Hi everyone,
apologies, this might be a long post!
My mum was diagnosed last July with stage 3, grade 3, triple negative. The tumour was 6cm, and 5 lymph nodes had cancer. Only a partial response to chemo, followed by mastectomy and radiotherapy. All treatment finished in April of this year.
My mum struggled with finishing treatment as she felt she was cut adrift and didn’t have the security and reassurance of being under the hospital anymore.
She has been putting on a brave face but I knew she was struggling and trying to hide it.
A few weeks ago, it all became a bit too much and I found her sat outside at 1am having a massive panic attack and was sobbing and shouting “I don’t want to die, I don’t want to die, I’m terrified of leaving you, please don’t let me die, this is my life now and I’m terrified, please I don’t want to die”.
I’m out my dept with this , I had no idea what to do or say. She admitted she thinks she needs to talk to someone, a counsellor/therapist and I said I would help her get whatever help she wants/needs.
My dad also lives with us, but he is completely useless and conveniently slept through all the noise of the crying and shouting that was going on outside.
The next day she said she felt better, but when I brought up counselling, she said she didn’t want it anymore and she would see how she got on.
She has now started making comments constantly about how she “is on borrowed time” and “I’ll be dead in 2 years, you know that don’t you?”.
As much as I love my mum, these are things I don’t want to be hearing and I’m a bit annoyed she finds it acceptable to say these things to her daughter. She doesn’t say them to anyone else and I’m finding it all too much. She has a very negative attitude and I constantly feel as though I’m walking on eggshells. I feel she may be depressed and I would really like her to speak to someone.
If she does something to upset me and I tell her, she will say “you can’t say that, as I now feel like rubbish for upsetting you, and it’s causing me stress and stress causes cancer”.
It’s feels like some kind of emotional abuse/blackmail.
She also drinks most evenings and I know alcohol is a depressant, but when I have pointed this out to her, she just says “I’ve had cancer, how can alcohol make me feel any worse”.
I’m really at a loss as to what to do. I’m 33, still live at home and I have been at home with her everyday for the past 18 months. I have been working from home and so I’ve dealt with cancer 24/7. My dad goes out to work, so things aren’t as intense for him and even when he’s caught in the middle of everything, he just pretends it’s not happening and goes to bed.
My life has been put on hold just as much as hers has. Everything she has needed to help her through treatment and to make her more comfortable, I’ve paid for. I’ve bought and paid for everything e.g mastectomy pillow, mastectomy bra, chemo journals, books, blankets, pillows, drain bag etc etc etc just to name a few.
She’s currently reading a book called “how to starve cancer”, she says I need to read it as I will then get more of an understanding of what is going on in her head. Maybe I am being unreasonable but it isn’t MY job to understand what’s going on in her head, that’s the job of a counsellor/therapist.
I’m single and yet to have any children. I worry that my mum won’t see me get married, or meet her grandchildren. I have worries of my own. I have things going through my own head. I don’t need to read a book to understand what’s going on on hers. What’s going on in her head needs to be discussed with someone trained in how to deal with her worries and fears. Telling your daughter everyday that you will be dead in 2 years is not acceptable and I don’t understand why she feels she needs to say this to me or feels that this is actually OK to say to me??
My life is on pause, all my money goes on my mum, my own mental health is suffering and everyday all I get told is “I have to make the most of what time I’ve got left, I’ll be dead in 2 years”.
I feel I’m at breaking point. Living in a never ending cancer nightmare surrounded by negativity, doom and gloom and talk of death. But of course, I can never mention anything, “as that upsets her and causes stress for her and stress causes cancer”….. so I guess I will stick to writing on here x
Hi ClareS1988 welcome to the forum and sorry to here what has been happening for you and your family.
Your mum is expressing that sense of loss and isolation and fear that all of us have when treatment is finished and then no one is there from those professionals for us to talk things through with any more so in that respect she is perfectly normal and we all feel that.
I see that you say she reads so I've got a bit of reading for her and feel free to read it first if you like, its by a Psychologist called Dr Peter Harvey and is entitled "After the treatment finishes, What happens next"?. You can get it on the Internet and print off, She will hopefully recognise herself in there and maybe settle a bit knowing she is not alone, the people are just not there in person but they are real and do go through what is described.
As to you and your life, why are you paying for all that stuff does mum not have the finances? As for her saying she is on borrowed time I'm hoping that by the time she reads this article she will begin to think differently. Have you ever heard that saying "you always hurt the ones you love" Its true and I often think its because the folks that we love are often our nearest and dearest and we can often say things to them that we cant say to others and I wonder if that is what she is doing ? However, she needs to understand and accept that you find this very upsetting and little wonder and you are not being unreasonable is asking her to stop that.
gail
