a feeling of helplessness and felt too bad to even visit the site till now. Sitting here reading what you say at least makes me feel less of a failure, although I can’t seem to move out of this place where I am crying more than I should and feeling so lonely with it.
Jilly, your comment about being trapped in a glass bubble looking out at everyone else so well describes the sense of isolation I feel.
Carole, I am so pleased that you have such wonderful people in your life, I too have a teenager at school - too young for me to burden with my feelings so I put a smile on when school is finished but it doesn’t stop me breaking up inside. I often wish that if I had to have this horrible disease, why couldn’t it have happened when he was older and independent? I feel like someone has " stolen me" too- I don’t recognise my body in the mirror and my depressed emotion either.
I have absolutely no-one who would remotely understand or care, so although I am sad that there are lots of you sharing this journey, it is comforting to know I am not as alone as I feel - just wish I could meet you lovely ladies and give you a big hug, 'cause each of you are worth a million of the so called friends who have shunned me since the cancer and the ‘family’ who have turned their backs not only on me, but my child too, indirectly.
Seren X
Hi Seren
How you doin? I am glad that you got back online to catch up on replies to your thread and I wish I could help you more than just responding to you from cyberspace. Please, you must go see your GP and explain how you are feeling, ask for a referral for counselling. I have been going and it is another difficult process but also helpful, its been hard to for me to let out my emotions and let my “wall” down to a stranger but the last few seshes have really helped me to start to accept the changes in myself both physical and emotional and also to start to understand my siblings lack of concern for me. The one thing that she keeps telling me is something that I had already started to realise myself and I hope that these next words can help you too Seren.
You can’t change the way others are, you can however change the way you react to their inaction or action.
I do feel that I want to stop wasting my time feeling upset and wondering what on earth I have done to deserve for them all to just ignore me. Since dx my life is completely different and I am trying to find the new me as the old me is still there deep inside but will never be quite the same again. I dont like the way that I think now about my family and some of my old friends as I usually have a very forgiving nature, but I do believe that we need to embrace this change and look for even the smallest good in what changes occur to us due to this awful monster which has invaded our bodies, minds and souls. Me, I enjoy the rain and wind on my face, the chill of the snow and the brightness of the sun, things I never really took notice much of before such as enjoying hearing birdsong in the morning, I have packed in my very, very stressful job and am learning that relaxation is good for me not that I am being lazy and hence feel guilty about it. I have found out who really, really loves and cares for me and who does not and slowly I am accepting that I need time to get thru this experience in its entirety.
I hope your next post lets us all know that you have gone to your GP or that you are at least considering it to aid you thru this. Sending you much empathy, understanding and loads n loads of hugs. Take care of yourself.
luvnhugsCarolexxx
Hi all, I haven’t been posting for a while but I do pop in from time to time as I still find the site invaluable nearly 3 years on from diagnosis.
At the time this link was given on these forums and I kept it…I find the longer time goes on the more I find myself taking strength from it.
I don’t know if the link will work - as it’s over 2 lines you may need to copy and paste.
Hope it helps,
Love Caz xxx
Hi Caz
You don’t need to copy and paste the link is fine (and very useful)
bw
Ann
Thank you Ann
Love Caz xxx