Not really sure what I want to say, but just need to get something off my chest (no pun intended). Was DX nine months ago tomorrow and am back at work doing phased return, but hoping to go full time at the beginning of April.
Three of my friends have always been classed as my best friends, but since DX I feel that we have drifted apart so, so much. I broke down in tears at work this afternoon because I was so upset about it. I don’t expect them to keep phoning or visiting to see how I am, but surely the odd text isn’t too much to expect? I have been out for tea with them twice since diagnosis, but both times I came home just feeling as though I don’t belong with them anymore. One of them has never been through any trauma in her life, and I know I should feel happy for her, but she constantly moans about silly little things, and I sometimes feel like shouting “I’m struggling to deal with bloody cancer, and you’re moaning about hubby not helping with the ironing”. Am I being selfish? Should I be honest and tell them how I feel, and risk losing their friendship for ever - and would that be a real loss?
On the other hand, the friends I have cyber met through this site have been an absolute bloody godsend! I really do not think I could have got through the past nine months without them.
Feel a little bit better for getting this out in the open …
Hi She,
I lost a couple of girls I considered good friends during my breast cancer experience. I think it’s just because they felt awkward and didn’t know what to say (their loss!!) All I wanted was for people to treat me as normal…I was still the same person just going through a short term trauma… and baldy!! I believe if they are true friends they will be there for you.
Take care
Kim
Awww huni…I’ve said it before on one of my many rants…my friends do their best to understand but just dont ‘get it’…
I completely understand where you are coming from…and I dont think you are wrong at all expecting the odd text. You like to think that in your times of need you can lean on your bestest mates and have their continued support! I have been fairly lucky in that my closest friends although they just dont understand (and its always you guys that I rant/talk to) they do text/call all the time to see how I am. I dont think your being selfish at all…cos I know if the boot was on the other foot I wud be there for them!
I’ve had that ‘not belonging’ to them feeling…and can fully relate to thinking that their moans were so trivial and insensitive considering what I was going through…I just wanted to scream…well at least you’ve got your bloody health…Id give anything just to have ‘normal’ s**ty problems…I dont think they are being insensitive…I just think that they are acting as they normally would its just we have bigger issues going on and are probably less sympathetic to thier little moans ?
You could try speaking to them about their lack of support but I always think you want someone to be supportive and be there because they are not because youve had to tell them to! And would they fully understand anyway? Like you have said my bc friends have been so much more supportive and I feel they are there for me in my ‘dark’ moments far more than my normal mates…and they know where I am coming from I dont have to try and explain and feel like they dont get me anyway…
Hope you feel better for having a little rant hun. You know where I am if you ever fancy a chat/moan to someone who understands!
I think that there are several reasons why this happens. As Kim says, some people don’t know what to say. Others just can’t face up to what has happened and it gets wound up with what they fear for themselves. There is another group who are desperate to hear that everything is now fine, you are cured and living happily ever after - they can’t cope with anything else.
For me, there is also something else, and that is that I feel less tolerant towards those who are always moaning about silly little things. They haven’t changed, but my reaction to them has.
What to do about it is tricky. I am simply drifting away from those sorts of people and closer to those who have been supportive - some unexpectedly so - and others I’ve met as a result of breast cancer. I probably won’t initiate saying anything to any of them, but if they ask I will respond - I think!
I agree with what you said regarding this site. Don’t know how I’d have managed without it.
I really believe that most people do not understand what we go through and the trauma. Some people try really hard and do a very good job of being there and others continue on with their lives moaning and complaining about such silly petty things.
Some people really have not been through anything serious in their lives (lucky them) so really have no idea of the support you need from them. It’s not too much to ask of your friends to just be there however some people need to be told what it is you actually need or require - they may not automatically know. I think this comes more naturally to some people than to others.
In the meantime please accept a hug from me
Ruby xxxx
I think that this cancer has changed us - we see more clearly, we hear more clearly and we think more clearly (when the mist clears for 5 mins). I do think she, that you are probably seeing and hearing what you have always seen and heard but now there is more meaning to your life - every minute counts so to speak. I also think Salsal21 is right about the bc friends - friends in the know! It can be lonely in this club of ours but if you can look at how much stronger you are now than you have ever thought you were and perhaps it is you who has been raised above the insignificant - whatever that is be it friends, workplace, bosses or environment.
Dont cry my angel just think of how blessed you are your eyes are opened and move on to the relief of being you - an obviously very caring person with a heart of compassion - use it wisely and dont fritter it away where it isnt needed.
You should feel proud with how you have grown through this awful disease. Well done on the job front and the planned full time return.
(I gave up teaching after 20 years and now do enough 4 days a week in a job that gives me pleasure). My life is simpler and happier.
Relax angel it will all come - see what friends you have on this thread anyway.
I feel just the same. There was a group of 6 of us who met up very regularily. Things are just not the same now and before whilst i was alwasy eager to help and to listen i now find their whining about work or money is nothing compared to my fears of dying and leaving me babies.
I am not sure telling them would help tho. What can they do to make things different? I think i have changed too much hence me planning to emmigrate to start again where no one knows about my cancer or saw me through the worst time of my life. i am not sure anyone can understand unless they have had cancer.
On the plus side ive got closer to other friends and I have simply altered who i see and that seems to be working out ok. Perhaps its just time for a change?
I don’t really know what to write as so many wise words have been said already (and i’m not very good with words) but i just wanted to send you some more hugs as i so know were you are coming from but as you know mine is my family. xxx
she im so sorry your friends arent being too supportive hunny.
i must admit most of mine have been great this time around, but first time around one of my bestest friends just didnt contact me at all and infact we were kinda distant until i got it again.
but most people dont know how your feeling or what your going through unless they have a personal experience of it… and for some it may well be too much of a reminder of their own mortality or just that you have had this event in your life that they just cant relate to…
i kinda liken it to when you have a baby and your friends dont and they havent the same interests… but rather than telling your friends you feel neglected maybe just say how your feeling eg your worries about cancer and not being your old self etc and maybe you suggest meeting up… maybe they feel they dont want to bother you either.
i think having a wee chat to them or a girly day wont do any harm.
but also people do move on and there are some people who you lose along the way.
i will see you soon hunny and you can offload to me about all your woes.
I think this is the time when you find out who your true friends are. I read somewhere recently that most of us would say we have quite a few friends if we were asked. Especially with the social networking sites and mobile phone communications in fact we may be dealing with up to 150 people in our lives on various levels. However, this particular research maintains that people actually rarely have more than 5 proper friends and it defines those friends as the ones that you would give a kidney to if they needed it!
At this time, those are the friends who will support you even if they haven’t been through this experience themselves. This site has been great for me as a way of reassuring myself about how I am coping compared with others, and it is great to share the ups and downs, but you will find some real hugs too if you look at your friends and evaluate their place in your life.
The other thing I would say is that I have also become a lot less tolerant of time-wasters and negative people. Life is literally too short and you just don’t need them so don’t entertain them.
I can’t add much as so many of you have said such wonderful words, really made me think about how I view my life since having this disease though. I have been surprised at the friends who haven’t coped with me being ill, but also surprised at the friend who has. She is a work colleague who I wasn’t that close to but she has been a rock since all this started, whereas others who I thought would be there for me haven’t. My OH has been wonderful so to my sister and brother in law I don’t know where I would have been without them.
Even though my sons are grown up I found that I still protected them from hearing about some of the things I have gone through the counsellor I have seen has suggested that I talk to them again as I shouldn’t keep things from them…still haven’t decided on that one yet. My eldest son decided not to tell my ex husband about all this (not that he would have done anything but I know he would have called me) as he was going through the worry of redundancy, I remember thinking that cancer was surely worse than that but maybe I’m being selfish.
Like all of you I find that I am no longer tolerant of people who moan about trivial things and I get the feeling that won’t change in the future, and I do wonder if in the future I will be able to keep quiet if somone does moan too much.
This site has been such a comfort to me, all of you on here are so great to talk and rant to. True friends and family are all that matter in this life…oh and good health… that goes without saying.
You may have seen this before but it’s from a text a friend sent to me (she had a bad time nothing to do with cancer though and has been such a great friend over the last couple of years) and I think it’s appropriate to this thread and our experiences.
‘There comes a point in your life when you realise who matters, who never did, who won’t any more and who always will. So don’t worry about people from your past - there’s a reason they didn’t make it to your future.’
You then send it on to people who matter to you so I’m sending it on to everyone on this site who is struggling with this aspect of bc and hope it helps a tiny bit.
Liz
PS You’re not being selfish and this seems to happen quite a lot. I think you just get a new normal lifestyle etc.
Those words ring very true,thanks for sharing that with us Liz. I’m also in the boat of disappearing friends,not so much my true lifelong ones but more of those on the periphery. I take the view that they can’t have been “real” friends after all and I don’t need shallow superficial people like that in my life,saved some on Christmas cards this year ! However, I have balanced out the loss with the gain of many new friends from here,the support and help of which has certainly helped me through the past year.
Can also only echo what everyone else has said… I have been surprised by some people who really helped and sad at some who vanished… We moved house only two weeks after I was diagnosed (just in the same town…) so i combined our new house details letter with the news of what was happening… There was an immediate flurry of letters saying how shocked people were etc (we have moved alot over the years so my friends are scattered far and wide…) but i was suprised that a few of the people i was closest too never got in contact…
Eventually at the first Christmas (6 months later) some of them specifically said in their cards that they had been so upset at the news that they hadn’t been able to call and had felt worse and worse as the months went by and felt they had been a dreadful friend… (these are people from various points of my life who don’t know each other…) so i guess sometimes the lack of contact can be sheer selfcenteredness on their part (and believe me i have a couple of those…) but it can also be they are so scared of what is going to happen to you… (i think it didn’t help that if you look up IBC the type I have most stuff on the internet is very dire indeed…)
As so many of you have said though - the support on here is amazing… and I have also made some incredible friends on here.
My best mate actually said she didnt want to text me a lot during treatment as she didnt want to bug me! I felt it was because she didnt actually want to know what was happening to me- like self preservation on her part. We are still friends but its a bit strained. My mum did say to me to forgive people as it is such a big deal how can i expect them to react in the way i want them to.
I was a bit prickly so perhaps they felt silence was safer?
Liz, love that text. Its so true.
i wld just like to add plp are all diff and i dont think they know what to say i have 2 sisters and a brother one sister been great been with me to all appts etc and my brother sat out side hospital while i had mx dont no why outside but my other sister not a word never came to visit a card nothing odd tex here and there but nothing else god nos why never asked cldnt be bothered at the time its better now but only just all i can say is she didnt no what to say like most plp tc laura xx
I rest my case - you lot are amazing. Thank you all so much for your kind words - it really helps me knowing that I’m not alone in the way that I’m feeling. I did feel better after getting it out in the open last night, and afterwards I went through and watched my beautiful baby boy sleeping for ages - felt quite content after that.
I had been invited to a Virgin Vie party tomorrow night and was really unsure whether to go or not, but after reading your replies, I think I am going to make an effort. Another friend has offered to pick me up and drop me off afterwards so I can have a wee glass of wine, so that might do me good!
Once again, thank goodness for this site and the new friends I have met on my journey with this horrible disease