It seems customary to give a little background before launching; so....I am a 50 year old guy who was diagnosed with multiple myeloma last October, I had many of the usual problems such as breaking my collar bone (which indicated the whole issue) and chronic kidney failure. Thankfully after some exceptional treatment including several months of chemo and dialysis I am slowly recovering the other other side. I still have a number of side issues....but who doesn't?!
But this, as such, is not what brings me here (and while I am happy to swap views with other sufferers) it is the problem of talking that I want to discuss and maybe get some views on.
During my illness my wife of 18 years has been stellar, an absolute rock. Obviously she has had many down moments but we have remained close and able to discuss all between us.
This, however, has changed.
A few months ago my teenaged daughter confessed to suicidal thoughts and had made attempts to cut herself. She was also hearing voices and had barracaded herself in her room thinking she was being hunted. This was a bombshell that raised the household stress levels to new highs. We have sought help and she has been diagnosed with depression. Counselling and medication have followed and she is making some, albeit slow, progress.
This leads me to my dilemma. My wife is now soooo stressed, more about daughter than me, that I now feel unable to talk to her. Obvioisly my daughters scenario is causing me huge amounts of stress also, not least as I fear my illness may have been a contributing factor to the depression. and on the face of it we talk and discuss things still. However I feel distanced, I am terrified of bringing any issues up for fear of stressing dear wifey further. She is undoubtably bearing the brunt of our daughter problems, their relationship is reasonably good and daughter has said she doesn't want to talk to me for 'fear of making me more unwell'.
I hope this does not sound too self indulgent, as though I am 'competing' for wife's time and affection. I try to do all I can to help and support both my wife and daughter but now find myself unable to talk to them and unsure how best to support my wife in these times.
Au suggestions gratefully accepted.
FormerMember
Hi there,
Phew you are having a tough time! Firstly, glad you are doing well with the cancer... :)
Now to your family. A lot of spouses struggle to talk about it. My other half doesn't really want to talk about it much and can't really cope with my fears etc. He wants to know what the consultant says at my check ups but otherwise he doesn't really want to engage with it. I think it is a defence mechanism. I have acccepted that and I come on here and get support on here from people who understand and leave it with him. I could push the issue but I don't see the point...
My mum had cancer when I was a teenager and eventually died of it. My dad had just died when she was diagnosed and I also had a bit of a breakdown and got depressed. I got over it. I am sure now that it was obvious that my parents were the main cause of the depression but at the time I didn't think it was at all and I never have or will blame them for it... so please don't ever feel guilty about that. Your daughter is getting help and that is great. It might be good if you get some family counselling where you can all get some help. It is a lot to deal with and i think carers find it really hard when someone has cancer as they feel so helpless and have to just watch.
you could phone macmillan advice line for some help too.. they are very helpful. I think you need to think how your relationship with your wife is... is it one that will be damaged if you talk to others on here and not her? or will that ease things? If you think it will be damaged, you need to talk to her and support her with your daughter but also tell her how you feel. She might actually calm down a bit when she sees how she is being perceived... sometimes people get stuck in the oh my word, its all awful thing and actually they are calmer than they seem.
Your daughter will get over her side of things and will talk to you again, and you can tell her that talking to you won't make you ill... but teenagers will do whatever anyway. They come out of it.
If you can do it, family counselling sounds the best to me, but whatever you do, we are all here and happy to help and support you and maybe even your wife would like some support as helping you through all that is goiing to have put some strain on her emotions too.
Good luck and give your wife a big big hug. Us women are suckers for a hug!
Thank you for the swift and thoughtful replies, they have given me food for thought. In fact, I found just the experience of writing quite a cathartic exercise, I guess it's good to talk even to a keyboard!
It is interesting to contrast my situation with Little My, in my wife's case it is not that she does not want to talk, its more me being afraid of loading more stress upon her. But your comments as to whether she would be upset by me talking here are well made, and something I have to think hard about.
Thankfully the last couple of days have been ok, no major issues from any party, let's hope for more of the same.
Again, I really appreciate your views and will keep you updated of progress,
Many thanks
So things were going well on the weekend, my back felt a little better
and so we all, as a family, went to the Paralympics athletics, awesome
and inspirational - the personification of how to get on and face
adversity.
Daughter went out today with boyfriend and family and then phoned us
as at 9 pm - can I now go to a party? And things start to unravel....
Mom says no; it's too late, you have school in two days and need to do
some prep for that. The hysterics start, Mom picks up daughter and brings her home and she immediately runs to her bedroom and 5 mins later reappears in the kitchen looking for a bandage as she has tried to cut herself again. What to do? We can't just cave in to every demand? That's gotta be bad parenting? But we can't have her trying to cut herself every time we say no. Wife is in pieces, I am despairing of what approach to take and what to say. Now we are off to bed, but who will sleep.........
Things have been pretty quiet last couple of days, kids started back at school and seem to be ok.
Only odd thing happened with me...wife was writing a letter to school regarding ome situation and described me as having terminal cancer, I protested...untreatable and terminal are not the same (I know I can be pedantic but I don't think this is the case here)
For some reason this has really upset me (for the reasons listed above I hasn't mentioned it to darling wifey) and I can't seem to get it out of my mind. Wierd.
