Let's just jump right in, shall we?
Yesterday I sent a message to my friend Jody from Women With Cancer. I told her that I'm feeling like a leech but very unmotivated about blogging, so I requested topic ideas from her. This led to her telling me that she's noticed a huge change in me over the last year and we began to speculate about the nature of that change. She suggested that maybe I have come to some sense of normalcy in my life again, after the seismic shift that started in the summer of 2008. Could it be that I have finally found some sense of peace?
Maybe.
As I told Jody, I don't know why, but I'm just not angry anymore.
 |
| Photo Source |
I look at stupid pink ribbon campaigns or read dumb stuff about the power of positive thinking and while I roll my eyes, sigh and shake my head, I just don't feel the outrage.
Now, let me be clear about a couple of things. I am not shifting toward "live and let live." I am unwavering in my conviction that pink ribbon culture is harmful first and foremost because it masks how little progress has been made on curing this disease. And during 2011, I finally found my voice to speak out about the tyranny of positive thinking. Once someone tries to turn her personal coping mechanisms, rife with magical thinking, into a set of "shoulds" and tries to turn those into a brand, she becomes dangerous. Again, we lose the focus on science and insidiously, if someone inconveniently dies of cancer the responsibility shifts to the victim, who must have not thought magically enough.
I am not backing down from those two important issues in the culture of cancer. But I don't feel like going to war with the Positive Thinking Gestapo or with worthless organizations like Feel Your Boobies anymore. Taking them head-on is a tremendous drain of energy. Recently someone was advising me on how to handle an unrelated situation and pointed out that if I take on a fight, the fight becomes the central issue. While I feel it's important to stand up to these people and places, I worry that I run the risk of creating just another distraction from the truth about breast cancer.
Most importantly, I am not backing down from my commitment to my friends who are the losers in the game of genetic roulette and don't have the luxury of deciding how they feel about their disease, because they're too busy living with it.
I need to think all this through some more. Maybe I'll do some here because I do sort out things with my writing. But when you live in a nuanced world, nothing happens quickly, with certainty or even permanently.
9 comments:
you rock, katie. this post is so honest and unwavering. i hope to be like you when i grow up.
happy new year, friend.
Katie,
With your peace w/bc we have more of YOU...which is the best possible gift of all.
Happy New Year:) I knew you would spin some gold yesterday.
Hugs,
jms
PS - "genetic roulette" is the phrase for the day. LOVE IT!
Powerful post here my dear friend. Your blog is your space. You write whatever you want to write about. I respect your opinions no matter what. Your honesty is inspiring. Xxxxxx
Hi Katie, it's interesting to think we might not be part of the fight anymore, that somehow by taking back more of our life away from cancer, we're doing a disservice to the reasons we started blogging in the first place. I'm dealing with that. Maybe there aren't any rules where blogs are concerned. Use it as you like, when you need to. It doesn't change our outrage about the cancer culture. Perhaps, we're evolving. I don't know, but thanks for writing this. Certainly a lot to think about.
Katie, thank you so much for writing this. I've been feeling a shift myself and have been struggling to articulate it. And I'm not depressed either. I think in a way, I have 'outrage' fatigue. Like you, I still feel that we need to fight the Pink Peril and we need better answers in general. But I feel like I've needed much more to get back some of my non-cancer life that's been railroaded by this trip for 3 years now. Hence my house reno stuff, etc. Feel like nesting, spending more me-time, making art, getting fit again. Don't know where it will all lead, but wherever each of us ends up, that's where we need to be.
xoxo
Your point really got me thinking. Am I just tired of fighting back, is my view of the screwiness of pink ribbon rhetoric and (in)action becoming normalized, or am I moving beyond all the noise because I'm finished with the big pieces to treatment? I'm not sure, but I appreciate your post because it's making me want to articulate what's changing, if anything, in my post-cancered life.
I hear you, I too have found something shifting and am just working on a short post about it. As you say, it feels like a sign of moving forward, being in a different place, and the whole process of dealing with the enormity of cancer and all its repercussions.
Wishing you a healthy and fulfilled year
Philippa
I was drawn to your blog when I saw your comments on "positive thinking". I so agree with you! When I was diagnosed with BC, a friend who had lung CA told me the emotional recovery from cancer takes much longer than the physical recovery. I am five years post mastectomy and have learned that she was right. Seems to me that you are in the process of healing and moving forward. That doesn't mean we change our minds about the pink culture, it means we are coming at it from a different place. This may may us better spokeswomen against "positive thinking" and the pink ribbon culture.
Katie, I read this piece a few days ago and it made me want to go away and reflect. I've just come back and re-read it.... I have recently been thinking that this process of healing post-diagnosis takes, well, ages... so years in fact, and there is a whole range of emotions we go through, and certainly for me anger is one of them.
The emotional healing is complex. I agree with the previous commentator here, Elizabeth, who says - it doesn't mean we change our minds, we're just coming from a different place.
Thanks for this post, it's given me much to think about.
Post a Comment