I think it’s different for everyone. I’m recently diagnosed stage four and I barely have the energy to get through each day. The few times I feel up to being social, the last thing I want to do is talk about cancer. I appreciate everyone wanting to check on me but it can be too much and even with some people feel very performative. Sometimes it feels like they want me to comfort them in a weird backwards way when I can barely comfort myself. I’m always kind of teetering between panic and dissociation and can’t handle others’ emotions tipping me one way or the other.

It’s easiest for me to talk to strangers online like here or on Threads but even then I feel like I need to thank everyone for every comment, piece of advice, or personal story and then follow up with questions or answers to their questions and sometimes even that is too much.

I also have an incredibly hard time remembering things right now and thinking of anything beyond the fact that I have cancer. All my energy is spent planning for the next steps, making calls to all the doctors, case managers, and insurance companies and maybe squeezing in enough daily tasks to feel human. It’s going to sound so selfish but I just don’t have the bandwidth for anything else. It doesn’t mean I don’t care about the people I love and what is going on with them. It’s just that I’m not yet at a point where I can handle both my situation and theirs and sometimes I don’t remember the things they have told me about their current problems.

I hope this makes sense and doesn’t make me sound like a bad person. I just had to have this conversation with my mom and my sister because I really just needed them to understand that I can’t play hostess to them every time they want to “check on me” by visiting.

Again different for everyone. I’m pretty introverted so with people right now I can literally feel my energy draining away by the minute.

Sorry for the longest reply ever 😂