Toxic Positivity part two (blog)

Hi MarmiteFan59,

I'm sure our very own Dylan - Macmillan will be pleased to hear you appreciated his blog. Did you also see the first part he wrote, titled 'When good intentions hurt: exploring toxic positivity'?

I'm sorry to hear that you've encountered this unfortunate phenomena, though. If you'd like to share an example of when you've had to deal with this yourself, I'm sure other Community members will be able to identify with it. It might even help them to share their own stories too.

No pressure, but if you'd like to, I'm sure others would find it interesting.

Hi Matthew, yes I did read the first part and shared it on here too. One example of when I experienced it was two different people telling me, re endometrial cancer, “if you’re going to get cancer, it’s the best one to get”. Other examples were people taking it upon themselves to tell me to “stay positive” and telling me “stay strong, you’ll be okay”. Having cancer is extremely scary, terrifying even, and  pressure ro be positive and strong for ourselves is exhausting, let alone for other people’s benefit, it’s important to know that it’s okay to feel anxious, okay to feel overwhelmed, and not feel under pressure to put on a positive strong front, 

I was told that too by a nurse before my op for endometrial cancer.. 'If I was going to have cancer yours is the best one to have!!' 3 years later it still rankles. 

I was told that it was the best one to have as well by a consultant. I had surgery, chemotherapy and radiotherapy that took 7 months to do. Have permanent side effects from treatment. Life after cancer is very different to life before cancer! 

I was told that too. Best one to have  - really? Cancer is cancer and when they said I had LVSI I thought "this is a problem." 

All of a sudden the "best" cancer didn't feel like that at all.

A retired GP at my church said it to me, and my face must have said it all as he immediately apologised. He qualified it by saying that he meant that in most cases it was contained within the uterus, but it would have been far better to say just that. 

When I was first diagnosed my partner kept telling me everything was going to be fine and I mustn’t worry, as if words could make it go away! More recently I had a routine CT scan and as I hadn’t had a scan for a year I was worried the cancer might have returned. All he kept saying was that he was sure I would be ok but he didn’t know anymore than I did! Bless him, he was only trying to comfort me but it didn’t help. A comforting hug is much better than silly words! 

I too was told “it was the best type”, I made the mistake of taking this forward and comforting all around me with this phrase. As a consequence now no one takes my cancer treatment seriously. They say things like “it’ll be all over after the radiotherapy, things will get back to normal”, will it? I was my very own toxic positivity person. It has taught me a valuable lesson in how I will approach others with similar circumstances. Thankfully my husband is super supportive and understands me completely.

I can see that some people think they’re doing the right thing by being “positive” - thinking they’re being supportive and encouraging to us. Or from not knowing what to say. But I also think they’re doing this, not just for our benefit, but to swerve the issue and protect themselves from having to think about serious illness and mortality - including their own. In general I’ve found that people’s reactions to cancer tend to either be “oh I’m so sorry, that’s so dreadful” camp or the “keep being positive/strong and you’ll be ok” camp - and for me neither were helpful.