Since Friday, this is the third time I have started writing. The other two times I was stopped mid way for some reason. By the time I got back, things have since changed again. So, here I am, starting my 3rd post in 4 days.
Friday I was angry but trying to get past the email. Yesterday I was trying harder to be positive and let the anger go.
Today? I'm just disappointed. In myself.
I had worked really hard to get past what happened a month ago. I've been fighting to stay positive and to be in a positive place. I've been working to let go of anger and hurt. The email last week got to me. A lot.
I'm disappointed that I let the email get to me. I'm disappointed that I gave away my power and allowed someone else to have such an impact on me.
Yesterday afternoon, everything just hit me. I went into this rough spiral that I can't shake. Even now. I don't like being like this. But I don't know how to get out of it.
I just want to be happy again. Because right now I'm not.
It hurts so much when I feel so attacked by people. Am I that horrible of a person that someone would go out of their way to send an email to me plus 9 others, to point out everything that she thinks I did wrong? When I wrote about how I feel? Does someone hate me that much that she would make that much of an effort to copy and paste parts of this blog to include as points of what I am wrong about? When I was already in bad place. Why? Why would someone make such an effort to cut me down so much more than where I already was?
The side effects of Taxol aren't great. The neuropathy hit in my hands and feet. I think its up to my knees but it could be a different side effect, "muscle and joint pain and weakness". I feel like I have shin splints in my feet, in my knees and everywhere in between. Sometimes it hurts to walk. I've needed to take Vicodin a few times when the pain got really bad. Unfortunately, it didn't make much difference.
Then I look in the mirror. I hate what I see. Sometimes I'll actually forget. I'll forget that I don't have hair, that I've gained weight. That I look like a sick person. Then I'll be somewhere and happen to catch my reflection. It sucks. That moment just sucks so much. That and when I catch people staring at me. Because I have cancer, and that's all they see.
I know Jim likes to be able to forget about it. That's why he likes the wigs. But they can be hot and uncomfortable. I've found ways to make them better... with a paper towel under the wig. That keeps it from scratching my head as much. But I get so damn hot! I am still getting hot flashes. And with a wig on my head? I have sweat pouring off of me and feel like I'm going to pass out.
But I try now and again to put on a wig. So Jim can forget. So he can see me without seeing someone who is sick. So he can escape this nightmare that is my life. I know he's not happy. I know all of this is weighing on him. I know all of it can be too much for him at times.
I try to give him a break and I try to back off. He needs his own space. I'm glad he has his cars to work on, the gym to go to, and his home gym downstairs to workout in. I'm glad he has so many things that he can do and can focus on, besides me and besides cancer.
Before this, I didn't love what I was doing for work. What am I going to do after this? After I'm done with treatment and off disability? I'm not sure how I will be going back work. I don't know if I will mentally be able to handle it, with the effects of the fatigue and chemo brain. How will it be when I have to go back to work? Can I do that? Will I be miserable?
With all of this.... cancer, people trying hard tell me everything I do wrong, realizing how some people really feel about me, looking like a sick person who is fat and bald, having pain in my legs, worried about working again, and then knowing that my boyfriend who I love so much is not happy... it adds up.
A month ago, when I first realized I wasn't in a good place, that's when I tried to reach out to some friends. That's when it got worse. That's when I got the first email telling me that I only communicate when I want something. Then the 2nd one. I was devastated. Crushed. Sobbing for days.
I've been trying so hard to put all of that past me. I was glad that my doctors said I could start exercising again. That gave me SOMETHING. It let me have something in my life that wasn't cancer. The other stuff was there, but I had something to let me try to get back some of my self esteem, since I had completely lost all of it. All of it.
Then I got the email last week. All the time and effort involved to tell me how wrong I am for how I feel. It took away anything I started to get back.
And this is marathon Monday. I was there 2 years ago. I keep thinking of the past 2 years and looked at some pictures from 2 years ago. My hair was so long then. The ponytail over my shoulder was to the bottom of my ribs. And now I'm bald.
Granted I was training and running, but DAMN was I thin then. After I stopped training like that, my body settled about 10 pounds higher. I would have preferred 5 pounds, but was okay with the weight I was at. Now? Add on another 20 pounds. Two years ago on Marathon Monday, I was 30 pounds less than I am right now. Now, I am fat.
Yes, I am overweight. Pushing towards obese. In October, my BMI was in the "normal weight" range. Now? My BMI is 28. "Overweight" is 25-29.9. If I gain 11 pounds (and they doubled my steroids last week, after I have gained 20 pounds in 6 months), my BMI would be at 30. That is "Obese". I am 11 pounds from being obese. Wonderful.
The email last week brought all of this back to me. All of it. I was going a few days without crying. Not anymore. Now its a plus if I only cry once a day.
I just don't know what to do to find happiness again. I just want to be happy. I don't know how to do that anymore.
And worse, how I am feeling, how miserable I am, it is impacting other people. I'm making Jim miserable. I'm bringing him down. I know he's not happy. And other people go out of their way, take their time and so much effort to tell me how wrong I am. My legs hurt all the time. Really, what's the point now? What is the point.
Last night I told Jim that I know it isn't fair what I put on him, and I know that he isn't happy anymore. I can't do this to him anymore. I don't have the money to move right now, but already started to look for a new place to live. I can't put this on him anymore. I need to just let him go and move on without me. I need to let him be happy and that is not going to happen if he's with me. He deserves more than this and he deserves better than this. I can't be a burden to him anymore. I love him too much to continue to put him through this.
I know I need help to get me out of this. I know I need to find happiness for myself again, in myself. I'm grateful that I'm seeing my social worker again this Wednesday. I'm hoping that helps. Something has to give.
The last time I tried to reach out for friends by asking for help, that's when things got even worse. I can't set myself up for that again. I can't handle another kick in the face. I just can't do it.
I know I'm depressed. And it sucks. And I can't find my way out right now. I don't know how.
I wish I could just run away from everything. I wish there was a way to just get away from everything I'm feeling.
Sometimes I just want to give up. Why keep going through this all? Why keep doing chemo? Why take the drugs that mess with my head and my body? Why start radiation which is going to burn me? What is the point? Its not worth it. It would be easier to just give up.
Last night I was thinking about that. If people think I'm just a horrible person, if I feel like crap, if my boyfriend isn't happy being with me, if I'm going to be miserable when I finally go back to a job I don't love... what's the point?
But I don't know how to just give up on myself that much. If I was, God knows I have the drugs here. But I'm not. I'm just miserable, depressed and in this awful downward spiral I can't get myself out of.
I know I can't rely on others to make me happy. I know others can't get me out of this. I have to find it in myself. I have to find some way to be happy with myself, for me. Not from anyone else. Just within me.
Right now I just don't have the strength for it and I don't know how.
I don't think I've been this down since November. Last month's emails and the one from last week just brought me so far back and so far down. And I HATE that I let that happen. I HATE that I get other people have that much influence on me and my self worth. I hate that I let people close enough to hurt me like that, and that I LET them hurt me like that.
I wish I was stronger. I wish I didn't care. Funny thing is, I thought I didn't. I thought I didn't care what other people thought. Guess I was really wrong on that one, especially now. I care what people think when they see me. I care that I look sick and that is what they see when they look at me.
I care that people I thought were my friends would spend time drafting long emails to tell me about all the things I do, think and feel that are wrong. That they feel so passionately about it, about how wrong I am, to spend that much time putting together emails to tell me all about it, when they know how hurt and depressed I am. And that makes me think even more, and cuts even more. If more than one person feels so strongly and so passionately that they would spend time drafting lengthy emails, one cc'd to 9 others, to tell all the things I feel that wrong..... am I that horrible person that they think I am? That they spend so much time telling me about when I am already a mess?
So again, what's the point? Why keep going with the treatment? For what life? A job I don't love. People I think are my friends who think I'm wrong about everything I think and that I'm horrible to them. A boyfriend who isn't happy being with me. Yeah, that's a life worth fighting for.
I wish I could start over, pick a new life to live. This one hurts too much.
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