Perhaps it is about where I am in my experience - treatment over and just playing wait and see now- but I am not too impressed with some of the recent messages I see on my Facebook page.
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I will raise funds when I feel like it, I resent the constant barrage of opportunities for me to do so. I know charities rely on funding, but there doesn’t seem to be a day when there isn’t another opportunity! Be it Pink Friday, walks or whatever.
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I am only too aware of my body image now. I don’t want people to be told I am brave, that I am still beautiful, that I am still a woman. I want people to be told I am just the same as I was and that they don’t need to focus on what has gone, but more on what is still there! I wasn’t brave - I was determined. My body was always mine and private - it still is - it is not theirs to discuss. I would only feel less a woman if others felt that - if it is pointed out it rather implies that is what is the mind of the speaker, doesn’t it?
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I think it is key to moving on to get the right info at the right time. There have been times where reading the experiences of those travelling a different path has actually reduced my ability to move on. I have obsessed on what could happen, worried that that might be my fate. One day I might need to know about some of it but not now. It is good info, but at the wrong time. The change to the forum has helped - I now would have to search this info out. I don’t, I look at the pages and messages that relate to where I am and it feels healthier.
BCC has been important to me through all of this and I am grateful for it. I am grateful for the research that made my treatments possible. I am grateful for the care I have received and for the support of my fellow survivors.
I think for now, though, I have had enough. I don’t feel the site speaks for me at the moment - once the treatments are over we will all feel different, our experience will depend on our personal circumstances and relationships and there will not be a collective experience we can share.
So thank you for the support but I am moving on, leaving the nest. I will unlike - horrid phrase - and promise myself to visit the site only very occasionally. Touch wood, this phase is drawing to an end for me.