Active discussions

Meet the Other Phone. Flexible and made to last.

Meet the Other Phone.
Flexible and made to last.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Talk
AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

to think Cancer Research should rethink some of their marketing?

381 replies

MrsCarriePooter · 05/12/2011 12:13

This is a fairly mild AIBU but interested in what you think.

We were in our local Cancer Research shop this morning and in the window they had a big poster of a woman who had survived breast cancer, but the wording was something about "Vanessa wasn't going to let cancer beat her". I said to the volunteer insider when I was paying that I thought that was a bit offensive, as though those who die from cancer just had decided to roll over and "let cancer beat" them. Was I just being overtouchy? Having had relatives die of cancer I know I could be. The volunteer said "she'd pass my views" on to the area manager.

OP posts:
KinkyDoritoWithFairyLightsOn · 06/12/2011 12:11

LimeJelly you are so correct. Obviously it is not me with cancer, but DD, however I have been 'strong', 'brave' and all the rest of it all year. I haven't been allowed to be upset. Instead, I too have developed crippling anxiety, hideous IBS, and depression (I'm now on prozac) and I think this is in large part due to not being able to vent my natural inclination to be pessimistic. Everybody wants you to be positive, and everyone values that - even when they are admitting that in your shoes, they would be terrified. Guilty parties include even my DH who won't let me think otherwise; my GP who wants to keep me positive; all of DDs Drs. Who can you say - what if she dies - to? Who can you admit 'I'm so, so, so scared' to?

Instead I ate my way up by 2.5st and had panic attacks.

What makes it worse is that DD wants to say these things too, but won't because she's frightened to admit them, and to talk to me as she doesn't want me to worry. Instead, we walk around with this huge burden hanging over us all. Thankfully, we have a wonderful Macmillan social worker who comes to talk to DD, so at least she can have a chat with her.

KinkyDoritoWithFairyLightsOn · 06/12/2011 12:13

Lord, this thread is turning into my therapy Xmas Smile.

JaneBirkin · 06/12/2011 12:13

LJ what an incredibly honest post. I think I will speak for many when I say you have affected me deeply.

I pray your cancer does not come back x

PerryCombover · 06/12/2011 12:14

I'm fed up with the you've beat it once before you'll beat it again stuff. TBH it's just how aggressive it is, when it's caught and how well you respond to the treatment.
Hate that it's now deriguer to talk about how cancer made you realise all the great things in your life or how you made your peace with the illness and embraced it.
I hate "given up her/his fight" as a concept. I want to punch people who say it and call them callous thoughtless cunts.

I suppose it's because we want to feel that we have control and that making friends or enmity with the disease will make a difference to it and the outcome.

It's disgraceful that some people may feel they have to put a brave face on their suffering so that others don't consider that they have given up or aren't making enough of an effort. Equally if they don't feel that cancer has been the best thing that has happened to them.....

So many people live with or under the shadow of cancer. Allow them the dignity, fear or horror of facing the disease and it's treatment.

travellingwilbury · 06/12/2011 12:21

I think a lot of the reason this whole being brave and battling shite gets spouted is because on the whole we as a nation are terrified of other peoples emotions .

If we allowed everyone to just be truthful about how they "really" feel then the world would be a better place for those who are suffering and maybe a bit more scary for those that aren't but hey they would cope !

fotheringhay · 06/12/2011 12:21

What an important thread. I have the details of several CR press officers, so I'll send it to them.

DazzleII · 06/12/2011 12:22

Blimey, how many press officers do they have, fotheringhay?

travellingwilbury · 06/12/2011 12:25

How about an ad campaign which shows someone having to smile through gritted teeth so they are seen to be brave and battling who then goes into their empty home and sobs like a baby .

VeronicaSpeedwell · 06/12/2011 12:34

LJ, what a moving and thought-provoking post. Thank you for speaking so frankly. I think this thread has done so much to show how important it is to speak honestly. Wishing you all the luck in the world. x

Firsttimer7259 · 06/12/2011 13:04

Hi limejelly I am sorry my post has scared you. I had wanted to say that for me the honest stuff was more helpful than endlessly parroting on about fighting, bravery and all that.

I had my mother for a long time post diagnosis - with advances in medicine and a big dollop of luck I hope you will be with your children for even longer. Its horrible and unfair but I dont think any of it is helped by pretending things. Nor do I find that my anxiety (about life in general) is assuaged by avoiding facts. I find even bad facts help me take that deep breath, and get on with dealing, Rather than pretending that the monsters under my bed aren't there.

Firsttimer7259 · 06/12/2011 13:20

What I wanted to say to you Limejelly is give yourself time: freak out, be scared, cry as much as possible, get really really angry, because you will adapt and you will find ways to live through it not because of being brave, but because somehow you just do. Life goes on. Its relentless and brutal, but its magic more than any pink ribbon fluffy fighting tales.

skewiff · 06/12/2011 13:25

My mum died of cancer when I was 15. I have always thought that she was weak - and/or that we weren't important enough for her to have wanted to fight to beat the cancer.

Thank you for starting this post. It has made me see that I was wrong.

Firsttimer7259 · 06/12/2011 13:26

Oh skewiff. Have been on edge of tears all day with this, you've just pushed me over. Biggest hug imaginable goes to you

LimeJellyforBrains · 06/12/2011 13:31

Oh no wrote a huge post and lost connection grrr.

KinkyDorito I feel for you so much. My DH too was and still is one of the worst 'offenders' and has no idea how badly this has affected me inside. This thread is therapy indeed! x

Firsttimer please please don't apologise - the honesty about cancer is indeed scary but, I believe as you do, actually easier to deal with than euphemisms and flannel and positive claptrap. You were saying you didn't know how your mum lived with that fear for 13 years and I am agreeing that none of us knows how we will manage either - but we will - whether we are cheeful or miserable or most likely up and down.

myfriendflicka · 06/12/2011 13:32

So sorry Skewiff. That is so much what I do not want my children to think about their Dad.

That's why all this battling cancer stuff is so damaging.

LimeJellyforBrains · 06/12/2011 13:36

Cross-posted with Firsttimer x

I am humbled/touched by everyone's replies to my post.

This thread is heartbreaking and galvanising in equal measures.

DizSma · 06/12/2011 13:39

Couldn't agree more with this thread. My 15 yr old Darling Boy died in July 2009 from malignant melanoma, he fought to live until his last breath, the Cancer Research ads offend me greatly. During his illness and after his death I found it very difficult to deal with the relentless 'positivity' merchants, who would insist that we all 'stay positive'. On reflection this was obviously for their own benefit, much easier to cope with the 'positively' bereaved, rather than the reality.

JugglingWithGoldandMyrhh · 06/12/2011 13:40

Oh Skewiff Sad - You've got things all skewiff there. Your Mum didn't want to leave you, she loved you very much x

lobatteries · 06/12/2011 13:48

I TOTALLY TOTALLY AGREE with you OP. Finally others who agree. I started a posting something along these lines ages ago after a particular ad and never got any response, but the various topics were very active at the time and it never stayed on the active list very long but I did wonder if I was being unreasonable.

Just had to add my YADNBU.

MaryAnnSingleton · 06/12/2011 13:49

waves to Limejelly xxx

becstarsky · 06/12/2011 13:55

I have a very un-mumsnet need to send (hugs) to everyone on this thread. I agree completely that references to 'battling' 'fighting' 'winning' 'staying strong' are totally inappropriate. Cancer is out of our control and unfair. I guess that's why people feel the need to pretend that there is the possiblity of control. That those who have cancer have got some control, that they can 'fight' it, 'battle' it, 'beat' it, 'win the fight' against it, or alternatively 'lose', 'give in', 'surrender'. Because then it isn't quite so scarey. But it's just magical thinking really so that people can keep their fear at arm's length. I remember when my Mum was diagnosed when I was 16 (she's still alive, thank god), some of my 'friends' avoided me at school - I'd see them dodge into doorways so as not to have to speak to me. Just in case they caught 'having a mum with cancer' off me Sad. I think this is another manifestation of the same thing - rather than face the fact that this person has been given earth-shattering news and acknowledge their feelings whatever they are, they are given a barrage of 'stay strong, don't let it beat you' pressure.

LimeJellyforBrains · 06/12/2011 14:12

(waves back to MAS xxx)

May I perversely thank CRUK, for without them and their awful-sounding poster which I haven't seen, this thread would not have happened, and I would have continued to struggle alone with the feelings that I have been failing in my 'fight', for not being positive enough, and of feeling inadequate and, quite frankly, a nuisance because I have found cancer so absolutely terrifying, and for thinking it's actually up to the doctors and the treatments (and luck) to fight it, not me and my 'attitude'.

Now I know how many people hate this pressure on cancer patients to be brave and positive all the time. Hurrah!

sportsfanatic · 06/12/2011 14:14

This sort of marketing is what can happen when the balance of responsibility/power for a charity's science message shifts from an (inevitably) more cautious research directorate (under the charge of senior scientists and medics who are clinically aware) to an (inevitably) more gung-ho fundraising/marketing directorate.

Won't go into detail except to say that I left a cancer research charity many years ago because I was unhappy taking my department from under the research directorate control to the fundraising directorate control.

Why? Because I feared the tail would start to wag the dog. This is what you are seeing here. Sad

Iamseeingstars · 06/12/2011 14:18

I am currently in hospital undergoing treatment for cancer. It is nothing to do with fighting it or not fighting it. Its a case of the treatment will work or it work and I am not going to make any difference to the outcome.

I do now think these sort of comments are insensitive but I would never have even thought of it beforehand. I had believed all the hype about fighting it, being strong, etc. but now I know it wont make the slightest bit of difference.

Noodlemacdoodle · 06/12/2011 14:33

Please could you all sign this?

submissions.epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/17419

It's a chance to do something about this disease.