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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To hate these kind of comments about surviving cancer?

291 replies

Sallystyle · 08/02/2014 09:57

I am pretty sure everyone by now is aware my ex husband died in December of cancer leaving three of our young children behind. I know I mention it a lot but it has been a devastating few months.

I think I have mentioned my dislike of these type of comments elsewhere as well.

I go onto FB and see a friends status about how she has been recovered from cancer for over 8 years now. That is fantastic, I have sent messages saying how happy I am for her etc but I take great offence at some of the comments which are on the lines of:

'Of course you fought it, you are strong'
'Cancer could never beat someone like you'
'Hold your head up, this just shows what an amazing strong person you are, cancer never had a chance'

So reading this hit me hard this morning and I have since hid the status in question but I am sitting here feeling really pissed off. This is not the first time I have read stuff like this.

I just want to shout and say cancer doesn't care if you are a strong person or not, dying from cancer doesn't make you any less stronger than the next person. I know no one means any offence but how hard is it to just say congratulations I am so happy for you or something?

Maybe I am just hurting and bitter but I so wanted to comment on it but I did the right thing and just hid it instead and then came straight here to vent.

So am I an unreasonable to hate these type of comments?

OP posts:
tinypumpkin · 08/02/2014 10:27

I am truly sorry about your ex husband. Thanks I hate those comments too. It makes me cross and I can only imagine why it hurts so much. I am sorry that others are so thoughtless.

TalkieToaster · 08/02/2014 10:30

Definitely NBU!

I was lucky enough to have a cancer that's effectively been cured. Lucky. I wasn't strong, I wasn't brave, I didn't 'battle'. It was nothing to do with me - I had medicine and science on my side.

SparklyTwinkleGlitter · 08/02/2014 10:32

So very sorry for your loss. I think you did the right thing in hiding the status as it's clearly upsetting you, which is hardly surprising given that it's still very recent and raw. Thanks

However, my husband has just completed 8 sessions of Chemo and he likes to think of cancer as an enemy to be fought and will use phrases like 'staying strong, fighting, beating it, positivity' etc. and appreciates it being couched in similar language from friends & family.

He's a bloke and that works for him.

I don't think YABU at all but just wanted to flag that sometimes these words and phrases can help others. So if a poster doesn't agree personally with a particular sentiment then probably kinder to do what the OP did and just ignore it.

firesidechat · 08/02/2014 10:32

I'm sorry, but I'm not sure that comments like "you're being so strong" help the person with cancer or their families. It certainly doesn't in our case. We aren't strong, we are perfectly average people who are just "getting on with it" because we have no choice. Most people I know with cancer would say the same thing.

Also when friends describe you as strong it leaves you little opportunity to be weak in their company. It's like you have to live up to their expectations and that can be very draining and adds just more stress to an already stressful situation.

My personal opinion is that people say this stuff because dealing with the alternative, that living or dying from cancer is a complete lottery, is too hard to contemplate. Much easier to believe that force of will can do miracles.

Sorry about the rant, but this has hit a bit of a raw nerve.

firesidechat · 08/02/2014 10:34

Apologies Sparkley. I've just seen your post and it is clear that a positive outlook helps in your case.

AramintaDeWinter · 08/02/2014 10:34

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

formerbabe · 08/02/2014 10:36

Of course YANBU.

Sorry for your loss. Grief is a process of many stages...it will not always be this tough.

rugbychick · 08/02/2014 10:37

Yadnbu. My much love grandmother was the strongest, bravest person I know. She died of cancer 18 months ago. Those comments are not thought through. Sorry for you and your children's loss

Original poster
Sallystyle · 08/02/2014 10:38

Manic I had people tell my children that while their dad was given two weeks to live he could still survive. That made me angry too, I am sure it was helpful to the people who were saying it but it did amaze me that people would try to give hope to three children when there was none. Of course one of them believed it and then went into complete denial and was then shocked when he did die. If it helps people to talk like that then that is great, but I was seriously angry when one person actually emailed my son to tell him not to believe the diagnosis Hmm

I am sorry about your friend, I hope his last days are peaceful [flower]

OP posts:
MrsBungle · 08/02/2014 10:39

those who sadly lost their fight

This is the type of terminology that, personally, I do not like. My mum was not 'fighting' anything. She had an incur able cancer that made her very ill and it killed her. She had chemo and other horrendous interventions to try to prolong her life and make her more comfortable. It was a medical path. She was not involved in any battle or fight, she was following medical advice and doing her best with a very very shitty situation. My mum had had a different type of cancer which she was cured from years before. That wasn't a fight either - she went through a lot of heart-ache and megicsl treatment and was lucky enough to be cured.

MrsBungle · 08/02/2014 10:41

Samu- that's just awful about the e mail. I just don't know what people are thinking sometimes. I know it's tough and people don't know what to say but to say that is just so out of order.

CumberCookie · 08/02/2014 10:42

yanbu, I wish people would stop and think about what they are saying.

bisjo · 08/02/2014 10:45

YANBU. I like Jennifer Saunders description of when she had cancer. She said she hated the fighting metaphors and instead preferred to think of it as a process she had to get through. I have a very rare form of cancer. Everyone keeps telling me I am being so 'strong' and 'brave'. I don't think I am either. I just view it as something to go through and move on and hopefully be cured.

Birdsgottafly · 08/02/2014 10:48

I was widowed with three young children, because of Cancer.

I have had lots of relatives die from it.

So you are not UR to feel the way you do.

However people put things the way they do and use language the way those around them do/how they have been taught.

So they try to be supportive the best they know how.

They may get it wrong but the sentiment behind it, isn't.

"" I hate the phrase 'battle with cancer'""

I put words covering this in my DH's Death notice, along the lines if "a hard battle fought against impossible odds"

It was one part of a paragraph. I believe that was my right.

I have worked in palliative care and in Adult Health Care. People do bare things differently, it is correct to use the term "dignity", you don't become a better person because you have Cancer, so if you want to give praise to someone, for how they are coping (even if that is only on the outside), I don't believe that you should be criticised.

"Being Positive" doesn't change the outcome, but it changes the journey towards the end (I am not discounting depression). We had a wonderful last Easter together, even though we knew he would be gone within weeks, for example.

I can remember feeling annoyed at sentiment being giving to a man who had children (that were friends if mine but had been removed) around his death (the same time as my DH). He died through taking drugs and was a horror of a Human Being. They were under SS, so the children got given a holiday and counselling, yet they hadn't lost a "Dad".

That was my grief thinking like that.

I now realise that it took my three years to recover, but everything got on my nerves for a year.

trice · 08/02/2014 10:49

I have a friend who insists that I will "beat" my cancer because I am so "strong" and such a "fighter". It is complete bollocks. I will not beat it. It is incurable. I am just hoping to last as long as possible by taking all the medicine my Oncologist recommends. My friend is shutting down any attempts I might make to talk to her about what is happening because it upsets her. I get that.

I think some people are just very keen on the idea that they can control the world through an effort of will. Let's hope they never have to test that belief.

manicinsomniac · 08/02/2014 10:52

SamU2 - I'm so sorry somebody did that to your son. Messing with a child's emotions in that way is appalling. I suppose the tricky thing is that people can and do defy awful prognoses like 2 weeks and live for years. It's rare but the fact that it happens means that some people can't help but hope, just as a way of getting through. I hope you and your children are able to get help to heal in the way that you need to.

MrsBungle - sorry, I didn't meant to offend.

I think the difficulty with this kind of debate is that, with something as awful as cancer, you can't deal with it in the wrong way. You just deal with it in the only way you can.

Amethyst24 · 08/02/2014 10:53

I hate the anthropomorphisation of cancer. It's a disease, ffs. People don't go around saying, "I beat the common cold!"

NBU.

midnightagents · 08/02/2014 10:54

Yanbu. Those comments are ridiculous. There's a lot of telling people how they ought to behave, or how things ought to work out in the face of disaster. Truth is everyone and everything is different so, (much as we like to) we can't categorise and explain life so simplisticly. Really sorry for your loss..
The intent of the posts was probably to big up the person they were talking to, but it doesn't make it any less untrue and perhaps insensitive.

He11y · 08/02/2014 10:55

I haven't been in this situation and don't say such things myself but I've definitely heard them so I know what you mean and, tbh, I've never thought of it from this angle.

I know it's upsetting, but could you reply to the thread on FB and say you feel upset by it?

I say that as I'm pretty sure most people don't have a clue and I'd feel awful if one of my FB friends was feeling as you do now.

I'll definitely think more now I've seen this.

pigletmania · 08/02/2014 10:57

Yanbu at all how thoughtless. They were very lucky, cancer can get anyone no matter how hard they fight!

magimedi · 08/02/2014 10:58

YANBU at all.

I talk to his widow a few times every day as she still has the children often and we are very good friends. We really were like one big family but I also have some guilt because towards the end of our marriage I did some things I am not proud of.

That is wonderful for you & your children & I hope that you can put your guilt away & be able to hold onto such strong relationships.

Flowers for you, his widow & your children.

Birdsgottafly · 08/02/2014 10:59

"" she was following medical advice and doing her best with a very very shitty situation.""

But some people don't.

They carry on drinking/smoking being Cunts. During my FIL stay in a Marie Curie Hospice, he ended up telling a man in the bed opposite to stop speaking to the staff like shit.

One of the mans visitors actually said to my FIL "he never been particularly nice, this has just exasperated his nasty side".

Doing everything that you can is part of a "fight" in a way.

It depends on your type of Cancer and when it was diagnosed, as well, of course.

I watched people drink themselves to death, as well as die through drugs, in my personal life, as well as work.

Whilst nearly all deaths are equal personal tragedies, there is difference in reality.

HesterShaw · 08/02/2014 11:01

YANBU.

Cancer isn't a conscious entity which takes notice of what kind of person you are. Your friend has been lucky. You and your family have been unlucky.

I'm so sorry xxx

pigletmania · 08/02/2014 11:03

I noticed a lot of comments criticising how those with cancer approach their illness, it's up to them if they want to 'fight' it or they see it as a battle, nobody has a right to cast judgement, it is up to the individual. But in reaction to the op, those comments relating to her status were thoughtless. Btw I lost my dad when I was 11 to cancer and my Gran

manicinsomniac · 08/02/2014 11:04

While I totally understand why people who view things the way the OP do feel that way it's quite hurtful to say that the comments are 'ridiculous' and 'thoughtless'. They aren't. They are coping mechanisms just like acceptance, denial, very open grieving, emotional closing off, jokes and any other number of strategies that are possibly upsetting to others in similar situations.

Cancer sufferers and their friends and families just do the best they can to deal with their situation. And it's unfair to suggest that is wrong in some way.