cancersucks's Cancer Blog

November 15, 2006

Write it down, Let it out

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This was writing from one cancer survivor to another. I have taken out their names for their privacy, but this is wonderful advice filled with lots of emotions. I like the part about not comparing yourself to other survivors. We all have our own struggles, whether we have one surgery or two, chemo or not, radiation or not, it can be hard no matter what road we take.

“Hello cancer survivor – Have you thought about getting pen and paper and writing down your feelings? You needn’t send them to the group, keep it all privately. It may be that that will act as some kind of catharsis, it will take the pressure off you as you obviously have some very deep emotions inside and really need to release them in some form or another.

When I was a child I was beaten and abused by my mother and kept it all inside until one day when I was 37 or so when I saw a barber’s pole, red and white stripes outside a shop. I froze and somehow ended up in a police station as I apparently wasn’t able to communicate with anyone and had just stood for some time, people moving around me and some dear soul had got me help. I vaguely remember being put on a train to home afterwards but whilst I was no longer frozen I was still very troubled by flash-backs and the meaning of this red and white pole.

My doctor asked if i would voluntarilly go into hospital and I did as I simply could not function normally and knew I needed help. In the following weeks I revealed my childhood that had been repressed for a great many years, the red and white barber’s pole just like my back and legs in the mirror where I had been beaten to bloody red and white stripes for daring to touch my mother and asking for a drink. I still don’t know the age I was but guess I was 3 – 4 years old.

There was a limited time I set myself on unravelling my repressed past and it wasn’t the same amount of time my psychiatrist had set, he wanted me to stay in therapy for about 3 years, but me, I wanted it all over and done with in minutes but set a year as a target. Of course a year was too short but the emotions I couldn’t face came out in my writing, I wrote volumes, ‘she did that’, feelings of so and so and after a few months I felt some relief. Looking back at it I see I have written it in the third person, e.g. she did this and she felt that, I think that was the only way I could vent it all ~ as if I was writing about somebody else. But it worked and to this day I sit and write out any problems. Sometimes we can’t speak aloud what we have inside but we can’t have it stored inside either, it changes our lives.

I don’t have a great many friends who can truly empathise with me over the cancer, my friends see me as the coper, the one who manages, take things in my stride and I do some things, most things but also I play the protection game, not quite revealing my deepest thoughts to my children because I don’t want them to be hurt so I go to the writing and there I spill all. I keep it all because it’s part of me but it could be shredded or burnt and one day I will dispose of it.

The other way I vent some emotion is through art. Ok, so I am an art teacher but you don’t have to be arty in order to vent emotions through paint. Art therapy is very good.

The other thing I want to talk about is guilt. Sometimes we feel guilty having these feelings and struggle to justify them. As far as I am concerned ( and I guess most people would agree) it’s not what you have it’s what you feel about it. Feelings need no justification whatsoever.

I remember one of my sons when tiny, cutting his finger and this was the very first time he had seen blood drip and run down, Before he had seen blood but just an ooze but this time because he saw this red coloured stuff coming out and could not control it (he was, I guess 3 years old) he came screaming to me asking if his body was going to empty out. Of course I reassured him gave him the bandage and it was fine but a good demonstration here of what I mean by it’s not what you have it’s how you feel about it.

We don’t need to have the worst case of cancer, the biggest tumour, the most aggressive to feel bad. Rarely do our feelings equate with the volume of the problem. So we have a little bit of cancer, well that doesn’t mean we can’t feel devasted and by saying that I don’t mean a little bit of cancer is nothing, of course it is. But what I am trying to get across is we should never attempt to justify our feelings. If my cancer was bigger than Miss X it doesn’t mean I have the right to feel more devastated than she. But if i felt worse than Miss X well that is ok and if Miss x felt worse than I then that too is oK. It’s how we feel inside that matters and sometimes we are just simply too damn hard on ourselves, comparing ourselves to Mrs Z up the road who has all that to cope with and I only have so and so to deal with. It’s not a competition, we are what we are and if my son felt overwhelmed by what I call just a bit of blood that is fine, he didn’t have to cut an arm off to justify feeling fear.

Cancer survivor, I think you have some feelings that you need to vent, don’t let them stay inside, release them a bit at a time in a way that is comfortable for you. I was really agitated over the way I was told something but not the actual information itself. That isn’t silly, inmature, it certainly isn’t wrong or anything else, that was me, the way I reacted. I never tried to justify my anger, I just let it out, gave myself permission to be angry in the same way I have allowed myself to grieve for my lost breasts, fury at the loss of control over the cancer. I tell myself I can let it out, it’s ok to do it, and although I do it my way it still comes out.

Cancer survivor rethink withdrawing from the group, I expect you have some expertise you can bring to us, some pearls of wisdom, some strategies, get working on releasing some of your tensions, tell me off for being bossy if you like, have a moan, grumble, whatever but most of all allow yourself to be human for that’s all we are.

This group cares. I send my love to you and so sorry for the lecture.”

Posted on November 15, 2006 at 7:58:47 AM by cancersucks ( Write it down, Let it out, 1 comment)