The only time my father ever took me to the mall was to go clothes shopping before my first oncology appointment. I was fourteen years old, and my father never spent time with me. Cancer made me special apparently, or at least it made my appearance that much more important. It was vital when seeing an oncologist, even in rural Pennsylvania, to dress to impress. I was also pressured to be on my best behavior, pleasant, stoic, agreeable. It didn’t pay to get upset at the prospect of tests, surgery, chemo, sickness, hair loss, and possible death. A good girl was silent; she took it like a man.
My mother always served as my father’s enforcer, not my champion. I excelled at suffering, she told me, because I didn’t cry or complain. I was always kind and well-mannered. Perhaps if I died, I could do it in a discreet corner near a graveyard, or at 2 am, when no one would be too put out.
As I matured, and now, at the age of 54, facing cancer again, I thought I was conscious of all my triggers, painfully but insightfully aware of just how much my parents repressed and oppressed me during my first failed chemo, my first successful bone marrow transplant, my recovery into a fully functioning human being.
It wasn’t until the end of my chemo for breast cancer that I realized I was still being the dutiful daughter, the patient who pleased every provider, who tried to empathize with them and make their jobs easier, and who minimized her own needs to the point of disappearance. Only when my chemo was over did I realize the true horror of its physical and emotional difficulties for me, while my healthcare providers saw only the facade I was so good at projecting: competent, capable, tough enough not to betray fear, pain, grief, or nausea, when all I felt was fear, pain, grief, and nausea.
Recently, still receiving targeted therapy to keep the breast cancer at bay, I broke down and cried in front of a healthcare provider, becoming weepy and inarticulate. What I felt was shame, and through my tears, I apologized for my weakness and bad behavior.
Ugh! Despite all the work and all the thought I have put into outliving my history, its damages still surface, its costs are still taking a toll. It was extremely cruel for my parents to expect a fourteen year old girl facing what could be death from cancer to put all of her energies into being attractive, unflappable, and polite, mostly for the two dysfunctional people inflicting their selfish expectations on her. Unfortunately their rotten system of values still remains internalized in me, no matter how far I feel I have come.
Some of the obdurate stone walls I have erected within me have begun to fall, and one day, I hope not just to be vulnerable, but to allow my vulnerability to show. To go public with my feelings, even when they are not positive, to allow the professionals who are paid to take care of me to actually do the work they are paid to do, to let some of my burdens rest on the shoulders of others who, for a time, can carry a little of my weight. Because it is okay for me to be human.
A work in progress….
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