Isn’t society funny and so very paradoxical?
While going through any hardship (aka life’s panoply of shits), society wants you to be ‘positive’, smile more, complain less…..but please not too positive.
Allow me to elaborate.
The list of conditions that are invisible yet debilitating on a daily basis is very very long.
Be it chronic pain, mental illness, Crohn’s, Diabetes, Cancer etc… if your outside look does not match your inside shit, society has a very hard time giving you empathy, let alone a drop of pity.
Well, here’s my little attempt to raise some awareness.
If it makes only one person be a little kinder to that stranger in need of help despite looking ‘fit’ then my time is not wasted writing this text.
Speaking from experience, my outside look has never matched my inside shit and as most of you know, my life has basically been one gigantic pile of shit.
I have always looked ‘fine’ regardless of the hell I was going through. This latest cancer hell has definitely taken a toll on my young body.
From one day to the other, I have gone from a seemingly fit 37 year old to a hopeless patient with an incurable aggressive cancer.
With 10h of surgery, 18 chemotherapy sittings and 30 radiotherapy sessions, my poor body has been given one of the most toxic medical treatments known to mankind.
The daily handicaps from the heavy treatment along with the brutal menopause made my body go from 37 straight to 77.
Chemo or not, I always put make-up on, fake eyelashes, fake eyebrows, fake hair and life went on.
I used to go to chemo with a nice dress, painted fingernails and a big smile on my face despite the horrible hell I was going through.
I looked ‘happier’ than someone who seemingly had a carefree life so I didn’t get the needed empathy, not even some pity.
I needed to recognise myself in the mirror and never accepted that I was ‘sick’.
I didn’t conform to what society expected to see of a cancer patient…so it can’t be that bad, right?
Oh it was bad, it was absolute hell but society needs to understand that we are all different dealing with life’s shits and it’s not because someone looks ‘fine’ that they are not in pain.
Today, I still have daily physical handicaps due to the heavy treatment despite looking ‘fit’.
My deep sense of gratitude to just be allowed to live after cancer makes me dedramatise my daily pains but they are there and are lifelong.
I have learnt to ask for help from random strangers despite being very independent all my life…hard pill to swallow, I admit.
Please society, look beyond the outside facade. It’s not because the person is not in a wheelchair or hobbling around, that he or she is not suffering.
Just like the saying on a disabled parking goes: you want the parking spot? Then take the handicap too.
I am pretty sure nobody would want to swap the daily handicaps (along with the heavy cancer treatment and the horrible fear of recurrence) for the few advantages I receive.
Just be kind
