I'd hate for this space to become nothing more than a place for me to moan but to be truthful we all need somewhere to go, scream and then shut the door like that noise never came out. I've been really stressed over the last week and though I'm aware of this, I know how I respond when stressed and I know how to combat it the progress in that area is a little slower than I'd like. I actually resorted to walking out of a room and screaming F*******************K before calmly returning and getting back on with my day. I'm an appalling liar!
I did actually come here to write about the counselling, if that's what you'd call it but first we interupt scheduled broadcasting for what is, being totally honest, nothing more than a self indulgent rant.
Do you think it's possible that Cancer can sap your empathy? I think I more less passive aggressively told my friend she was crap this week. To be fair I did tell her I thought I'd be busy for her birthday because I'm mad at her (the people I've got plans with would be going too so it was obvious I was being a git) but she didn't bother to turn up for mine despite the fact that I was so knackered from cancer treatment face and returning to work that we stayed in and played boardgames (it was awesome). In the 8 months since diagnosis I have seen her 3 times. I'm mad with her. Really f**king mad at her. I wish I wasn't and I want to just move past it and shrug in one of those aloof uber cool ways that frankly no one who ever really existed has or to let it go. The rational part of me know she struggles with depression, that she either can't or won't get better right now and hasn't been right for ages and therefore she's not terribly well equipped to help me any more than she can help herself; she's got more on her plate than a person ought to deal with and is doing the best she can. All that said I told her I wanted to set a date to see her - didn't have to be soon, just sometime because I felt like we've let our friendship go a bit and though I didn't say it, I feel like if I don't start seeing her and having fun we'll be just strangers in a few more months because there's a giant 'YOU STUPID COW WHY DID YOU TELL ME I WOULD DIE WHEN I NEEDED YOUR SUPPORT' elephant in the room and a 'WHY DID YOU TELL OTHER PEOPLE I FREAKED OUT AND SAID YOU'D DIE WHEN WE WERE WITH OUR FRIENDS' elephant in the room from her I think, I don't know, we've not spoken about it. She did apologise to me about 4 months ago and said she'd been shit and I said that was fine. We went for lunch and it was lovely and then I didn't hear from here again. When I told her I had Cancer she told me I would be dead within 3 months and she's never apologised for scaring the shit out of me the day I was diagnosed. I've lost a lot of people I thought were close to me over the last few months because they write you off or they don't know what to say and decide it's easier if they never say anything to you again - FYI this is insensitive and rubbish of you; just be honest with people. When the going got tough, the so-called besties got going and some other lovely people stepped in but....but. I have nothing more really. I'm still just disappointed and let down and I want to line those people up and throw vases at them. Anyway, I'm sure my cancer counselling woman would tell me that in order to move on with my life I need to let it go and as she's not a fixed point in my life, if she and I can't work it out I'll have to let her go since it seems like she's already started to let me go.
I feel like I've lost enough people the last couple of years but I know that's a very childish view of the situation and you can't make another person change, nor have I handled everything as well as I could.
So moving on, counselling!
I returned to my next session last week having read two thirds of the book I was set as homework; watched both Bill and Ted films and done my best to give some seriously deep thought about death ready for my existential chat about mortality.
I've been set 5 more books as homework, all in relation to death. This isn't terribly cheerful is it!?
I'm not sure if the counselling lady is messing with me or is genuinely just mad but she's lovely. I'm assuming since they pay her she's not just messing with me but she did say she thinks I should have a dress rehearsal of my own funeral. I would like to point out I've bought this on myself because one of the main things I've struggled with since being diagnosed is that I'm going to die. I mean it's not that I think it's coming for me soon or anything but I know now I'm going to die. I always knew but it always seemed like a far off thing that happened to other people, not me and that I never really had to think about so subsequently the panicking and the mortality issue has cropped up a few times. You can't reason death out with CBT techniques because I'm yet to meet anyone with immortality running in their family and if books and films are to be believed living forever either really messes you up, eventually makes you evil or has you fighting the rest of your species until you're the only one left and that sounds really quite pointless.
It's not even the being dead that frightens me, I think it's the act of dying if that classes as an act. I've given it a lot of thought and I can't seem to wrap my head around the idea that there might be anythig that comes after this. My background Catholic noise is still there but it doesn't make sense to me. She thinks I can't face the idea of anything coming after because of the Catholicism. I'm an appalling Catholic; I haven't been to church for about a decade; I only pray as a panic defense mechanism and well I don't understand why a God would go to the trouble of creating all these people and then punishing the ones that didn't believe he existed no matter how good a life they led or because they did believe but picked the wrong one or who were awful but did believe but repented. I can't buy into a religion that is contradicting and archaic and goes against a lot of my own morals if I were to follow it completely.
Don't get me wrong, I think religion is brilliant. The comfort and the community spirit that can be found in all religion is something I envy. I still have all the guilt and none of the faith that someone is looking out for me these days. I think a lot of what she says is true. If I believe in something after this, does that mean I go to Limbo? Hell? Will it be enough to repent and apologise that I only went to confession for as long as I did because my mum paid me to?
If there's nothing more than my life here then at least when I take my last breath that's it. It means I need to stop messing on with my life and get on with enjoying it. I need an in-built slap every time I feel sorry for myself to remind me that I'm wasting precious heart beats. I don't want to die and I don't want to live forever either. What I do want is to stop giving it so much brain space. It's inevitable so why dwell on it? I can over think this between now and the end of my days no matter how many of those I have left and what will I have achieved? I'll have gained a few more sleepless nights and a bettter acquaintance with my worst fears but nothing good will have come of it.
So that's where I am I guess. Nowhere new. I'm still flitting between being convinced that I've got cancer everywhere and thinking that it'll just stay sleeping and I'm being dramatic thinking I'll be one of the 70% something that have their body grow it again and again. I can't suppress the urge to remove anything that could be a spot as soon as it turns up, ready or not because if I allow it to grow and it's not a spot it'll be worse. The stupid thing is they're just cells that haven't quite got their shape right. Not evil, not out to get me, just a mistake. You'd think it'd be a black source of evil the way people talk about but no, it's like my body wants to grow an extra nose or a layer of green fur...one of those things.
because it would be cathartic and said I should visit an undertaker. She knows I'm not bloody dying! Ah well in the place of actual sense from counselling I've reopened my Macmillan blog and Ive agreed to let Macmillan Today FB page take extracts of it to promote young women show an interest in cancer support. I'm going in a booklet too apparently...may regret that. I'd made a comment once apparently that when I was diagnosed I didn't think it should have happened to because I was going to have a heart attack and I was in my 20s with no family history of it and I don't smoke....well the guy from Macmillan Today said we want to put your photo in the booklet saying 'This shouldn't be happening to me; I'm in my 20s and I've never smoked.' I said err fine but I feel duty bound to tell you I did smoke for years so that's not actually true. Needless to say he's changing it before they publish it and receive photos of me with a cigarette in my hand!!
