Yesterday I wrote a top 10 (that became 11) list of things I hate hearing. There is actually one more, but it deserves it’s own post.
The absolute worst thing anyone can say to me is “be strong” or “you are so strong.” I am not strong. The fact that I don’t break down at any given moment is not due to my “strength.” No one knows what’s going through my head, and what I’m thinking or feeling.
I’m not in denial in any way. I know what’s going on. But when tumor #2 happened, and especially #3 (The Paralyzer), I developed a mechanism that, to this day, makes me feel guilty. I basically remove myself from the situation and almost “pretend” that it’s not my mom that I’m looking at.
Sometimes I accidentally switch the off button, like last week, which caused me to cry for 4 days straight (to the point where I didn’t even go to my ballet and lyrical classes, and anyone who knows me knows that I don’t skip those EVER).
It’s a double-edged sword. Either I fall apart (read: not strong), or I pretend that what’s happening is unrelated to me (read: not strong, just chicken, with a dollop of guilt).
This is the only way I get through my days, and especially the hospital visits. Seeing what’s become of my mom, in no time, is too terrible to be able to deal with if I wouldn’t pretend. Especially since none of this should have been happening for at least another 30 years.
Silence does not equal strength. Silence is just silence, at least in my case.
February 27, 2009 at 11:32 pm
[...] Number 12 received its own post. Possibly related posts: (automatically generated)On being caught in the [...]
February 28, 2009 at 12:07 am
Well… I don’t think you should feel guilty (though I know this won’t change your feelings). I think you should do WHATEVER gets you through this. And this way is a bit familiar to me.
I don’t remember if I told you this, and maybe that’s not the place\time, but since we’re already here… My grandma (and I’m NOT comparing here) had a slow dying process (7 years) after a horrible accident. While I was completely attached to her before, after the accident I saw her less and less (my choice), and I felt as if I had 2 versions of my grandma. The before, the after.
When I think about her now, I never think of the after. Even though the ‘after’ lasted for a third of the time I knew her. The person who lay there was NOT my grandma.
And if this helps a bit, I know my mom (her only daughter), felt the same way I did.
February 28, 2009 at 1:35 am
As you know, I have gotten the “you are so strong” line a lot. It also drives me bonkers. To me, it is just…dealing. Sure, there are some people who can just let it all go and fall apart and become useless, but honestly, most of us do not have that luxury. So you get up each day and go on putting one foot in front of the other. And you do what you have to do in order to manage the giant elephant who has invaded your life. Pretending or lying to yourself that, really, there is no elephant, if you have to. Falling apart on occassion when said elephant tramples one of your toes. And in general, just kinda muddling through.
Which, in my mind, is how gets through any crisis–muddling through, one day at a time and one elephant or other beastie at a time.
Being strong has nothing to do with it. In fact, I sometimes wonder about the people who so completely fall apart. How much of that is the crisis, and how much of that is someone who wants a reason to give up responsibility for himself or herself?
February 28, 2009 at 3:33 pm
You know, funnily enough, I break one of my rules with you. I always feel bad dumping on you, though I rarely do, even though I know that no one knows better than you what I’m going through, other than one other friend…
March 1, 2009 at 7:35 pm
By all means, feel free to dump. Ironically–I look at your situation and think to myself “wow–cannot imagine having to go through that”.
Reminds me of the time I was in NYC–year after 9-11 and about 5 mos after my bombing. I walked past the site and thought to myself (I kid you not), “wow, cannot imagine being in a terrorist attack”.
The mind is a wondrous thing indeed.
Seriously, from my POV, one of the benefits of going through the various dramas I *not* that I can look down on all of the other weaklings, but rather that I am more useful as a friend and slightly less likely to say or do really stupid (albeit well-meant) things.
February 28, 2009 at 9:44 pm
Oh, Talia. I wish I had something to say, but all I can think of are the trite things on your list. My heart aches for you.
xoxoxo
March 1, 2009 at 1:11 am
Thanks, hon.
Appreciated.
March 1, 2009 at 1:09 am
A friend once told me that when someone says “you’re so strong,” what they really mean is “you’re life sucks and I’m so glad I’m not you!”
March 1, 2009 at 1:10 am
This is, without a doubt, the BEST comment I have ever seen. I literally laughed out loud. Thanks for that.
March 1, 2009 at 5:25 pm
Glad to amuse!!
March 1, 2009 at 6:20 pm
[...] | Over the last couple of days, I have written about things that people say to me that only make me feel worse. Many of you – both people who know me offline and those who don’t – have requested that I [...]
March 1, 2009 at 6:35 pm
I don’t know if you knew I was an oncology nurse. Reading your blog has taught me a few things and confirmed some others. Thank you for sharing your experience.
March 1, 2009 at 6:37 pm
I didn’t know. I’d love to know what I taught/confirmed. I started the blog for me, in hopes that stuff wouldn’t run around my head as much and I’d be able to sleep at night, but I’ve gotten tons of emails from people saying all kinds of interesting things.
May 10, 2009 at 5:25 pm
[...] you start commenting, I’d like to amend my previous lists of things I hate hearing that don’t make me feel better. Most of the things on those lists no longer anger me, though the list was compiled before my [...]
January 1, 2010 at 4:07 am
I find this entire blog so amazingly refreshing in its honesty and lessons. Thank you so much for publicly sharing. The parallels are many with my own story, and yet so different. I lost my beloved 62 year-old mother to melanoma in February 2009 (which ended in brain cancer). Although no one should have to hear “be strong”, and I agree that it is completely unhelpful, the most destructive words for me came from my husband. The day after my mother died, he told me: “You are not helping anyone by stressing yourself out.” For the 1,5 days of my mother’s life, I had tensed every time my mother breathed during the pause before she breathed again since she was predicted to die any minute. As a result, my entire body was sore and I couldn’t lift my arms, and so couldn’t change my son’s diaper (and barely could walk up and down stairs). This, of course, did not stop my husband from leaving me by myself to take care of my two small kids that day because there had been so many recent weekends where he watched them by himself and since I would not be available to watch the kids during the funeral the next weekend (which was in another state, since we wanted my grandmother to be able to watch her child be buried near her, and she could no longer travel – and we had decided not to have the children attend so he stayed behind to watch them). Hence what he really meant was that I was an ineffective mother because I couldn’t do a better job ‘being strong’, which was of course true but so unbelievably hurtful. I wonder if he had said that he thought I was doing a good job of “being strong” if I wouldn’t be so angry with him about his remark that day, even now…
January 3, 2010 at 1:04 pm
Thanks so much for your message. I’m so sorry about your mom – we’re clearly in the exact same boat. I don’t know how I would have dealt with the things your husband said.
My sister has 2 small kids, and luckily her husband really took over so that she could be with us as much as possible. But she has a very different experience than I have – she doesn’t have the luxury of falling apart like our little sister and I have because she DOES have those 2 little kids to look out for. It’s pressure she puts on herself tho – not to be a martyr or anything, just that she wants the disruption to their life to be minimal, I guess, with the added “bonus” that for months after my mom died, my nephew would still ask about her.
I hate the whole “being strong” thing regardless – I don’t think it’s true. It seems that what others perceive as “being strong” is to me waking up in the morning.