To hate these kind of comments about surviving cancer?

[Sallystyle]

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?

I don't know waterlego, isn't your body responsible for growing the stuff that clogs up your arteries too? I'm very healthy in that I have low cholestrol, healthy heart, kidneys, lungs, liver etc but the cancer is in my blood that will most likely kill me. Nothing I've done or not done and nothing to do with my lifestyle or what I eat or don't eat. I don't feel invaded

YANBU
Some say it's a battle like a war between two nations
Some say it's a journey with stops at different stations
Some say you can survive it if only you are strong
Let me tell those someones how completely they are wrong.
Cancer is a vile disease. You don't get better if you 'fight' how do you fight a disease? It's not about strength or weakness or even about ignorance or knowledge. It is about the type and location of the cancer and how far it has spread when it is found. Cancer patients aren't cured they are in remission often for many years. Many die of other things. I have had breast cancer, seven and a half years ago, so far I am well. My close friend was diagnosed at the same time as me and she has been dead for three years. We had the same medical team, she was 18 years younger than me. If fighting could have conquered then J would be climbing mountains today. The main difference was that her cancer was a higher grade than mine though mine was technically more aggressive.
So sorry for all of you who have lost loved ones or are suffering yourselves. Love and luck to you.

YANBU

I'm so sorry for your loss

I lost my mum to cancer and those sort of comments hurt me too, she fought as best as she could. Doesn't mean she wasn't a strong woman. It's all just down to luck.

Sorry OP

thegreylady some cancer patients are cured. If I survive treatment I will be completely cured, not in remission. It so depends on the type of cancer you have.

My DD's best friend was a strong, healthy 14yo. She died of AML. Cancer doesn't discriminate. My Great Aunt was a strong woman, who died of breast cancer. My Nan (her sister) has survived breast cancer, 7 years now. She wasn't 'strong', she was lucky.

tunnock I can see why 'inspirational' must irritate you. I'm very sorry to read of your DH's diagnosis. What a terribly cruel thing to happen to a young family. I wish you and your DH and children all the very best.

Not quite the same, but my parents died within 10 weeks of each other last year, and lots of people have told me they think I'm 'amazing' or 'inspiring' 'so strong' etc. No. I have just continued to get out of bed every morning to face the day, which is the same thing anyone would do. No-one knows how they will cope with an awful situation until they're in one, and then we find that coping is just what we do, because there's no alternative to it.

Sunflower As an alternative, people could say 'what awful luck' or 'I hope the treatment goes ok'. In the example give by the OP, people could say 'I'm so pleased you got better!' Or 'I'm glad your treatment worked'.

Of course it is reasonable for you to hate those remarks. It's nothing to do with the harder you fight. Absolute nonsense. But on the other hand I think people only say those things to people to give encouragement so I suppose they mean well although not very senstive to others.

difficultpickle I was only speculating on that based on conversations I've heard people have about cancer. I'm really glad to hear that you don't feel 'invaded' by your illness :) And you're right in what you said about arteries and so on.

I have a feeling my mum saw her cancer as an adversary which had rudely invaded her body. She used to 'talk' to it (and tell it to bugger off )

My dm has cancer she was diagnosed 4 months ago. Her treatment is due to start next week. Because she is unable to keep food down they think she is too weak for the treatment. We keep being told she is strong she can fight this.
It means you can't talk realistically to people and just makes everything harder

yanbu i HATE these type of thoughtless comments

i know why people do it though, as they want to fall themselves that cancer wont get them as they will fight it
as if they have some sort of control

they dont want to handle the fact shit terrible devestaing things happen to good people all the time everyday

they like to think if they are good people good things will happen to them

when really its all bloddy pot luck

but it must be extremely upsetting for people with cancer and their families

also i dont like they way people with cancer are pressuried into being positive all the time
as if, if your not positive enough cancer will kill you
as if these poeple dont have enough to deal and cope with

It does make things hard, minsmum. I'm sorry to hear your mum has cancer.

In an ideal world, we could just politely say to those people 'actually, this is not anything to do with strength, it's going to be about luck and medicine', but I know I didn't have the energy to say that to people at the time.

When my mum was told her treatment had not been successful, and that no further treatment was being offered, she felt frustrated and helpless. I remember telling her that this was not any reflection on her strength of character or her determination or any of that. I'm not sure she really believed me and it saddens me to think that some of those 'you're strong' comments were having such an impact on her.

YANBU. I'm a cancer survivor but always put my survival down to sheer luck. When I still had it I never saw myself as "battling" it out either as the cancer was part of my body and I simply couldn't conceive of "battling" against my body. I simply put all my trust into my oncology team and treatment. No one understood my way of thinking but I didn't care.

So sorry for your loss. I was single and childless when I had cancer. My experience would have been so much harder if I'd had a spouse and children...

Samu2, I would recommend getting bereavement counselling for you and your children. It can probably be arranged from your local hospice.

When my ex was in his final few weeks one of my close friends told me some rubbish about a special diet which could cure cancer. I was so cross that I snapped and told her to grow up and either start dealing with the reality of his impending death or not to phone me again until after the funeral.

I remember a celebrity who had recovered from cancer (possibly Jennifer Saunders) receiving criticism for saying she didn't see her illness as a battle ot fight & didn't want to talk about "my fight". It is a devastating illness, some get lucky some don't.

Also the "cancer we're coming to get you" advertising slogan makes me blood run cold. As someone with a genetic tendency to cancer it makes me think "yes, we probably are". Actually, I think it was a very very poor choice of phrase.

But mouldy that's you. The wife of my friend that is dying is desperate to get him on that diet (but he is struggling to keep much down). We know 2 men who were diagnosed terminal, given a few weeks to live, followed the diet and are still here 2 and 3.5 years later, still living with cancer but doing incredibly well.

The chances are it won't work for my friend. But the stories of these two men are keeping them going at present. And you never know. What's the harm in them offering their experience and advice?

It upset you so, presumably (I hope!) your friend shut up about it. But she couldn't know whether it would be something you would want to hear or not.

YANBU, and you mention it as much as you need too, it's a huge thing. Well done for simply hiding it and getting your feelings out here

What's the harm in them offering their experience and advice?

The problem is that people offer irrelevant experience and advice that is upsetting.

There's nothing wrong with people with cancer themselves or their nearest and dearest looking up a diet and deciding if it is for them, then initiating that discussion with close friends- that's the time for support and encouragement, the interest and receptiveness led by them.

But people don't do that, they tell people with cancer they don't know very well or have no knowledge of their prognosis 'oh my uncle X had it, went on this diet and lived 7 years' Well, bully for Uncle X, but unsolicited irrelevant advice is just that, unsolicited and irrelevant. The person with cancer then has to bat away this irrelevant (to them) advice and is made to feel bad/ungrateful/not trying hard enough.

It's all about listening, and when people get cancer, others go into panic mode and stop listening to what the person wants to talk about, instead imposing ideas and platitudes on them and dismissing what they are really saying.

YANBU to be upset OP.

Those are thoughtless remarks.

I think this notion of battling cancer comes from the media and is total rubbish.

I feel your pain SamU2 I too lost my husband last Jan aged 56...although we'd been separated for quite a number of years we were married young and still remained best friends. If you get in touch with your local Hospice or Macmillan nurses I'm sure they can help support you. Winstons Wish is a childrens bereavement charity who may be able to help your children.
I used to hate those 'made for T.V. films where if you 'fought' it by some miracle you could get up and walk ( I have a DD with C.P. who will sadly never walk) it makes folks think that IF you were a REALLY strong person you could overcome ANY odds which we all know is not the case sending to you and a huge measure of ((((HUGS)))) TOO.

Reading the comments on here, I find it very sad that those who have cancer are being criticised for how they approach it, it is fr nobody to say but themselves. Fir some cancer is a battle, if that helps them cope with it who are we to say. There is no right or wrong, it's personal to each person who has cancer.

Piglet, no one is, I think, criticising how someone approaches their own cancer. Frankly, if you are dealing with a serious illness, and it helps you to think about fighting, Jesus, or big pink marshmallows, go for it, whatever helps you in your own individual predicament.

What people are less impressed by is how the lexicon of 'fighting cancer' has leached into our general vocabulary as a society, including major cancer fundraising campaigns, giving well- meaning but unthinking people who don't themselves have cancer the idea that cancer is 'fought' and 'beaten' and 'struggled against' and implicitly that those who die from the disease were thus 'weak', 'lost their struggle' , 'stopped fighting' etc. Not every cancer sufferer wants to see it as a battle, and, as in the OP's case, it can be enormously hurtful to a bereaved family.

Think about your own cancer anyway you like, but think before you use a potentially insensitive set of metaphors of battle to other people. In the same way you would (I hope) not tell an atheist that her dead husband or child had 'gone to live with the angels'. Both are almost certainly well meant but clumsy.

YANBU. Very, very insensitive comments.

YANBU. Definitely not.

But, if I can ask, what sort of comments would be helpful or meaningful? I struggle with what to say. I want to convey concern, sympathy, compassion, etc and hope somehow i will find the right combination of comforting words. But whatever I say/write often sounds so trite, cliche'd, superficial etc that I sometimes say nothing at all - which could send a message that I simply don't care/can't be bothered.

There are definitely the well-meaning-but-insensitive comments, but on the other side, there are also those of us who want to say the 'right' thing, but have no idea what that is.

Would it be better for people like me - who aren't part of the immediate family - to say a simple 'I'm so sorry, thinking of you'? Somehow that doesn't seem enough....

Oh right, ok, I think those terms are meant to be encouraging and willing people on to try and remain positive, not factual. Ts trying to turn a negativ thing into a positive itswim