sssyjackson

Not OP, but cancer survivor here: Xanax.

And if all else fails, pretend it's not happening.

But I'm not sure I dealt with that in a healthy way. But if I was about to drop dead, I wanted to be happy, and gave no fucks whether I was mentally stable.

As a cancer survivor: Nothing. There's really no time to be brave or strong. Once you get a diagnosis, things start happening right away, and then you're basically having a treatment of some kind or other every single day. Days that you don't have something being done to you, you're asleep. Like dead tired asleep, cannot get up, bones aching, don't care if I eat or drink, don't even like rolling over, ASLEEP.

So really treatment is a very convenient way to be distracted. While doctors are still trying to save you, your plans for yourself go out the window. Once you become terminal, then the bravery must start, but I luckily don't know that yet for sure.

But I'll tell you this: There's a very pervasive idea among people who haven't had cancer that somehow those with cancer are very brave and strong. I never felt brave or strong, even though so many people told me that I was both.

No I wasn't. I was scared. Scared every second of every day, scared while sleeping, scared while awake, scared while laughing, just fucking scared. And it never stopped. I don't know if you would call that brave and strong. The most I can say for myself is that I suffered through that fear every day and didn't jump off a bridge to make it stop. If that's brave, then I guess that's what I am.