"You can beat this."
No, I can’t. Nothing I do will change how the cancer acts or how I respond to the treatment.
"You're so strong."
No, I'm not. I'm just silent. If I gave voice to what I really feel, I'd physically and mentally crumble and I can't afford that. It's not strength, it's just lack of a safe space to be as weak as I actually am.
Related: "You'll keep fighting."
What? What is fighting? I do the treatment, I suffer and I wait. There is no fighting. Nothing I do or don't do has any effect on the cancer. It's all just suffering. And at some point, there will come a time when I can't "fight". What then, am I a loser? There may come a time when I refuse more treatment. For the love of god, when I quit "fighting" respect me. Every day, someone in one of my support groups dies. They "fought" the same as me. Cancer doesn't fucking care.
"You have so much to live for."
NO FUCKING SHIT. We all do. I'm 100% aware of how much I love my children and how much they need a mother. That love has zero effect on my ability to be cured of cancer or how much I can tolerate the suffering of treatment. This is the cruelest "well meaning" thing people say to me. It's also sexist. I wonder how many sick fathers get this same platitude. Also, I WANT TO LIVE FOR MYSELF. Big secret---kids are not the first thing a critically ill person may think of. It may be, as it is for me, themselves. I want to live not for my kids, not because of my kids, but for ME to enjoy my kids. But first, I want to live for myself, as a whole person separate from being a parent. I am more than a vessel for my children.
"It could be worse."
Could it? What flavor of dying is better? Yes, there are versions of my cancer, of all illnesses, that are "worse" or where treatment is more debilitating. But it's all dying. It's all suffering. It's all terrifying.
"At least they caught it now."
Yes, catching it now is so much better they say. Better than what? I would rather not know. Because knowing now is still only knowing the risk, the ax over my head, the doom. Not knowing was freedom. And no one knows, or at least they won't tell me, if finding the spread now truly improves my outlook. Because all we really learned is that it's still lurking, and the scans can't see it. So, it just confirmed that I'm a walking game of pop-goes-the-weasel. It's gonna get me, and I have no idea when or where.
Today my therapist advised sitting with the emotions, all of them, that are here and that will come. She also approved all the ice cream.