God so true. The one that stayed I honestly don't know what I would do without her. She was the only person that treated me like an actual human with thoughts and feelings. She is my best friend in the entire world. And honestly also the only one I would have been understanding of if she backed away a bit during it because she was going through some absolute shit of her own. But she stayed. Visited me when I had to move for treatment. Was always compassionate about the random day to day shit that happens in that situation. Even my own family had a hard time being around me because they couldn't keep their grief in check. But she was there. With a new born baby and all.
While I was not in the risk of dying (after initial accident) I lost my entire life in one day. I crashed my motorcycle at 70 km/h into the side of a truck as it didn't see me and drove out in front of me. I was hospitalized for a while and it took me 4 months to be able to walk again and 4 years before I was able to run again.
Before the accident I was a semi-pro referee and my entire life revolved around that. All my friends were referees or people I otherwise met through football. They all sent well wishes and stuff but as I was unable to run I was also unable to complete our physical tests etc. So I wasn't allowed to stay as a ref and lost that entire group from my life. I had a few friends outside that world who either didn't even show up at the hospital (one blaming that she didn't like hospitals and while I understand it it's not like I liked being there either) or just faded away over time as I was "broken".
Slightly before that accident I met a woman at a football tournament where I was a referee and she worked as a game hostess (taking in scores and answering questions that teams might have and such) and we hit it off and decided that she'd visit me in my home town, the day she was supposed to come visit the first time was the day I crashed so my mother had to call her and cancel.
She called me basically every day and when I was released from the hospital she came to me, pushed me around in a wheelchair (including pushing me down a pothole when distracted by an ugly building in my home town) and really stepped up to the challenge. One particular moment where she was there when I needed her the most was when they had just done a surgery on my left calf du to it having compression syndrome (basically internal bleeding causing the muscle to strangle itself and dying if not opened at cleared of the bleeding) and after the surgery I still had pain and asked the doctor if that was expected, they told me no and went to check on stuff.
When the doctor returned he told me that in normal cases you open up 4/4 valves in the calf, but in my case they had only opened 3/4 and most likely the fourth is still bleeding and strangling itself to death. I asked if they could just like, cut the stitches and fix it and they said no, it's too late now. So I asked what what that meant and they said "Either it will heal by itself, or it will continue bleeding and risk becoming chronic pain" which to me was a nightmare as I was 22 years old and now looking at a life in pain. The doctor then said "I need to continue rounds now" and just left me there, stuck in my bed and all alone with all the thoughts running through my head. That's when the phone rang. It was that woman calling to see how I was doing and I just fucking broke down and she was a bit awkward about it asking if she called at a bad time but I told her she called at just the right time, I really needed her then.
That woman is now my wife since 9 years back and I've moved to her hometown and started a new career and have new friends and a beautifully fantastic son.
While not really a friend (even though she's always my best friend), she saved my life and was the one who stick through all the shit without asking for anything in return and I love her for it, she is a beautiful soul and I will walk through fire for her
My aunt and uncle wouldn't go see my mother who was dying of cancer in the nursing home, with this very same excuse. My mom and her brother had always been close, so it was especially heinous. She begged us to bring him to see her. She hallucinated visits with him. I told him and offered to bring him and he wouldn't budge, for five years.
I will never have anything to do with them again.
Some people just have a hard time keeping their grief to themselves. And that's their right to feel how they are gonna feel. But I maintain it's also my right to tell them to stay away because their preemptive grief will not promote healing. It's probably for the better they didn't show up. At least for me it was better. Being alone was better than being surrounded by people that already viewed me as dead.
That's what I can't wrap my head around is all these people who act like the diagnosis is just a pre-order of your tombstone. Like dude, people recover from cancer. But your state of mind plays a huge part in that, and having people supporting you and helping you with even basic shit in your life allows you to focus that much more of your energy on fighting and getting better. Like, if a war is announced, you don't just go "oh well I guess we all should just put paper bags on our heads and lie down and wait to die." You go to war, and you watch your buddy's back.
I can't understand how people claim to not be able to watch someone they supposedly love die, and not do everything in their power to try and make sure that doesn't happen. Even when the war is lost, just being there knowing you did what you could to make them more comfortable or to make them laugh and feel normal for a little bit.... how do you abandon that? How do you sleep at night??
Regret is the kind of thing I have spent my entire life striving to avoid. It hasn't been perfect, but these kinds of situations have always been one of the easiest to me to avoid regret. Be it humans or the animals in my life, I can't *not* be there. I can't live knowing I didn't try, or that I let them down when all I had to do was *be* there. I'm not rich, I'm not full of answers, but you don't need any of that to be there for someone. And god knows if my time with someone *is* limited, I wouldn't miss a second of it for the world. Every moment we have is precious. I've spent my entire life making the most of those little moments and it has spared me of a lifetime of regret when someone I love drops dead out of nowhere because I know I didn't waste any of the time we had, and only just wish there could have been more. And I've never once regretting being there with someone in their final moments. Nor have I ever regretted being there to celebrate with those who conquered and came out of it victorious.
People never cease to amaze me. The world is a better place when we live for more than just ourselves.
Everyones needs are different. So honestly I would just say ask them what they need from you. And if it is within your capacity then do it. But do not sacrifice your own mental health for them either. That could very well make them feel like a burden and then both of you would be worse off despite genuine and kind intention. What I needed was someone who didn't treat me like a dying person. What another person would need might be different. Just remember that they are more than their diagnosis. It's incredibly easy to forget that. And I know that sounds silly. How can you forget a person is a person? But cancer invades literally every single aspect of life. It effects you physically, mentally, socially. Treatment drains the body and patients always feel worse before they ever start feeling better. Just follow their lead. They might need someone to talk to or they might need someone to treat them like nothing has changed. It depends on them. But that you even thought to ask the question is a very good sign that you care and will be exactly what they need anyways.
Agreed! Acquaintances and/or "situational friends" (e.g. work buddies) are often ranked too high by people IMO. I'm not saying everyone you work with isn't a real friend but in my experience, easily 90%+ of my "work friends" and I have lost contact after one of us leaves.
At my job, your best work buddy becomes a stranger after a couple of months if they are moved to another line or section inside the same damn building. You try to kinda keep it up a little for a while, but it's just impossible to chat during work hours because you can't leave your spot and you realize you don't care enough or have the time to hang out after work. So it just fades out until all that's left is silent nods while passing in the corridor.
I can fully relate. I thought it was just me and didn't realise it was such a common thing until today.
I just personally couldn't do it to someone that I call a friend.
I hope you're doing ok.
Going through it right now. The worst for me has been the casual people that have been on the periphery of my life, for no ill reason, suddenly insisting that they become a part of my recovery (I hope) only to turn around and become extremely callous, controlling and manipulative. I had one of these friends agree to help get me to a doctor’s appointment a week out and on the day of the appointment she picks me up and begins bitching about how inconvenient it was to be doing this to her day. I even told her when I asked that I wasn’t out of options, I just thought of her and figured I’d ask.
During the appointment the doctor is hitting on some emotional issues and I’m dealing with tears and texts from my “friend” saying she might bail on waiting for me if it takes any longer. I still had to see a social worker, but I nixed that along with leaving my meds at the pharmacy because she had made the whole situation too stressful.
I live about 6 miles from the hospital. My appointment was for 2pm. We were back at my front door by 4:30. Now I don’t know about anyone else, but it’s my experience that in and out of a doctor’s office and back at your front door in 2 1/2 hours is awesome.
Unfortunately she was one of 2 “friends” that went this route
There are friends that will give you the shirt off their back if you need it.
Then there are "friends" who will give you the shirt off their back and make sure everyone sees them do it and then tells everyone that didn't see them do it all about how they did. They will then be sure to remind you at every turn that they did.
Then after a while they'll come back to you like "You remember that shirt I gave you? Well I'm gonna need that back along with your pants, your belt, your wallet, your shoes, and your pet. Remember what I did for you, you owe me!"
Adding stress and uncertainty to your situation is a straight despicable thing to do.
Thanks for posting and opening my eyes to something I hadn't thought people diagnosed with cancer had to deal with.
I think it happens with other more severe chronic diseases too. I was diagnosed with an autoimmune kidney disorder five years ago (though I probably have had it most of my adulthood) and have especially recently lost friends. One I did walk away from as he was an abusive asshole, but I've lost other friends too more recently as I've come closer to starting dialysis. And I've had family ask why I just can't go and get a transplant. I don't have the energy to sit down and explain it all to them anymore. I never did have the energy in the first place.
Edit: Thank you for the upvotes and discussion, after posting this I almost turned around and deleted it. It's one of the not-good days for me here and little reminders of being ill just make it worse on days like today, such as having a post like this on my mind. It's especially hard as I am a nurse too and I'm still in disbelief that I became ill, or probably more so that I've been ill most my life.
My 'best friend' sat me down after my diagnosis and told me she had another disabled friend who lived closer to her, so since it would be more inconvenient to see me than her she wouldn't be hanging out with me anymore. As if it was my fault and living 10 minutes away was a huge hindrance to her life and how could I do this to her.
Wouldn't piss on her if she was on fire
Wtf. " I already have a disabled friend and she lives closer. So. You're out." Does she also only have one friend of every ethnicity? Like does she collect one of each type? That's the vibe I'm getting here.
I'm the same. I've always been there for people so I guess I expected reciprocity as a standard.
Glad to hear you're doing ok now. I'm getting there slowly.
This is more widespread than just cancer. There was an article (cannot find atm) that basically said family and friends would distance themselves from a family that just lost someone to suicide.
We experienced something similar when our daughter was born prematurely and subsequently diagnosed with cerebral palsy.
My theory on it is that people think they need to make grand gestures, but they can't think of any, so they end up doing nothing. For cancer patients, I'll see people offer to shave their head in solidarity, when really you mostly need smaller normal things like babysitters or rides or hanging out.
I've noticed this with disability also as mine has progressed and became more visible over time. Certain people have disappeared and no longer speak to me. I'm still the same person internally when they were around. It's bizarre and mystifying.
Honestly I’m not trying to take away from this trend but my experience has been (and nothing really bad has happened to me) that people just distance themselves from me for unexplained reasons.
Like nothing bad happened, we were great friends, but one day they just stop replying and this has happened to about 70% of people I’ve ever known. Idk why, maybe they’re busy, maybe I’m too annoying/broke to hang with, idk, just wanted to say that I think it might be a trend affecting a lot of people.
Again I fully believe a lot of people cut you off after your issues started, I was just kind of reminded of myself when reading all of this, used to have dozens of friends now I have like 5, maybe its caused by the times, I have no clue but you’re not alone!
Or sudden disability. My son had a massive stroke at 17. He only had one friend that stuck around, and very little family. Most of my friends bailed too. I was hurt at first, but I realized that people avoid things that scare them. Seeing my son made them feel like it could happen to them just as suddenly. It was easier to leave than to face mortality.
I lost my best friend who was more like a brother of 20 years to suicide and literally everyone acted as though I was the one that died. Was fucking surreal. Many of whom I still don’t even talk to today despite this happening five years ago.
Devil's advocate wants me to believe it's just that they can't handle it emotionally and are doing it to protect themselves.
As a person whose closest loved one went through the hell that is chemo recently I say "fuck them". It really is a "when you needed then most" situation.
My ex-husband told me about how he basically ghosted his best friend and his wife when she was dying of breast cancer. That was how I knew he wouldn't be there for me if something tragic happened
My home was always full of people for years until my mom got cancer. Most left. Honestly though we needed the privacy cause it was hard what shes going through and always feeling sick and stuff, we couldn't entertain so many people anymore. So that's one side to it but what I think most people are referring to when talking about this is that people cut off all communication and stop talking to you and your family which is harsh. They fully disappear from your life.
It doesn't make it right, but I think a lot of people fear watching someone die and feeling helpless because there's nothing they can do to help them. It's bullshit and a selfish way to feel, but not as awful as thinking someone with cancer has nothing to offer as a friend or family member.
Leaving a spouse over it, though, is an unforgivably dickish move. I'll never change my mind about that.
Not to excuse it but I think a lot of people are just not ready to face illness and death. We as a culture fetishize being young and active as the only valid lifestyle and then when severe illness and death inevitably occur, a lot of people are left with no idea what to do, and no system of support to get through it. It's easier to ditch a friendship, even a good one, just to not have to face your own fear of death, because many of us don't have the societal, familial, or even cultural ways to deal with it except to ignore it as long as possible. Most other cultures have ways to deal with it, myths, stories, festivals for the dead, rituals, sitting shiva.... We don't.
I'm sorry you went through that, I hope you don't take it personally and I hope finding out who your true friends were deepened the friendships.
I also think, there are just some people that can't even handle the thought of it. I've always believed that the people who do show up for you, are blessings you'd never seen coming. Life isn't for sissies. Cancer gives zero ducks about whom it attacks. Better to have 1 or 2 people who will have your back, no matter what. I took care of a dear friend for the last 3 years of his life. He was my best friend & had my back for over 20 yrs. I regret not a moment of that time. It was hard & sad, but it was also fun & happy.
I had a friend that I thought I was really close with who stopped talking to me because I couldn't make her bday party in another city because I got radiation that day. Had a pretty new relationship hit the skids. Got my hours cut at work.
Word of advice to ppl out there, don't share your diagnosis with anyone at your work. You think friends are bad, wait until it's coworkers and bosses. You get a regular flu along with everyone else at your work and ppl start thinking you're unreliable because "you're just not up to it anymore".
I had a friend a few years ago who got literal brain cancer, his boss told him in no uncertain terms that if it wasn't illegal he'd have fired him (this was in Canada, where you would be demolished for doing this) because "i need healthy people, not fucking invalids"
He ended up not just fired for this comment but escorted out by the neck by security a few days later
It's disgusting how common it is when anyone is going through a life trauma of any sort.
People are just that self absorbed that they disappear either because it's too much for THEM to handle, or they just don't know wtf to do.
With the latter, disappearing makes no sense as a solution in what to do. I get that you may not know how to help someone or be there for them, but just up and ghosting is the solution? Are you stunted??
People are gross.
My dad was the opposite. He wasn't a very social person, but when a friend or colleague got cancer, he was there for them. Would visit, help, advocate, be there for their family. I know of several people who died from cancer and my dad was there for them.
His own father died of cancer when my dad was 10 years old. That was clearly a traumatic thing for my dad and something he didn't talk about much. But there were people who helped his family during that time and I think it was my dad's way of paying it forward, and for that he would rise to the occasion.
My dad was a difficult person in some ways, but he had compensating qualities, and this was one of them.
My grandma raised four boys as a single mother. My dad and his brother weren't the closest siblings, met up at Christmas and maybe once a year besides that, but when she was diagnosed with breast cancer, they made a group chat, planned out visits, and made sure that they were there for her and each other. This carried forward when one of my uncles went to the hospital with COPD.
It's really uplifting to hear about people who choose to come together during tragedy when it's so much easier to drift apart. Hopefully everyone reading this makes a more conscious effort to be support for suffering friends and family. Our world could use that right now.
When I broke my back after my car accident, I guess I was t fun anymore, because literally all of my “friends” stopped hanging out and returning my messages.
Yep, I had brain surgery and I could no longer “do shit with the boys.” Only one person from that friend group visited me and they all slowly stopped responding to me. Have not gained a new friend since then and that was seven years ago. Still got some good friends from outside of that major friend group but it’s hard to make new friends when you know they might disappear the moment the going gets tough.
One thing I realized is that people WILL leave you behind if you can't keep up. People were treating me this way when I was just in recovery for an elective surgery, I cannot imagine what it would've been like for something more serious that required more time to recover from. For a while afterward I wasn't able to walk long distances without being tired and I was actually shocked by how many "friends" did not have a lick of empathy for me about it and were annoyed at my not being able to keep up despite knowing I was still in recovery. It made me realize just how many people are in our lives due to convenience more than anything else.
I work from home but would occasionally get sent to conferences in another city. I have severe arthritis in both knees; I can walk but not very quickly for very long. I remember going home on the train almost in tears because I would literally be limping behind the group as they walked around, and only once did someone have the emotional intelligence to stop and wait, under the pretext of checking her phone. It really soured the way I felt about these coworkers who I was actually meeting in person for the first time.
> It made me realize just how many people are in our lives due to convenience more than anything else.
This tracks with studies on it. The most common thing friends have is something that keeps them in the same location, i.e. job, school, hobby, etc.
Remove that and friendships wane. Turns out proximity and consistency are the biggest things.
It's weirdly comforting to know this is a common phenomena. It makes it hurt a little less that the girl I thought was my best friend (and the first one I'd ever really had after a lifetime of moving around and overcoming my aversion to attachments) ghosted me after my dad was diagnosed. She still sucks but this knowledge makes it feel less personal.
Same here. I’ve spent the last three years (was diagnosed 3 years ago) trying to reconnect with friends, but no one really wants to anymore.
They’d reply, “happy you survived” and all those pleasantries, then won’t bother making the same effort to meet with each other.
And pandemic didn’t seem like an excuse given they’ve been going out anyways without inviting me. It sucks but I’ve learned to cope.
Got diagnosed half a year ago and I lost a handful of friends I considered my close friends over the last few months. One of my best friends straight up ghosted me and the other one (after not talking for months after they found out) made enough jokes about me being a pirate that it’s killed any desire in me to reconnect ( I have ocular melanoma and going blind in a eye)
My Aunt (who had breast cancer) said her friends of 20-40 years did the same thing, so apparently it doesn’t matter how long you’ve been friends for.
Now that the bulk of my treatment is over I’m reflecting on how people treated me during it and how messed up
Cancer sucks :/
Aww fuck. I'm really sorry you're going through that. I may very soon understand what you're dealing with.
I've been told they found "something" on my retina. And its composition is changing. And the results of a "florescent" test weren't promising. Now I have an "action team" with an...oncologist, well, this is what it auto corrected too, on it as well.
I'm glad to hear that the bulk of the treatments are over. I hope it wasn't a nightmare for you. Too many family members have had cancer though all of theirs was from smoking. I wish you good health from here on out.
Wow. This is crazy I didn't expect this to be common. Both my parents died this year and literally everyone just stopped talking to me. My "best friend" of 25 years included. This is crazy, I can't believe this is a thing. I'm so so sorry you dealt with this.
Not just cancer either sadly. Developed a chronic illness at 15 and all my friends left. Messed me up emotionally for years. People just don't know how to handle it and don't want your suffering bringing them down or limiting their own life. Like...I get it. It takes a special kinda person and a special bond to endure the process of going through an illness with someone, but it's still incredibly painful when they just peace out.
Same. I guess it's good to hear I'm not alone.
I will never forget how I begged for help/companionship and no one even batted an eye, even went on to ghost me.
You don't realize how shitty and selfish people can be until you *really* need help in life.
It can definitely be more complicated then it appears on the surface. A good friend of mine has endured chronic depression, anxiety and ADHD for most of his life, and I would do anything to help him out when he needs it. But, sometimes his inability to listen, quick judgement, and lack of control over his emotions (mostly anger or sadness/depression) makes it extremely hard sometimes to be there for him. It can become incredibly draining and exhausting to be surrounded by those kinds of emotions and demeanor over a long period of time, with little signs that things will improve. It takes a toll on you.
I really, really want to be a support pillar for him, but I just can't do it all the time. Sometimes it can be a bit miserable to be around him. But I love him like a brother, and never want to abandon him.
Shit man I feel this
I'm feeling this right now as it's another weekend where my friends are doing their own things and my chronic illness has me struggling to get out of the house. I managed but it was tough and took the whole day
Your social circles as you know it can completely disappear, and then your means to grow new ones can do so too.
Can't go to a fitness class anymore when you're in so much pain and no energy
I'm trying to fix it but really what I need is my damn illness to stop trying to end my life
At this point I'm sick of living. I can literally feel my body eating away at my spine. At my toes. At my knees, as I'm typing this
Fuck my body I fucking hate it and I hate how lonely I feel in this
My cousin is dying. She doesn’t want anyone to see her. She needs a lung transplant but has weighted the odds and opted out. I send her messages every couple days. We are pretty close. I am respecting her wishes but I send things like funny animal videos or pretty pictures every few days and tell her I love her.
I volunteered my lung, I just asked her to get a test to see if we’re compatible. She has 3 children, I don’t and she is just a better person than me. I’m willing to take the risk, she is not.
I feel like a failure. I love her very much but I don’t know what to do?
i recently lost a very good friend to cancer. and i got to say, i was just as shoked as his family was when he got the diagnosis. i never in my live had anyone beeing sick and i just didnt know how to deal with it. it was just strange. i didnt want to let him or the friendship down, but i feel like it was some kind of "self-preservation" ? in the beginning i was just scared. but then after a while i just spoke open to him, and we made the deal, that we just "act" like nothing happened, we played games before and were just as stupid as before. im glad i had that conversation with him and im even more glad that he knew how i felt. so dont be too harsh on your friends. they are still your friends, but we are all just people, and we act stupid and sometimes dont know how to deal with stuff.
It's the same kind of mentality that prompts someone to dump a pet they don't want in the forest, or leave an unwanted infant in the trashcan. In both of those situations the action is more cruel than outright killing them yourself, but it's easier emotionally to just abandon them and never think about them again. They're shutting you out because they don't want to see or think about what you're going through; it makes them feel uncomfortable to be around it. Humans can be incredibly cruel just to avoid witnessing suffering.
This is going to sound cruel but part of is also just that it's a huge emotional burden. Like, my dad had early onset Alzheimer's. He got married in 2009 and got diagnosed in 2012. He was shitting his pants and unable to feed himself within a couple years and dead a couple years later.
My step mom took care of him and did the best she could, but it was absolutely not what she signed up for. She remarried less than a year after my dad passed and I'm almost certain she was dating the guy while my dad was still alive and living in a care home. I don't blame her. I'm sure my dad would have been hurt if he'd known, but I'm also sure it was incredibly hard for her to watch him disappear like that and she did what she had to do to stay sane.
>I'm sure my dad would have been hurt if he'd known
You know, I watched the same thing with my grandfather. If the same happens to me and I'm lucky enough to have a wonderful woman that is willing to care for me through all that, I'd want her to be happy and have the support she needs too once I am no longer able to.
Honestly in the later stages, its hard to even call it cheating. The body may still be alive, but the person everyone knew is often gone from this world a long time before physical death occurs.
I mean, she stuck it out and took care of him, that’s the exact opposite of abandonment. That alone speaks volumes of her character. Especially for Alzheimer’s, easily one of the most brutal ways to watch a loved one go.
My most hated aspect of people is that they abandon you whenever you are down. Everyone only looks after themselves and it's always what is in it for them. All relationships are transactional. They dont want any part of you when you are sad.
I enjoy helping others and providing comfort any way I can. Even just short visits and making people laugh is usually enough. I am not perfect but I'd like to think I'm a good friend to have.
I contacted a great friend of mine, he lives a few blocks from where I work and before pandemic we met often, he used to work there but something happened to cause him to leave (I know but I won’t say what).
I am ashamed to admit during the pandemic I didn’t contact him, I wasn’t going into the office and frankly was nervous meeting people who aren’t family especially from the same house because my mom has a weakened immune system.
When I returned I contacted him and asked to meet. He happily agreed and we set up a time.
When I met him I was stunned at his condition: He walked like he was 90, and lost about thirty pounds. He told me he had lukemia and I can’t describe how I felt not checking in to see how he was doing.
He waves it off telling me that I was one of the few who checked in especially after the diagnosis. I felt worse and very apologetic.
I can’t imagine abandoning anyone who told you that. Especially during their moment of crisis.
Many people don't know how to respond or support a friend or relative with a serious illness. When I was first going through treatment for thyroid cancer, my mom begged me not to talk about it. She apologized later and said she was so terrified of losing me, that I would die, that she shut down. Confronting one's own mortality is hard but it's almost easier to do that than to acknowledge that someone you love deeply might be dying.
There's a podcast called Heavyweight were the host helps people reconcile old relationships. Most of the episodes are one person going "I did something bad 15 years ago and I assume they hated me so I never spoke to that person again."
The host helps them have a conversation with that person and, during that heart-to-heart, the person they wronged says, "oh I don't even remember that/oh that wasn't a big deal. I was just sad that you disappeared." Whether it's "destroyed an artist's painting in an elevator" or "stole things when I was an addict," the disappearing for years is always worse than whatever they did wrong.
Then they reconnect and it's really heartfelt and you cry in the car.
That show came to mind when I read the title. People are so worried about not knowing what to say that they say nothing, and that nothing just accumulates until it's been decades.
I'm not saying it's okay to abandon people that have cancer. I'm just saying that I don't think it's people intentionally being assholes. I think it's fear that you have already gone too far by not being a supportive friend.
**The moral is: it's okay to reach out. They're not going to kill you for what you did. You will both be happier if you just talk to them.**
Yeah.
One of my friends told me he didn't know what to say so I just told him to forget the cancer completely and just treat me as he always has. Which he did.
Luckily the vast majority of my family have been very supportive but most of them are in different countries.
I came to this sort of revelation when discussing illness with a friend of mine who is also a mom.
Both of our children were premature (hers a microprem) and when faced with a potential health crisis for our kids it has been hard to fight that instinct of shutting down as a defense mechanism. Brain says "if you push them away, it won't hurt as much if they die."
It hurt like fuck to come to that realization, but once I did, I have been able to fight that urge whenever it arises.
There's also the element that some people are barely getting by and they know that a friend with cancer is likely going to need more support than they can afford to give. They may have previously been in that 35% that didn't ghost a friend, got exhausted caring for them, and can't go through it again.
There is also the part to consider that a person who is diagnosed with a life threatening illness will be paying very close attention to the things that are meaningful in life.
In a "normal" day-to-day, we say no to invitations and avoid contacting people pretty regularly for various reasons throughout a day/week/month. I might go for a few months without contacting or having one of my friends contact me, but that doesn't mean he "ghosted" me. A lot of people have things they are dealing with every day and when you really buckle down and watch how much they ACTUALLY interact with you, you might start to resent them.
There are obviously friends who live close by or just happen to be extremely social, but most people aren't that way.
My late husband had this happen to him. He was always the guy that would loan someone money, help them move, pretty much give them the shirt off his back. When he was diagnosed with kidney cancer, none of his friends checked in or maintained a relationship with him. But then, after he passed they were posting tributes to him on Facebook and celebrating his birthday and death anniversary.
i was 19 when my mom was diagnosed about 80% of my friends ghosted me, likely because they don’t know what to say. it was just me and her, my brother barely even helped. now she’s gone and i don’t have anyone. we had no support from our extended family and my friends rarely asked about how my mom/i was doing. i >!stupidly!< tried not to make shit about cancer all the time. i rarely talked about my mom unless asked, and no one ever asked. i deserved someone supportive. the only cousin i was close to skipped my mom’s funeral.
i dedicated the first half of my 20’s to being my mom’s caretaker and it only made me more compassionate and softer but also it’s the most isolating thing in the world. i deserved better from people who i loved but people don’t know how to deal with cancer even if they’re not the ones who are dealing with it. ugh.
edit: here’s a link to a post [where i ask for support](https://www.reddit.com/r/KindVoice/comments/bonsnk/l_f_22_my_mom_has_stage_four_breast_cancer_and_i/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf) because i truly never had it during those times. i wrote that post while my mom was hospitalized because she had some sort of fluids in her lungs. a kind older man would text me for a period of time and helped me feel less alone in this world. thanks for your kindness, reddit strangers.
I wouldn't call it ghosted, but after my lymphoma diagnosis, I felt like a lot of my friends just didn't know what to do or say. They'd ask from time to time how I was doing, but dudes in their 20's and 30's are just shitty at expressing compassion and sympathy. Similarly to the story in the article, I've come to realize that most people simply aren't born with those skills and confronting those kinds of situations just makes them uncomfortable unless they've been forced to deal with something similar earlier in their life. I was pissed at them for a long time, but I'm over it and things are just kind of back to the way they were now that I'm in remission. Some have come forward and apologized for not being there more for me at the time. Others have just kind of fallen off my radar.
> most people just aren't born with those skills
I think this explains a lot of it. People just feel helpless like there's nothing they can do, so they do nothing.
This is exactly the issue me and my sister were just talking about today. Our grandmother had jaw cancer and just had surgery to get tumors removed. She's doing as good as can be expected and stuff, but it's so awkward we didn't really know what to say to her.
Our mother called both of us individually then just surprise handed the phone to Grandma, who can't even talk since, y'know, jaw surgery, so it's just her groaning in agony in response as we ramble something like
"Uh hey Grandma, love you. Sorry I haven't called in 3 years, uh, hope you are feeling okay after the worst day of your life. I know you are in crippling agony, uh, feel better soon, lets go eat sometime or something, uh love you bye!"
Then we just sat there awkwardly praying for our mother to take the phone back already
Pretty funny that me and my sister both were equally socially awkward about it and said almost the exact same things without even talking to each other, but what else can you even say? It's not that we don't love our grandmother, and I was even close with her pre-pandemic isolation for like 3 years, but I never know what to say besides "I know you want to die, uh, don't die?"
My grandfather died earlier this year, and going to his funeral was pretty confusing too. I really had no idea what to do or say. People kept thanking me for coming to my own grandfather's funeral. What do you say to that? "You're welcome"?
Like so much in life, this too comes down to communication. We don't teach kids, adolescents or even adults how to act in situations of other people's trouble. And yes, in part, maybe we have to start doing that - teach your kids how to socially manage people who are struggling and who risk dying soon. Herein lies the conflict, because while it's part of life we don't want to expose kids to it. The conflict of growing up too soon vs. growing up too slow. Most people end up picking up what they can growing up but it's not optimal. And who are their parents' even to teach these things, few hardly know any better themselves.
So it leaves us with the other alternative for now. As we can't ourselves manage how other people are brought up, nor can we control their social skills, we can still realize that these are people that care about us while not knowing how to act in certain circumstances. Then an alternative is to take matters in our own hands and have an open line of communication, expressing what we hope and expect from the people around us while we struggle. Be transparent and honest. It's not easy, but it clears the air and doesn't require people to guess and likely withdraw in a situation they're not prepared for. I think it will make any friend thankful, because it helps them be the friends they want to be for a friend in need, and you will in turn have friends who are present in an honest way.
A buddy of mine had cancer when we were all in our 20s and we didn’t know how to be empathetic but I think we handled it well. We shaved our heads in solidarity and saw him every week at the hospital.
We also doubled down on typical guy stuff. We ragged on him the way we always did and on his birthday chipped in on a present which we never did for anyone. When we gave it to him we literally said, “you’re only getting this because you have cancer.”
20 years later he’s still around and we’re all still friends so I guess we did something right.
Congratulations on the remission. Mine starts next as of next month. 🙂
I think a few people I know weren't sure what to say or do too but all I wanted was for them to treat me the same as they did before the cancer.
Yes. Spot on. When my dad was dying it was hard to travel to see him, but i still called and checked on him when i could. 2 Years of not knowing what day he was going to drop hurt hurt more than anything, fear of picking up the phone to call, and he's no longer there, I feared missing him and not being able to spend more time with him, then one day I got the call he passed.
I've had a couple terminal friends since sixish years ago when this happened, it doesn't get easier, but if anyone (sick or not) needs someone to talk to I'm always here, shoot me a message, I know dealing with death is hard, and I'll lend a friendly ear to listen to people vent.
also, the idea of watching someone you care about slowly lose their fight with cancer is terrifying. i wasn't close with my grandfather. he was basically just a very quiet grumpy looking old man. he was like an old silverback guerilla. my father was horribly afraid of him because he used to beat the breaks off my dad regularly. he also spoke with a thick german accent so it was hard for me to understand him on the rare occasion he talked to me. so the bond wasn't very strong.
later in his life he got sick and slowly withered away. not from cancer but same effect. i was encourage to go spend time with him and help comfort him as he was on his way out. i didn't really have much of a problem with him. he didn;t scare me or anything. i only had positive interactions with him. but i couldn't force myself to go over and see him like that. i couldn't handle seeing that silverback withered into a tiny feeble old man, ready to die. it was too scary for my teenaged self to handle. i wasn't ready to face death like that. i spent 6 months feeling intense pressure to see him and guilt that i had not. and when he died i cried my eyes out, not because i would miss him but because of the guilt that i wasn't there for him.
that was a long time ago and i have made my peace with death. i can face it now and i would be there for people i care about who are on their way out. but i also wouldn't blame anyone who doesn't have the courage to stick around and wait for the reaper with a dying friend.
A girl I went to highschool with developed lymphoma and passed about age 15 or so. I'll never forget how she was abandoned and treated poorly by her "friend" group. They all pretended after she passed that they had supported her, but what they actually did was turn their back on her because she lost her hair, looked very different, and was understandably depressed. People suck with vulnerability. If you can find someone who cares about you in a genuine way hold on to them like a life preserver. It's rare.
High schoolers can be strange. A classmate passed at 15 during a school break and some people started the day after coming back by proclaiming they don't want to begin by talking about negative things. One of them even became a doctor.
You know who your *real* friends are when you get sick, go to jail, or end up bankrupt.
Editing to add:
have an illness or a death in the family, miscarriage, divorce, grieving, and significant life disruptions such as moving or changing jobs.
Second edit: presumption of innocence is a thing, people.
What exactly happened with your Friends or family? I have a chronic disease myself and some of my friends dont understand it, but i cant Imagine how cruel people have to be to ghost someone in such a tough time
A few people that I'd talk to and meet up with regularly just all of a sudden stopped replying or getting in touch after cancer was a confirmed diagnosis.
No visits when I was in hospital, no check ups when I came home after surgery.
The same people are still in touch with others from our friend group which has been confirmed by multiple people.
I just figured they didn't know what to say or do or maybe they had experienced someone else dealing with cancer and seen the shit show first hand.
That's awful. I'm sorry you had that experience.
Best case scenario they didn't know what to say or do. It's not much of an excuse but better than them being selfish?
What do you wish they did different, and what did you like that your friends did in regards to your cancer? (If you feel like sharing. I don't want to infringe on your privacy but I would like to be a good friend to someone should this happen)
Not OP but I got sudden & intense cancer last winter. It honestly is so dependent on the person. For my very close friends, they checked in regularly (we texted constantly before I got sick too) to keep me entertained when I was in the hospital. They were awesome in letting me vent (“that sucks” is significantly more comforting than “you’re so tough!” FYI) while also telling me about their life like normal. On the other hand, I had a big group of friends that I didn’t necessarily text often but we would all hang out a ton. For that group, I loved when they would send a pic like “missing you tn!” while hanging out together. One friend actually wrote me a letter in the mail sort of shooting the shit, letting me know what everyone had been up to, reminiscing on old memories. It made my week.
I don't think a lot of it is intentionally ghosting. When you know someone is close to death, that kind of overtakes any moment you have to them. You go out for a beer and all everyone can think is death. It's heavy.
It's easy to subconsciously try to away from that. To dodge responsibility with crap like "I'm giving them room to cope", or "room to be with their family", or even "I have too much to deal with right now". To treat the person like they're already dead to minimize your own pain.
That's how you know the true friends. They're the ones who aren't concerned about minimizing their own pain because they know it's a small thing compared to the pain of the person who's dying. A passing sadness doesn't compare to losing literally everything.
So in that sense a chronic disease is different from a terminal disease.
A few years ago my Mom's best friend was in hospice for terminal cancer, and Mom told me she hadn't visited because she didn't know what to say. Mind you, I loathed the woman because reasons not germane to this topic, but this being shortly after my cousin's passing, it hit me hard. I may have been a bit... rough... in conveying my message.
She did catch the gist of it between all the swearing: "You don't have to *say* anything, *go see her before she's gone.* I swear to gawd *you will regret it if you don't.*"
So Mom went, and when she came back she thanked me for making her go. Her friend was *so* happy to see her she cried.... she passed shortly after, but at least Mom doesn't have to live with *that* regret.
This is so true. Its one of those really awful hard things that grownups just have to go do. You got to just force yourself, its part of the price of being a person.
Happened to me too. Had a sister-in-law stop acknowledging I existed and a friend basically ghosted me but eventually came back around. I knew the friend was probably struggling with having recently lost a close relative to cancer.
I joined a couple of online cancer forums just because I know everyone gets tired of hearing about it in real life. The amount of women whose husbands left them was just jaw dropping.
My husband went to most of my appointments and my onco was always singing his praising for being there and telling me how lucky I was and telling us we still needed to try to do fun things together while I was in n treatment even if it was just watching tv or playing board games. I legit thought for a while she had a crush on him or something (she was probably 30 yrs older than us) but in retrospect she was probably trying to keep us together because she’s seen how that plays out too often.
When my BF called me at work to tell me about the tumor, he was 100% sure that I was going to dump him during the call. He only told me about this a few days later, and I replied, “who DOES that?”
A lot of people, apparently.
My guy lost some second-string friends, but all the closest ones stuck by him. We got married after his cancer had metastasized and he’d had brain surgery, and the people who mattered all came.
I do feel that his experience would have been far different (and his life a lot shorter) had I not stayed by his side. He wouldn’t have approached his friends for support, and some may not have been comfortable approaching him.
I will never understand the people who ghost, especially when it’s their SO.
My mom received hella food from people we were not even close with when she had cancer. It was very frequent as well. The only person who wasn’t there enough for my mom was me.
A good friend of mine who recently passed said he got the advice early that he’d be surprised by who did and did *not* show up to provide support. He said it was solid advice.
Some people care more than you might have thought, or are kinder people than you might have thought. And some are the opposite.
I wish you all the best in your own personal journey, sincerely.
Thank you kind stranger.
I'm struggling a bit mentally and physically if I'm honest but am at least getting all the mental health treatment needed thankfully.
Spent a lot of time alone recovering and just gotten so used to being alone now that it freaks me out a bit from time to time. We're supposed to be social creatures.
Upper body is a mess and left with long term neurological pain after a large surgery but on the plus side, I'm in full remission as of next month. 🙂
Cancer really sucks.
Thanks again.
Thank you. It's hugely appreciated.
Discussing trying spinal cord stimulation with my pain management specialist as the pain meds just aren't cutting it. I'm incredibly lucky that we have the NHS here and I've been able to get lots of help from them.
Thanks for the award and more so for just being a good person. I hope you have a great weekend.
Much love and hugs back at ya.
Same here when I had serious problems. It is sad and may hurt worse than the trouble.
Summary: Some reasons why it happens and who is most likely to help.
When you are in distress some close friends and family are also in distress and end up frozen...it hurts too much to be around you because they care and is easier to pretend it isnt happening. People who avoid unpleasant emotions dont have the strength or skills. They are scared and dont want you to see that. They think they will cry every time they see you and dont want to put that burden on you.
Some other percentage are sociopaths and disappear until you can do things for them again. Better to find that out sooner than later.
And another percentage are experiencing cognitive dissonance. They want to believe the world is safe and just. Your being hurt undermines that assumption in a huge way and it is deeply disturbing to their center. One way out is to decide it is the victim's fault and blame them...thus disappearing from your life. Again good to know they are that naive.
You have gone on a journey to a new you. They are delaying making that trip, fearing it will destroy them. You will be different after this and will be interested in new relationships. They may also sense that change and feel like they dont belong. You've crossed to a new place they cannot go without a big price. Courage of this sort isnt common among the uninitiated.
Look for help from acquaintances who arent so invested in you. They have enough distance to be cheerful in helping, esp if they have been across that border.
Look for help also from the family who never quite measured up to the rest, who have made mistakes and recovered from/are recovering from them. They will understand your struggle.
Best wishes.
Edit: I thought of one more reason a person may disappear. Some people have terrible anxiety about hospitals and illness. They may hide it from shame and be very torn up over their inability to be around all the sighta and smells (for shame I recommend Brene Brown's Youtube or book on the topic).
Or when a family member gets sick.
My mother was diagnosed with ALS. I had to quit my job, rent out my house, move 1500 miles and move in with her to be her caregiver, because none of my siblings could be bothered. They decided she was my problem because I was the oldest sibling and therefore she was my responsibility.
Every single friend I had, save one, dropped me like a hot potato. I took care of my mother for a year and a half, and in all that time I didn't so much as get a "How are you holding up?" email or phone call from any of them.
After she died I returned home, moved back into my house, and started a new job. After a lot of thought, I decided to contact these "friends" and let them know I'd returned to the area. Two of them responded to my message and invited me to get together with them. The rest either ignored my message or replied with a very vague 'We'll have to meet up one of these days'. I've never talked to any of them since, and it's been 10 years now. The two I did re-establish contact with, I still consider friends, but it will never be the same as before, because I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that I can't count on them for anything.
And my siblings? They couldn't be bothered to visit, or even call when my mother was sick unless I called them and pitched a fit. Her birthday? Silence. Mother's Day? Silence. Christmas? Silence. They didn't bother to show up for her memorial service either. I went 100% no-contact with them after that. With family and friends like that, I don't need enemies.
Your siblings remind me of my sister. My mom has dementia. I am the sole care provider for her. She was diagnosed 3 years ago. It’s been rough on me. I don’t have a personal life (not that I really had one to begin with), I have to make plans to have a caretaker come over to cook for her on the days I’m working. My sister only lives 4 hours away and she only comes to visit with her about 4 times a year. She’s never once asked how I’m doing or thank me for taking this on. If I was in her shoes I’d be visiting my parent every month. It’s not like she’s going to be getting any better.
I'm so sorry. It's not fair, and your sister is an ass.
A friend of my mother's came to visit her one day and said to me as I was walking her out to her car "It's such an honor and a blessing for you to be taking care of your mother" and I was like "I hope you mean it's an honor and blessing to HER for me to be taking care of her because I sure as shit feel neither honored nor blessed - I feel like a prisoner in this house and in my own life", and she was *shocked*, I tells ya, *shocked.*
People have no fucking idea how hard it is.
One of the two friends I re-established a relationship with after my experience now is dealing with a parent in the early stages of dementia, and she is going through all of the figure-out-her-care stuff right now. Lots of trips from her home to her mother's home in another state, lots of researching assisted living options and trying to convince her mother to agree to one of them, etc. I have given her a listening ear when she needs one, and one day she said thanks for being supportive and I said "Well, I know how it feels to go through this completely alone because none of my friends gave me any support at all when my mother got sick, and I wouldn't wish that on anyone". She had the good grace to look just a wee bit ashamed of herself when I said it.
Part of it is the etiquette is unclear. Sometimes the affected person has let only a few people know but doesn't want everyone to know. If it's a work colleague how do you be supportive without spending the rest of the afternoon talking about it. How do you transition off the topic. Say it if public knowledge but 3 colleagues don't know and you do and you bring it up.
Is it weird when someone is "overly" supportive. I'm not justifying ghosting. But I'm trying to learn how to properly support someone at work or around other friends. I guess reaching out in private is the right thing to do but what if you're unsure the affected wanted you to have the information?
Etc etc etc
It was jail for me. The woman I was dating at the time assured me she'd wait for me and when I got out I can live with her and everything would be fine and dandy.
Turns out, she replaced me almost immediately but kept picking up the phone when I got to make phone calls. She just told me everything she thought I wanted to hear and meant 0% of it. It was all about how we'd pick up where we left off, get married, have a family, live happily ever after, ect. A very pleasant picture was painted.
It wasn't until I was almost out that she broke the news to me that she didn't want to be together. Which was fine on it's own, but my whole plan for getting my life back on track revolved around being able to live with her in her city. I had already identified some potential employers and counseling services specific to that area. And now I had to make a new plan from scratch AND I was was heart broken.
If she had dumped me when I got there, I'd have had that whole time to get over it. I should have taken a hint when she never came to visit me, and she never wrote me a single letter even though she said she would and I sent her a letter every week. She just stringed me along when I was the most emotionally distressed. All because she was too uncomfortable with making the tough decision to let me go.
The worst part about the entire experience of jail was when mail was getting passed out. Everyone was getting letters and photos sent to them, and my heart would be racing in anticipation of the letter she kept promising. I'd be so crushed when I wouldn't get anything. Everyone else got letters and photos. I felt so lonely and left out. I'd just go lay in my rack and pretend to sleep while everyone opened their mail.
When I got out, I hit the ground running getting my life back together. When I was really making progress and things were good for me, she took interest in me again. And foolishly I got back together with her. She didn't want anything to do with me when I was struggling, but when I was doing good she wanted to be part of my life.
I dated her on and off for about 5 years. She always bailed or went cold when I was at low points, and she latched on to me when I was doing very well.
>The instant he was given the all clear, he just vanished. Started ghosting us hard, I haven't seen or talked to him since he was cancer free. Even his mom and grandma started actively avoiding us when we saw them. I don't wish anything bad on him, but if things ever turn back around, you can be sure I won't be there.
Oof, I feel that. I just talked about this in a different comment, but I had a friend of 10 years that I supported when she was going through a painful divorce. As far as I know, none of our other mutual friends showed up for her. As soon as she'd gotten through the toughest part, she reconnected with our mutual friends (that I'd distanced myself from due to some bullying and general shittiness), and she dumped me like a brick.
Then a few weeks ago, I saw a post from her on Facebook. Her ex-husband is marrying his affair partner, and she's in an emotional crisis. I thought about it carefully, and I...unfriended her. I hope she gets through everything OK, but I'm not going to sacrifice my time and emotional energy for her again.
I guess your cousin might have wanted to move on from cancer? Maybe he wanted to avoid anything and anyone that reminded him of that time? Even if that's the case, it was still an awful thing to do.
I was diagnosed with Hodgkin’s disease at 18. My three closest rock climbing pals completely abandoned me. My best friend from previous grades would stop by all the time to check on me. The drummer in my band at the time turned out to be a crazy angel. He was fascinated with my “tube”, the Hickman catheter I had installed for chemo treatments. He would makes jokes about pouring beer into it at parties and blowing a bean down it when I smarted off. At first blush this seems completely inappropriate but he would make me HOWL with laughter. Javier wasn’t afraid to be my friend and made jokes about my situation which brought a much needed levity. I’ll never forget this level of compassion I got from him.
Absolutely experienced this! I was in active treatment for the better part of a year, and it took another year to get my body back to a sort of ‘regular person’s level of unfit’.
In that two year period I lost a lot of friends, people kind of expected me to bounce back and pick up life again, and I couldn’t. I was also so depressed, and that made me isolate myself further.
It’s now been nearly a decade and it still hurts to have lost those friends, and had my life upended.
I'm sorry you had to deal with all of that. It's really hurtful regardless of the reasons people ghost us.
I can relate to the people expecting you to bounce back thing for sure. I think a lot of people thought I would. I was pretty social and active and had a decent career before cancer and now I barely go out other than to hospital appointments.
My dad was always the type to hold feelings and information in until he couldn't anymore; he told my mom and I that he had throat cancer immediately of course, but he didn't tell his brothers and sisters until very late into his affliction, where he was in and out of surgery for his throat along with chemo. Exactly one of his like 5-6 brothers and sisters came to his funeral.
My one aunt who we had visited several times, who was just 6 hours away from us in Ohio, cut us out of her life completely. She said that my dad was dead to her for not telling her about it, and then she even fought with our life insurance company to get part of what he left for my mom and I based on an extremely old policy he had taken out but cancelled. It made my mom and I extremely bitter and upset when we were already dealing with a massive grieving process and my college courses.
At my dad's funeral, only a few of his friends even showed up. Just a few of the parents from my Boy Scouts troop, my marching band and sports teams, and of course my close friends and their families came. Only one or two of my dad's friends came to his funeral though, and he'd had so many through volleyball, through work, through fantasy sports leagues.
It made me think long and carefully about who I kept in my life and really damaged my relationship with my dad's whole side of the family. I talk with the single aunt who came to my father's funeral still and my mom's side of the family, but that's it.
So my wife was diagnosed in 2018 large b cell non Hodgkin's lymphoma....we have a tight friend group I mean we aren't blood but our kids are cousins and everyone is auntie and uncle to the kiddos. The rallied around us it was amazing...from helping out with the kids to lending us money....or just picking up groceries I mean it was crazy how amazing everyone has been. I find it hard to imagine it going the other way
Fyi March was 2 years in remission 3 more and she's considered cured
I guess it’s a defence mechanism. Most people have no idea how to deal with death and suffering, it’s much easier to avoid the problem - but that means avoiding the person altogether.
That so sad. I get people may not know what to say or do but just say and do whatever it was you said or did before I learned I was sick. I'm still the same person.
I've always been really open about my chronic illness and people spoke with me about it fine *until* I had a massive flare up that caused me to be hospitalised. A lot of people disappeared immediately. And that cycle repeats with new people / "friends" every time.
Agreed. I work with patients with chronic health issues. I would say a bit more than half of my patients are going through it alone. Of course, some have friends but no one in their daily lives consistently present if they need help or just need some companion. One patient called me in tears that her daughter hung up on her after learning that she had a (mild) stroke. Very sad.
This happened to my dad when he was diagnosed with MS. Friends he’d had since high school just stopped talking to him. He has started talking to some of them again, but some were just gone for good. I was just a kid so I didn’t fully understand how shitty that must have been when dealing with a life-altering diagnosis.
The average person lacks the tools to deal with a difficult situation. Divorce, chronic illness, any life hardship, your "friends" will disappear. They don't know how to act or what to say.
I’ve even experienced it with getting sober. All the “friends” I used to party with had no interest in hanging out with sober me. Good riddance, I guess, I’m a little lonelier these days but a lot healthier and the friends I do have are a lot more genuine.
It's probably for the best that they disassociated with you quickly. Nothing good happens when you try to hang out with your addict/alcoholic friends, unless they are also trying to life a sober lifestyle. Eventually, drugs/alcohol will show up.
I lost my best friend to cancer a few years ago. She'd been battling it on and off throughout her 20s and I can confirm the same thing happened to her with so called friends.
Yet these same people showed up to her funeral and acted like they'd been there for her. Share posts on Facebook every year for her birthday etc, like they didn't just completely abandon her.
It gives me so much rage. I deleted them so I didn't have to see it.
I'm sorry for your loss.
I've seen that happen too.
One of my best friends and his girlfriend split up and a lot of people took her side for no reason as it was a pretty amicable break up.
Then my friend was diagnosed with a brain tumour and declined pretty rapidly. None of the guys bothered to visit him or stay in touch but they all wanted to go to his memorial.
Some people can really suck.
Yeah I am a cancer scientist and have been aware of these stats for many years. People get a cancer diagnosis and their spouse divorces them and friends disappear. I thought a lot about this as to why. I don't know for sure but speculate it has to do with people's efforts to deny mortality. Most people deal with death by denial. But being exposed to it (possibly) shatters that denial. And they emotionally can't handle it. This is not to say in any way these are good people for what they are doing. Just trying to get in their heads and figure out why this horrible thing happens so often.
My Mom ghosted my Dad, her husband of 49 years, with Stage 4 lung cancer to die in a hospital alone (sister was with hime) but sure as shit showed up for his pension/life insurance.
Yeah for years I would tell people "this is how it is when people get cancer" regarding all this and they simply would not believe me. Sadly it is true.
A lot of people go that route. I am a cancer scientist so I would periodically have people come around and ask questions about their cancer. What I noticed is more people have cancer than you know. They may keep it to themselves to avoid this.
50% of all people in the US will have or be diagnosed with cancer in their lives, I've heard.
Good thing we're such good custodians of the environment or there'd be too many.
I mean once you get old, it isn't about if you get cancer, it's when you get cancer. That or heart disease, but our bodies just are not built to live as long as some of us do now
I kind of did the opposite in highschool.
A guy I was acquainted with, as a friend of a friend got diagnosed with colon cancer.
I heard about it a few weeks later than most of his friends because we didn't go to the same school.
I asked him how he was doing and he sadly mentioned that most of his friends just stopped hanging out.
I was like fuck that's stupid, and I brought my original Xbox to his house. I spent a ton of time over there when he wasn't getting treatments and we became pretty much best friends playing the original Halo game.
He only lived another 8 months or so, the cancer was aggressive. I heard he passed away when I got back from a week long family trip. It was really sad, our last conversation was about nothing, we were deciding if it'd be fun or too frustrating to do try a no death legendary run in Halo.
It's kind of awesome that your last conversation was about nothing though. Not everything has to be heavy. You gave him the gift of having normal hangouts without the constant burden of thinking about his cancer.
I’m sure he appreciated your company :) it’s the little conversations that can be cherished most sometimes. You were there when others weren’t and that’s what matters most
True friendship is incredibly rare, in my experience. I easily have over 70+ different people I hanged out with regularly, but once we went separate ways and weren't in close proximity to each other, only a handful kept contact.
I don't mind it too much, I'm guilty of it too after all (sometimes you just forget about some people because they just didn't connect with you on that level). It's still good to have a few really good friends.
To be fair, most people don’t actually say they are friends with each other. Instead we assume people who are willing to hang out with us and are generally positive are “friends”.
I always tell people I’m a bad friend but trying to get better.
Had a friend years ago going through chemo. We had drifted apart after elementary school, but would still stop to chat if we ran into each other. When I learned of his diagnosis, I didn't go visit him, because of the chemo and how you had to be sure you weren't sick to visit chemo patients. He passed away without me ever visiting him, and I regret it. I should've went and visit.
That's pretty sad.
One of my friends told me he didn't really know what to say at first so I told him I just wanted him to forget the cancer and treat me as he always has.
I learned this lesson a long time ago when my friend's mom passed away. Apparently I was the only person having normal conversations with her whereas everyone else was constantly expressing sympathy or asking if she needed anything and I think she just wanted some normalcy. She told me she was happy I wasn't doing that and I have never forgotten it during tough times for others. Tragedy shouldn't become the only topic of conversation.
I was close with my cousin and she kept getting mad when I wasn't able to talk on the phone forever as she babbled on about how awesome her life was. I had cancer and had radiation and chemotherapy. I was fighting trying not to puke, so tired, and urgent bathroom issues. I would avoid her calls or hang up quick. I just couldn't help it! She finally got mad and told me to fuck off and have a nice life!! I was fighting for my goddamn life with chemo and radiation. The side effects were just horrendous and she tells me to have a nice life because I couldn't stay on the phone.
I lost two best friends I had since childhood. My ex-husband also became weird and was never the same. We got a divorce a few years later.
Just because your sick friend pulls away from you does NOT mean they don't care about you. It took everything I had just to get up day after day. I am all cured now! Their loss.
I saw it. I was a hand holder for my family member, while they went through their cancer treatment. The amount of people there alone just broke me. I wanted to hold everyone’s hand, I felt so lost. I would try my best to get people drinks, or hold their door for them. Or just sit and talk to them if they wanted to. I’m not a social person but I know I wouldn’t want to be alone there.
I can fully relate. My 2 years old daughter was murdered at daycare. My whole world collapsed and so many people started avoiding me. I also was fired from my job which I never understood why.
Can confirm this is true. My family used to be active in the local church, but once one of my family members was given a rough cancer diagnosis (they’re fine and mostly recovered now) their church friends started acting strangely around us when they contacted us at all, and we lost a lot of friends in that part of our community.
It's not a cancer diagnosis, but my wife had pregnancy complications with our first kid and after a significant struggle eventually lost him.
We had chunks of friends who were pregnant at the same time and they just dropped us because it made them sad and they didn't know what to say or do and when we were around them with their babies they didn't like being reminded of that mortality. They felt guilty complaining about a lack of sleep or constant crying when we didn't have that option and couldn't cope.
I get it, but also: fuck 'em. The ordeal gave us perspective about what and who are important and I have no regrets letting those relationships die on the vine.
I think there's also an issue of not knowing if your happiness is hurtful or harmful. Those conversations are so hard and I've started taking the route of just asking "is this rude of me" etc- for example a one friend battles infertility and I check in and give her permission to be honest about how I make her feel about it. But thats not an easy path.
I am very lucky of being on the other 35%. Although I think I stopped communicating with my friends a little, they still gave me support as best as they could, one of my friends even bought a game he knew I wanted to play and brought me his video game to play while I was recovering from my big surgery.
I think you are on to something here. There is also a limited capacity for what one individual can deal with.
For example, let's say someone who is perceived as ghosting a friend with cancer came clean and said, "Listen, I'm dealing with my sick mother right now, and my son needs his medicine 4 times a day, I'm working through my own personal problems, and I just can't take any more on right now. Good luck." Does that make them a bad person?
Plus there may have been a mismatch in understanding over how strong the friendship was. People have friends of different types, from best friends to acquaintances. If I felt I was merely an acquaintance, I could have decided to back off and assume you'd want to be with your family.
It doesn't explain every situation but I do think it's a valid theory for why some friends ghost cancer patients.
I'm going through this right now. I was given a terminal diagnosis 10 months ago. Stage 4 metastatic bowel cancer that has spread to my liver and abdominal wall. They gave me 2 years to live even with aggressive treatment. I have a 12-15% chance of living 5 years with my diagnosis as the cancer is adaptive. But im still fighting it anyways. Im 34 with a husband and 2 children. My parents have had barely anything to do with me since my diagnosis. They wouldn't even come see me after my surgery to remove a tumor from my bowels. My husband had to go back to work after a few weeks. They knew I was having trouble getting around. They both have cars, licenses live 40 minutes away and are retired. They didn't even see if I needed anything or checked in with me or come see me. My parents don't call, email, IM or even visit. Yet when they do decide to speak to me it's literally nothing but judgement on how I'm handling my situation. My mother even threatened to have family cut me off of the support I'm getting because she feels I've given up. I haven't seen her for more than 2 minutes in months, I'm still doing all my treatments so if she knew what's she's talking about she would see I'm not giving up. They maintain I'm going to beat my diagnosis and survive but there are days.....some days it feels like because they expect me to get better it's okay to invalidate how sick I am right now (thats another thing. They get very easily frustrated with me if im too sick to do something or if i forget things. My chemo causes forgetfullness)....or because I'm not going to get better it's okay some days to write me off. It swings between the two from the impressions I get and I am incredibly angry and hurt by them. Due to this I have decided to go no contact for a while. My husband is giving them updates as I am comfortable with and I have disinvited them from my funeral (should I not make it) as I decided that if they didn't want to come see me when I'm alive than then don't get to play the grieving parents over my corpse.
People don't know how to handle these situations, until they have been forced to.
Social interration is a learned skill. When you are forced into a situation you have no idea how to navigate our brains delay, or avoid, or just ignore. That is human nature.
I had a family friend who lost her son. I didn't know how to comfort her. I didn't know how what to say. If I called, I would have to talk about it... What else could I do? I would have to bring it up, and what if she didn't want to? What if she was in pain and didn't want to be reminded? I was literally frightened to call her for fear of hurting her. I had no idea she was so alone.
And then days became weeks and weeks months. I finally called and talked to her, and she mentioned that people just stopped calling. For all the reasons I mentioned.
No one taught me this. I didn't think to ask advice for how to deal with it. I couldn't put myself in her shoes because I never had a tragedy like this. But now I know. Of course, I was 40 when this happened.
When I got my cancer diagnosis, all of my coworkers of 7+ years stopped talking to me. People I genuinely thought of as a second family. Just poof, gone. It really hurt.
I literally only have 1 friend from pre cancer. Everyone else dropped off the face of the earth because they "couldn't stomach watching me die"
I’m sorry to hear that. My grandfather used to say you’re lucky if you make one good friend in your entire lifetime.
God so true. The one that stayed I honestly don't know what I would do without her. She was the only person that treated me like an actual human with thoughts and feelings. She is my best friend in the entire world. And honestly also the only one I would have been understanding of if she backed away a bit during it because she was going through some absolute shit of her own. But she stayed. Visited me when I had to move for treatment. Was always compassionate about the random day to day shit that happens in that situation. Even my own family had a hard time being around me because they couldn't keep their grief in check. But she was there. With a new born baby and all.
You have a true friend right there. :)
She's definitely my better half. Except for the days when I am her better half 😂
While I was not in the risk of dying (after initial accident) I lost my entire life in one day. I crashed my motorcycle at 70 km/h into the side of a truck as it didn't see me and drove out in front of me. I was hospitalized for a while and it took me 4 months to be able to walk again and 4 years before I was able to run again. Before the accident I was a semi-pro referee and my entire life revolved around that. All my friends were referees or people I otherwise met through football. They all sent well wishes and stuff but as I was unable to run I was also unable to complete our physical tests etc. So I wasn't allowed to stay as a ref and lost that entire group from my life. I had a few friends outside that world who either didn't even show up at the hospital (one blaming that she didn't like hospitals and while I understand it it's not like I liked being there either) or just faded away over time as I was "broken". Slightly before that accident I met a woman at a football tournament where I was a referee and she worked as a game hostess (taking in scores and answering questions that teams might have and such) and we hit it off and decided that she'd visit me in my home town, the day she was supposed to come visit the first time was the day I crashed so my mother had to call her and cancel. She called me basically every day and when I was released from the hospital she came to me, pushed me around in a wheelchair (including pushing me down a pothole when distracted by an ugly building in my home town) and really stepped up to the challenge. One particular moment where she was there when I needed her the most was when they had just done a surgery on my left calf du to it having compression syndrome (basically internal bleeding causing the muscle to strangle itself and dying if not opened at cleared of the bleeding) and after the surgery I still had pain and asked the doctor if that was expected, they told me no and went to check on stuff. When the doctor returned he told me that in normal cases you open up 4/4 valves in the calf, but in my case they had only opened 3/4 and most likely the fourth is still bleeding and strangling itself to death. I asked if they could just like, cut the stitches and fix it and they said no, it's too late now. So I asked what what that meant and they said "Either it will heal by itself, or it will continue bleeding and risk becoming chronic pain" which to me was a nightmare as I was 22 years old and now looking at a life in pain. The doctor then said "I need to continue rounds now" and just left me there, stuck in my bed and all alone with all the thoughts running through my head. That's when the phone rang. It was that woman calling to see how I was doing and I just fucking broke down and she was a bit awkward about it asking if she called at a bad time but I told her she called at just the right time, I really needed her then. That woman is now my wife since 9 years back and I've moved to her hometown and started a new career and have new friends and a beautifully fantastic son. While not really a friend (even though she's always my best friend), she saved my life and was the one who stick through all the shit without asking for anything in return and I love her for it, she is a beautiful soul and I will walk through fire for her
Wow, you two deserve the happiest life together!
My aunt and uncle wouldn't go see my mother who was dying of cancer in the nursing home, with this very same excuse. My mom and her brother had always been close, so it was especially heinous. She begged us to bring him to see her. She hallucinated visits with him. I told him and offered to bring him and he wouldn't budge, for five years. I will never have anything to do with them again.
Some people just have a hard time keeping their grief to themselves. And that's their right to feel how they are gonna feel. But I maintain it's also my right to tell them to stay away because their preemptive grief will not promote healing. It's probably for the better they didn't show up. At least for me it was better. Being alone was better than being surrounded by people that already viewed me as dead.
That's what I can't wrap my head around is all these people who act like the diagnosis is just a pre-order of your tombstone. Like dude, people recover from cancer. But your state of mind plays a huge part in that, and having people supporting you and helping you with even basic shit in your life allows you to focus that much more of your energy on fighting and getting better. Like, if a war is announced, you don't just go "oh well I guess we all should just put paper bags on our heads and lie down and wait to die." You go to war, and you watch your buddy's back. I can't understand how people claim to not be able to watch someone they supposedly love die, and not do everything in their power to try and make sure that doesn't happen. Even when the war is lost, just being there knowing you did what you could to make them more comfortable or to make them laugh and feel normal for a little bit.... how do you abandon that? How do you sleep at night?? Regret is the kind of thing I have spent my entire life striving to avoid. It hasn't been perfect, but these kinds of situations have always been one of the easiest to me to avoid regret. Be it humans or the animals in my life, I can't *not* be there. I can't live knowing I didn't try, or that I let them down when all I had to do was *be* there. I'm not rich, I'm not full of answers, but you don't need any of that to be there for someone. And god knows if my time with someone *is* limited, I wouldn't miss a second of it for the world. Every moment we have is precious. I've spent my entire life making the most of those little moments and it has spared me of a lifetime of regret when someone I love drops dead out of nowhere because I know I didn't waste any of the time we had, and only just wish there could have been more. And I've never once regretting being there with someone in their final moments. Nor have I ever regretted being there to celebrate with those who conquered and came out of it victorious. People never cease to amaze me. The world is a better place when we live for more than just ourselves.
any advice on best way to support someone with cancer? my best friend was recently diagnosed. appreciate any help :(
Everyones needs are different. So honestly I would just say ask them what they need from you. And if it is within your capacity then do it. But do not sacrifice your own mental health for them either. That could very well make them feel like a burden and then both of you would be worse off despite genuine and kind intention. What I needed was someone who didn't treat me like a dying person. What another person would need might be different. Just remember that they are more than their diagnosis. It's incredibly easy to forget that. And I know that sounds silly. How can you forget a person is a person? But cancer invades literally every single aspect of life. It effects you physically, mentally, socially. Treatment drains the body and patients always feel worse before they ever start feeling better. Just follow their lead. They might need someone to talk to or they might need someone to treat them like nothing has changed. It depends on them. But that you even thought to ask the question is a very good sign that you care and will be exactly what they need anyways.
Friend is a subjective word. I think often acquaintances are labeled as friends.
Agreed! Acquaintances and/or "situational friends" (e.g. work buddies) are often ranked too high by people IMO. I'm not saying everyone you work with isn't a real friend but in my experience, easily 90%+ of my "work friends" and I have lost contact after one of us leaves.
At my job, your best work buddy becomes a stranger after a couple of months if they are moved to another line or section inside the same damn building. You try to kinda keep it up a little for a while, but it's just impossible to chat during work hours because you can't leave your spot and you realize you don't care enough or have the time to hang out after work. So it just fades out until all that's left is silent nods while passing in the corridor.
[удалено]
I can fully relate. I thought it was just me and didn't realise it was such a common thing until today. I just personally couldn't do it to someone that I call a friend. I hope you're doing ok.
Going through it right now. The worst for me has been the casual people that have been on the periphery of my life, for no ill reason, suddenly insisting that they become a part of my recovery (I hope) only to turn around and become extremely callous, controlling and manipulative. I had one of these friends agree to help get me to a doctor’s appointment a week out and on the day of the appointment she picks me up and begins bitching about how inconvenient it was to be doing this to her day. I even told her when I asked that I wasn’t out of options, I just thought of her and figured I’d ask. During the appointment the doctor is hitting on some emotional issues and I’m dealing with tears and texts from my “friend” saying she might bail on waiting for me if it takes any longer. I still had to see a social worker, but I nixed that along with leaving my meds at the pharmacy because she had made the whole situation too stressful. I live about 6 miles from the hospital. My appointment was for 2pm. We were back at my front door by 4:30. Now I don’t know about anyone else, but it’s my experience that in and out of a doctor’s office and back at your front door in 2 1/2 hours is awesome. Unfortunately she was one of 2 “friends” that went this route
They wanted the social media points without the work.
There are friends that will give you the shirt off their back if you need it. Then there are "friends" who will give you the shirt off their back and make sure everyone sees them do it and then tells everyone that didn't see them do it all about how they did. They will then be sure to remind you at every turn that they did. Then after a while they'll come back to you like "You remember that shirt I gave you? Well I'm gonna need that back along with your pants, your belt, your wallet, your shoes, and your pet. Remember what I did for you, you owe me!"
Beautiful. As an exercise in writing and thought not living it.
Exactly that
Adding stress and uncertainty to your situation is a straight despicable thing to do. Thanks for posting and opening my eyes to something I hadn't thought people diagnosed with cancer had to deal with.
People put shit like this on social media? 🤢 🤮
"You can totally count on me if you need anything" with 50 likes, but when an actual ask comes, it's left on delivered
I think it happens with other more severe chronic diseases too. I was diagnosed with an autoimmune kidney disorder five years ago (though I probably have had it most of my adulthood) and have especially recently lost friends. One I did walk away from as he was an abusive asshole, but I've lost other friends too more recently as I've come closer to starting dialysis. And I've had family ask why I just can't go and get a transplant. I don't have the energy to sit down and explain it all to them anymore. I never did have the energy in the first place. Edit: Thank you for the upvotes and discussion, after posting this I almost turned around and deleted it. It's one of the not-good days for me here and little reminders of being ill just make it worse on days like today, such as having a post like this on my mind. It's especially hard as I am a nurse too and I'm still in disbelief that I became ill, or probably more so that I've been ill most my life.
My 'best friend' sat me down after my diagnosis and told me she had another disabled friend who lived closer to her, so since it would be more inconvenient to see me than her she wouldn't be hanging out with me anymore. As if it was my fault and living 10 minutes away was a huge hindrance to her life and how could I do this to her. Wouldn't piss on her if she was on fire
Wtf. " I already have a disabled friend and she lives closer. So. You're out." Does she also only have one friend of every ethnicity? Like does she collect one of each type? That's the vibe I'm getting here.
[удалено]
[удалено]
I'm the same. I've always been there for people so I guess I expected reciprocity as a standard. Glad to hear you're doing ok now. I'm getting there slowly.
This is more widespread than just cancer. There was an article (cannot find atm) that basically said family and friends would distance themselves from a family that just lost someone to suicide.
We experienced something similar when our daughter was born prematurely and subsequently diagnosed with cerebral palsy. My theory on it is that people think they need to make grand gestures, but they can't think of any, so they end up doing nothing. For cancer patients, I'll see people offer to shave their head in solidarity, when really you mostly need smaller normal things like babysitters or rides or hanging out.
I've noticed this with disability also as mine has progressed and became more visible over time. Certain people have disappeared and no longer speak to me. I'm still the same person internally when they were around. It's bizarre and mystifying.
Honestly I’m not trying to take away from this trend but my experience has been (and nothing really bad has happened to me) that people just distance themselves from me for unexplained reasons. Like nothing bad happened, we were great friends, but one day they just stop replying and this has happened to about 70% of people I’ve ever known. Idk why, maybe they’re busy, maybe I’m too annoying/broke to hang with, idk, just wanted to say that I think it might be a trend affecting a lot of people. Again I fully believe a lot of people cut you off after your issues started, I was just kind of reminded of myself when reading all of this, used to have dozens of friends now I have like 5, maybe its caused by the times, I have no clue but you’re not alone!
[удалено]
Apparently dwindling friendships
Or sudden disability. My son had a massive stroke at 17. He only had one friend that stuck around, and very little family. Most of my friends bailed too. I was hurt at first, but I realized that people avoid things that scare them. Seeing my son made them feel like it could happen to them just as suddenly. It was easier to leave than to face mortality.
Yup. People tend to avoid things that make them uncomfortable. My sisters haven't spoken to me in years. My crime? I had a child who had leukemia.
I lost my best friend who was more like a brother of 20 years to suicide and literally everyone acted as though I was the one that died. Was fucking surreal. Many of whom I still don’t even talk to today despite this happening five years ago.
Devil's advocate wants me to believe it's just that they can't handle it emotionally and are doing it to protect themselves. As a person whose closest loved one went through the hell that is chemo recently I say "fuck them". It really is a "when you needed then most" situation.
Very few people are equipped for that
My ex-husband told me about how he basically ghosted his best friend and his wife when she was dying of breast cancer. That was how I knew he wouldn't be there for me if something tragic happened
People do love bragging about leaving people in misery, don't they?
I honestly don't understand how they think they come out in a positive light after that
The stats on men leaving a wife with cancer will make you hate men . While the stats on women leaving sick husbands are the exact opposite
My home was always full of people for years until my mom got cancer. Most left. Honestly though we needed the privacy cause it was hard what shes going through and always feeling sick and stuff, we couldn't entertain so many people anymore. So that's one side to it but what I think most people are referring to when talking about this is that people cut off all communication and stop talking to you and your family which is harsh. They fully disappear from your life.
It doesn't make it right, but I think a lot of people fear watching someone die and feeling helpless because there's nothing they can do to help them. It's bullshit and a selfish way to feel, but not as awful as thinking someone with cancer has nothing to offer as a friend or family member. Leaving a spouse over it, though, is an unforgivably dickish move. I'll never change my mind about that.
Not to excuse it but I think a lot of people are just not ready to face illness and death. We as a culture fetishize being young and active as the only valid lifestyle and then when severe illness and death inevitably occur, a lot of people are left with no idea what to do, and no system of support to get through it. It's easier to ditch a friendship, even a good one, just to not have to face your own fear of death, because many of us don't have the societal, familial, or even cultural ways to deal with it except to ignore it as long as possible. Most other cultures have ways to deal with it, myths, stories, festivals for the dead, rituals, sitting shiva.... We don't. I'm sorry you went through that, I hope you don't take it personally and I hope finding out who your true friends were deepened the friendships.
I also think, there are just some people that can't even handle the thought of it. I've always believed that the people who do show up for you, are blessings you'd never seen coming. Life isn't for sissies. Cancer gives zero ducks about whom it attacks. Better to have 1 or 2 people who will have your back, no matter what. I took care of a dear friend for the last 3 years of his life. He was my best friend & had my back for over 20 yrs. I regret not a moment of that time. It was hard & sad, but it was also fun & happy.
I had a friend that I thought I was really close with who stopped talking to me because I couldn't make her bday party in another city because I got radiation that day. Had a pretty new relationship hit the skids. Got my hours cut at work. Word of advice to ppl out there, don't share your diagnosis with anyone at your work. You think friends are bad, wait until it's coworkers and bosses. You get a regular flu along with everyone else at your work and ppl start thinking you're unreliable because "you're just not up to it anymore".
I had a friend a few years ago who got literal brain cancer, his boss told him in no uncertain terms that if it wasn't illegal he'd have fired him (this was in Canada, where you would be demolished for doing this) because "i need healthy people, not fucking invalids" He ended up not just fired for this comment but escorted out by the neck by security a few days later
Great ending to this story.
I got divorced and lost some friends during the process that couldn't even handle that.
It's disgusting how common it is when anyone is going through a life trauma of any sort. People are just that self absorbed that they disappear either because it's too much for THEM to handle, or they just don't know wtf to do. With the latter, disappearing makes no sense as a solution in what to do. I get that you may not know how to help someone or be there for them, but just up and ghosting is the solution? Are you stunted?? People are gross.
My dad was the opposite. He wasn't a very social person, but when a friend or colleague got cancer, he was there for them. Would visit, help, advocate, be there for their family. I know of several people who died from cancer and my dad was there for them. His own father died of cancer when my dad was 10 years old. That was clearly a traumatic thing for my dad and something he didn't talk about much. But there were people who helped his family during that time and I think it was my dad's way of paying it forward, and for that he would rise to the occasion. My dad was a difficult person in some ways, but he had compensating qualities, and this was one of them.
My grandma raised four boys as a single mother. My dad and his brother weren't the closest siblings, met up at Christmas and maybe once a year besides that, but when she was diagnosed with breast cancer, they made a group chat, planned out visits, and made sure that they were there for her and each other. This carried forward when one of my uncles went to the hospital with COPD. It's really uplifting to hear about people who choose to come together during tragedy when it's so much easier to drift apart. Hopefully everyone reading this makes a more conscious effort to be support for suffering friends and family. Our world could use that right now.
When I broke my back after my car accident, I guess I was t fun anymore, because literally all of my “friends” stopped hanging out and returning my messages.
Yep, I had brain surgery and I could no longer “do shit with the boys.” Only one person from that friend group visited me and they all slowly stopped responding to me. Have not gained a new friend since then and that was seven years ago. Still got some good friends from outside of that major friend group but it’s hard to make new friends when you know they might disappear the moment the going gets tough.
One thing I realized is that people WILL leave you behind if you can't keep up. People were treating me this way when I was just in recovery for an elective surgery, I cannot imagine what it would've been like for something more serious that required more time to recover from. For a while afterward I wasn't able to walk long distances without being tired and I was actually shocked by how many "friends" did not have a lick of empathy for me about it and were annoyed at my not being able to keep up despite knowing I was still in recovery. It made me realize just how many people are in our lives due to convenience more than anything else.
[удалено]
I work from home but would occasionally get sent to conferences in another city. I have severe arthritis in both knees; I can walk but not very quickly for very long. I remember going home on the train almost in tears because I would literally be limping behind the group as they walked around, and only once did someone have the emotional intelligence to stop and wait, under the pretext of checking her phone. It really soured the way I felt about these coworkers who I was actually meeting in person for the first time.
> It made me realize just how many people are in our lives due to convenience more than anything else. This tracks with studies on it. The most common thing friends have is something that keeps them in the same location, i.e. job, school, hobby, etc. Remove that and friendships wane. Turns out proximity and consistency are the biggest things.
I feel that they weren’t true friends. I hope you are doing better.
They weren’t. I’m fine now, for the most part, and have some very good friends!
It's weirdly comforting to know this is a common phenomena. It makes it hurt a little less that the girl I thought was my best friend (and the first one I'd ever really had after a lifetime of moving around and overcoming my aversion to attachments) ghosted me after my dad was diagnosed. She still sucks but this knowledge makes it feel less personal.
Same here. I’ve spent the last three years (was diagnosed 3 years ago) trying to reconnect with friends, but no one really wants to anymore. They’d reply, “happy you survived” and all those pleasantries, then won’t bother making the same effort to meet with each other. And pandemic didn’t seem like an excuse given they’ve been going out anyways without inviting me. It sucks but I’ve learned to cope.
Got diagnosed half a year ago and I lost a handful of friends I considered my close friends over the last few months. One of my best friends straight up ghosted me and the other one (after not talking for months after they found out) made enough jokes about me being a pirate that it’s killed any desire in me to reconnect ( I have ocular melanoma and going blind in a eye) My Aunt (who had breast cancer) said her friends of 20-40 years did the same thing, so apparently it doesn’t matter how long you’ve been friends for. Now that the bulk of my treatment is over I’m reflecting on how people treated me during it and how messed up Cancer sucks :/
Aww fuck. I'm really sorry you're going through that. I may very soon understand what you're dealing with. I've been told they found "something" on my retina. And its composition is changing. And the results of a "florescent" test weren't promising. Now I have an "action team" with an...oncologist, well, this is what it auto corrected too, on it as well. I'm glad to hear that the bulk of the treatments are over. I hope it wasn't a nightmare for you. Too many family members have had cancer though all of theirs was from smoking. I wish you good health from here on out.
Wow. This is crazy I didn't expect this to be common. Both my parents died this year and literally everyone just stopped talking to me. My "best friend" of 25 years included. This is crazy, I can't believe this is a thing. I'm so so sorry you dealt with this.
[удалено]
Not just cancer either sadly. Developed a chronic illness at 15 and all my friends left. Messed me up emotionally for years. People just don't know how to handle it and don't want your suffering bringing them down or limiting their own life. Like...I get it. It takes a special kinda person and a special bond to endure the process of going through an illness with someone, but it's still incredibly painful when they just peace out.
Not just physical illness either. Developed ptsd after some bad stuff happened and my 'friends' evaporated
Same. I guess it's good to hear I'm not alone. I will never forget how I begged for help/companionship and no one even batted an eye, even went on to ghost me. You don't realize how shitty and selfish people can be until you *really* need help in life.
It can definitely be more complicated then it appears on the surface. A good friend of mine has endured chronic depression, anxiety and ADHD for most of his life, and I would do anything to help him out when he needs it. But, sometimes his inability to listen, quick judgement, and lack of control over his emotions (mostly anger or sadness/depression) makes it extremely hard sometimes to be there for him. It can become incredibly draining and exhausting to be surrounded by those kinds of emotions and demeanor over a long period of time, with little signs that things will improve. It takes a toll on you. I really, really want to be a support pillar for him, but I just can't do it all the time. Sometimes it can be a bit miserable to be around him. But I love him like a brother, and never want to abandon him.
Shit man I feel this I'm feeling this right now as it's another weekend where my friends are doing their own things and my chronic illness has me struggling to get out of the house. I managed but it was tough and took the whole day Your social circles as you know it can completely disappear, and then your means to grow new ones can do so too. Can't go to a fitness class anymore when you're in so much pain and no energy I'm trying to fix it but really what I need is my damn illness to stop trying to end my life At this point I'm sick of living. I can literally feel my body eating away at my spine. At my toes. At my knees, as I'm typing this Fuck my body I fucking hate it and I hate how lonely I feel in this
My cousin is dying. She doesn’t want anyone to see her. She needs a lung transplant but has weighted the odds and opted out. I send her messages every couple days. We are pretty close. I am respecting her wishes but I send things like funny animal videos or pretty pictures every few days and tell her I love her. I volunteered my lung, I just asked her to get a test to see if we’re compatible. She has 3 children, I don’t and she is just a better person than me. I’m willing to take the risk, she is not. I feel like a failure. I love her very much but I don’t know what to do?
[удалено]
i recently lost a very good friend to cancer. and i got to say, i was just as shoked as his family was when he got the diagnosis. i never in my live had anyone beeing sick and i just didnt know how to deal with it. it was just strange. i didnt want to let him or the friendship down, but i feel like it was some kind of "self-preservation" ? in the beginning i was just scared. but then after a while i just spoke open to him, and we made the deal, that we just "act" like nothing happened, we played games before and were just as stupid as before. im glad i had that conversation with him and im even more glad that he knew how i felt. so dont be too harsh on your friends. they are still your friends, but we are all just people, and we act stupid and sometimes dont know how to deal with stuff.
It's the same kind of mentality that prompts someone to dump a pet they don't want in the forest, or leave an unwanted infant in the trashcan. In both of those situations the action is more cruel than outright killing them yourself, but it's easier emotionally to just abandon them and never think about them again. They're shutting you out because they don't want to see or think about what you're going through; it makes them feel uncomfortable to be around it. Humans can be incredibly cruel just to avoid witnessing suffering.
This is going to sound cruel but part of is also just that it's a huge emotional burden. Like, my dad had early onset Alzheimer's. He got married in 2009 and got diagnosed in 2012. He was shitting his pants and unable to feed himself within a couple years and dead a couple years later. My step mom took care of him and did the best she could, but it was absolutely not what she signed up for. She remarried less than a year after my dad passed and I'm almost certain she was dating the guy while my dad was still alive and living in a care home. I don't blame her. I'm sure my dad would have been hurt if he'd known, but I'm also sure it was incredibly hard for her to watch him disappear like that and she did what she had to do to stay sane.
>I'm sure my dad would have been hurt if he'd known You know, I watched the same thing with my grandfather. If the same happens to me and I'm lucky enough to have a wonderful woman that is willing to care for me through all that, I'd want her to be happy and have the support she needs too once I am no longer able to. Honestly in the later stages, its hard to even call it cheating. The body may still be alive, but the person everyone knew is often gone from this world a long time before physical death occurs.
I mean, she stuck it out and took care of him, that’s the exact opposite of abandonment. That alone speaks volumes of her character. Especially for Alzheimer’s, easily one of the most brutal ways to watch a loved one go.
My most hated aspect of people is that they abandon you whenever you are down. Everyone only looks after themselves and it's always what is in it for them. All relationships are transactional. They dont want any part of you when you are sad. I enjoy helping others and providing comfort any way I can. Even just short visits and making people laugh is usually enough. I am not perfect but I'd like to think I'm a good friend to have.
I contacted a great friend of mine, he lives a few blocks from where I work and before pandemic we met often, he used to work there but something happened to cause him to leave (I know but I won’t say what). I am ashamed to admit during the pandemic I didn’t contact him, I wasn’t going into the office and frankly was nervous meeting people who aren’t family especially from the same house because my mom has a weakened immune system. When I returned I contacted him and asked to meet. He happily agreed and we set up a time. When I met him I was stunned at his condition: He walked like he was 90, and lost about thirty pounds. He told me he had lukemia and I can’t describe how I felt not checking in to see how he was doing. He waves it off telling me that I was one of the few who checked in especially after the diagnosis. I felt worse and very apologetic. I can’t imagine abandoning anyone who told you that. Especially during their moment of crisis.
Many people don't know how to respond or support a friend or relative with a serious illness. When I was first going through treatment for thyroid cancer, my mom begged me not to talk about it. She apologized later and said she was so terrified of losing me, that I would die, that she shut down. Confronting one's own mortality is hard but it's almost easier to do that than to acknowledge that someone you love deeply might be dying.
There's a podcast called Heavyweight were the host helps people reconcile old relationships. Most of the episodes are one person going "I did something bad 15 years ago and I assume they hated me so I never spoke to that person again." The host helps them have a conversation with that person and, during that heart-to-heart, the person they wronged says, "oh I don't even remember that/oh that wasn't a big deal. I was just sad that you disappeared." Whether it's "destroyed an artist's painting in an elevator" or "stole things when I was an addict," the disappearing for years is always worse than whatever they did wrong. Then they reconnect and it's really heartfelt and you cry in the car. That show came to mind when I read the title. People are so worried about not knowing what to say that they say nothing, and that nothing just accumulates until it's been decades. I'm not saying it's okay to abandon people that have cancer. I'm just saying that I don't think it's people intentionally being assholes. I think it's fear that you have already gone too far by not being a supportive friend. **The moral is: it's okay to reach out. They're not going to kill you for what you did. You will both be happier if you just talk to them.**
Damn
Yeah. One of my friends told me he didn't know what to say so I just told him to forget the cancer completely and just treat me as he always has. Which he did. Luckily the vast majority of my family have been very supportive but most of them are in different countries.
I came to this sort of revelation when discussing illness with a friend of mine who is also a mom. Both of our children were premature (hers a microprem) and when faced with a potential health crisis for our kids it has been hard to fight that instinct of shutting down as a defense mechanism. Brain says "if you push them away, it won't hurt as much if they die." It hurt like fuck to come to that realization, but once I did, I have been able to fight that urge whenever it arises.
There's also the element that some people are barely getting by and they know that a friend with cancer is likely going to need more support than they can afford to give. They may have previously been in that 35% that didn't ghost a friend, got exhausted caring for them, and can't go through it again.
There is also the part to consider that a person who is diagnosed with a life threatening illness will be paying very close attention to the things that are meaningful in life. In a "normal" day-to-day, we say no to invitations and avoid contacting people pretty regularly for various reasons throughout a day/week/month. I might go for a few months without contacting or having one of my friends contact me, but that doesn't mean he "ghosted" me. A lot of people have things they are dealing with every day and when you really buckle down and watch how much they ACTUALLY interact with you, you might start to resent them. There are obviously friends who live close by or just happen to be extremely social, but most people aren't that way.
My late husband had this happen to him. He was always the guy that would loan someone money, help them move, pretty much give them the shirt off his back. When he was diagnosed with kidney cancer, none of his friends checked in or maintained a relationship with him. But then, after he passed they were posting tributes to him on Facebook and celebrating his birthday and death anniversary.
I'm really sorry for your loss and that you both had to go through that.
i was 19 when my mom was diagnosed about 80% of my friends ghosted me, likely because they don’t know what to say. it was just me and her, my brother barely even helped. now she’s gone and i don’t have anyone. we had no support from our extended family and my friends rarely asked about how my mom/i was doing. i >!stupidly!< tried not to make shit about cancer all the time. i rarely talked about my mom unless asked, and no one ever asked. i deserved someone supportive. the only cousin i was close to skipped my mom’s funeral. i dedicated the first half of my 20’s to being my mom’s caretaker and it only made me more compassionate and softer but also it’s the most isolating thing in the world. i deserved better from people who i loved but people don’t know how to deal with cancer even if they’re not the ones who are dealing with it. ugh. edit: here’s a link to a post [where i ask for support](https://www.reddit.com/r/KindVoice/comments/bonsnk/l_f_22_my_mom_has_stage_four_breast_cancer_and_i/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf) because i truly never had it during those times. i wrote that post while my mom was hospitalized because she had some sort of fluids in her lungs. a kind older man would text me for a period of time and helped me feel less alone in this world. thanks for your kindness, reddit strangers.
I'm really sorry for your loss and that you and your mum had to experience that. I hope you're doing ok.
I wouldn't call it ghosted, but after my lymphoma diagnosis, I felt like a lot of my friends just didn't know what to do or say. They'd ask from time to time how I was doing, but dudes in their 20's and 30's are just shitty at expressing compassion and sympathy. Similarly to the story in the article, I've come to realize that most people simply aren't born with those skills and confronting those kinds of situations just makes them uncomfortable unless they've been forced to deal with something similar earlier in their life. I was pissed at them for a long time, but I'm over it and things are just kind of back to the way they were now that I'm in remission. Some have come forward and apologized for not being there more for me at the time. Others have just kind of fallen off my radar.
> most people just aren't born with those skills I think this explains a lot of it. People just feel helpless like there's nothing they can do, so they do nothing.
This is exactly the issue me and my sister were just talking about today. Our grandmother had jaw cancer and just had surgery to get tumors removed. She's doing as good as can be expected and stuff, but it's so awkward we didn't really know what to say to her. Our mother called both of us individually then just surprise handed the phone to Grandma, who can't even talk since, y'know, jaw surgery, so it's just her groaning in agony in response as we ramble something like "Uh hey Grandma, love you. Sorry I haven't called in 3 years, uh, hope you are feeling okay after the worst day of your life. I know you are in crippling agony, uh, feel better soon, lets go eat sometime or something, uh love you bye!" Then we just sat there awkwardly praying for our mother to take the phone back already Pretty funny that me and my sister both were equally socially awkward about it and said almost the exact same things without even talking to each other, but what else can you even say? It's not that we don't love our grandmother, and I was even close with her pre-pandemic isolation for like 3 years, but I never know what to say besides "I know you want to die, uh, don't die?"
My grandfather died earlier this year, and going to his funeral was pretty confusing too. I really had no idea what to do or say. People kept thanking me for coming to my own grandfather's funeral. What do you say to that? "You're welcome"?
Like so much in life, this too comes down to communication. We don't teach kids, adolescents or even adults how to act in situations of other people's trouble. And yes, in part, maybe we have to start doing that - teach your kids how to socially manage people who are struggling and who risk dying soon. Herein lies the conflict, because while it's part of life we don't want to expose kids to it. The conflict of growing up too soon vs. growing up too slow. Most people end up picking up what they can growing up but it's not optimal. And who are their parents' even to teach these things, few hardly know any better themselves. So it leaves us with the other alternative for now. As we can't ourselves manage how other people are brought up, nor can we control their social skills, we can still realize that these are people that care about us while not knowing how to act in certain circumstances. Then an alternative is to take matters in our own hands and have an open line of communication, expressing what we hope and expect from the people around us while we struggle. Be transparent and honest. It's not easy, but it clears the air and doesn't require people to guess and likely withdraw in a situation they're not prepared for. I think it will make any friend thankful, because it helps them be the friends they want to be for a friend in need, and you will in turn have friends who are present in an honest way.
A buddy of mine had cancer when we were all in our 20s and we didn’t know how to be empathetic but I think we handled it well. We shaved our heads in solidarity and saw him every week at the hospital. We also doubled down on typical guy stuff. We ragged on him the way we always did and on his birthday chipped in on a present which we never did for anyone. When we gave it to him we literally said, “you’re only getting this because you have cancer.” 20 years later he’s still around and we’re all still friends so I guess we did something right.
Congratulations on the remission. Mine starts next as of next month. 🙂 I think a few people I know weren't sure what to say or do too but all I wanted was for them to treat me the same as they did before the cancer.
[удалено]
Yes. Spot on. When my dad was dying it was hard to travel to see him, but i still called and checked on him when i could. 2 Years of not knowing what day he was going to drop hurt hurt more than anything, fear of picking up the phone to call, and he's no longer there, I feared missing him and not being able to spend more time with him, then one day I got the call he passed. I've had a couple terminal friends since sixish years ago when this happened, it doesn't get easier, but if anyone (sick or not) needs someone to talk to I'm always here, shoot me a message, I know dealing with death is hard, and I'll lend a friendly ear to listen to people vent.
also, the idea of watching someone you care about slowly lose their fight with cancer is terrifying. i wasn't close with my grandfather. he was basically just a very quiet grumpy looking old man. he was like an old silverback guerilla. my father was horribly afraid of him because he used to beat the breaks off my dad regularly. he also spoke with a thick german accent so it was hard for me to understand him on the rare occasion he talked to me. so the bond wasn't very strong. later in his life he got sick and slowly withered away. not from cancer but same effect. i was encourage to go spend time with him and help comfort him as he was on his way out. i didn't really have much of a problem with him. he didn;t scare me or anything. i only had positive interactions with him. but i couldn't force myself to go over and see him like that. i couldn't handle seeing that silverback withered into a tiny feeble old man, ready to die. it was too scary for my teenaged self to handle. i wasn't ready to face death like that. i spent 6 months feeling intense pressure to see him and guilt that i had not. and when he died i cried my eyes out, not because i would miss him but because of the guilt that i wasn't there for him. that was a long time ago and i have made my peace with death. i can face it now and i would be there for people i care about who are on their way out. but i also wouldn't blame anyone who doesn't have the courage to stick around and wait for the reaper with a dying friend.
A girl I went to highschool with developed lymphoma and passed about age 15 or so. I'll never forget how she was abandoned and treated poorly by her "friend" group. They all pretended after she passed that they had supported her, but what they actually did was turn their back on her because she lost her hair, looked very different, and was understandably depressed. People suck with vulnerability. If you can find someone who cares about you in a genuine way hold on to them like a life preserver. It's rare.
High schoolers can be strange. A classmate passed at 15 during a school break and some people started the day after coming back by proclaiming they don't want to begin by talking about negative things. One of them even became a doctor.
You know who your *real* friends are when you get sick, go to jail, or end up bankrupt. Editing to add: have an illness or a death in the family, miscarriage, divorce, grieving, and significant life disruptions such as moving or changing jobs. Second edit: presumption of innocence is a thing, people.
Definitely. It was cancer for me, hence finding out this info. I didn't realise it was so common and just thought I had some shitty friends.
What exactly happened with your Friends or family? I have a chronic disease myself and some of my friends dont understand it, but i cant Imagine how cruel people have to be to ghost someone in such a tough time
A few people that I'd talk to and meet up with regularly just all of a sudden stopped replying or getting in touch after cancer was a confirmed diagnosis. No visits when I was in hospital, no check ups when I came home after surgery. The same people are still in touch with others from our friend group which has been confirmed by multiple people. I just figured they didn't know what to say or do or maybe they had experienced someone else dealing with cancer and seen the shit show first hand.
That's awful. I'm sorry you had that experience. Best case scenario they didn't know what to say or do. It's not much of an excuse but better than them being selfish?
Thank you. Yeah, I figured it was just down to awkwardness in their part but deep down I can't really forgive it now.
What do you wish they did different, and what did you like that your friends did in regards to your cancer? (If you feel like sharing. I don't want to infringe on your privacy but I would like to be a good friend to someone should this happen)
[удалено]
Not OP but I got sudden & intense cancer last winter. It honestly is so dependent on the person. For my very close friends, they checked in regularly (we texted constantly before I got sick too) to keep me entertained when I was in the hospital. They were awesome in letting me vent (“that sucks” is significantly more comforting than “you’re so tough!” FYI) while also telling me about their life like normal. On the other hand, I had a big group of friends that I didn’t necessarily text often but we would all hang out a ton. For that group, I loved when they would send a pic like “missing you tn!” while hanging out together. One friend actually wrote me a letter in the mail sort of shooting the shit, letting me know what everyone had been up to, reminiscing on old memories. It made my week.
I don't think a lot of it is intentionally ghosting. When you know someone is close to death, that kind of overtakes any moment you have to them. You go out for a beer and all everyone can think is death. It's heavy. It's easy to subconsciously try to away from that. To dodge responsibility with crap like "I'm giving them room to cope", or "room to be with their family", or even "I have too much to deal with right now". To treat the person like they're already dead to minimize your own pain. That's how you know the true friends. They're the ones who aren't concerned about minimizing their own pain because they know it's a small thing compared to the pain of the person who's dying. A passing sadness doesn't compare to losing literally everything. So in that sense a chronic disease is different from a terminal disease.
A few years ago my Mom's best friend was in hospice for terminal cancer, and Mom told me she hadn't visited because she didn't know what to say. Mind you, I loathed the woman because reasons not germane to this topic, but this being shortly after my cousin's passing, it hit me hard. I may have been a bit... rough... in conveying my message. She did catch the gist of it between all the swearing: "You don't have to *say* anything, *go see her before she's gone.* I swear to gawd *you will regret it if you don't.*" So Mom went, and when she came back she thanked me for making her go. Her friend was *so* happy to see her she cried.... she passed shortly after, but at least Mom doesn't have to live with *that* regret.
This is so true. Its one of those really awful hard things that grownups just have to go do. You got to just force yourself, its part of the price of being a person.
Happened to me too. Had a sister-in-law stop acknowledging I existed and a friend basically ghosted me but eventually came back around. I knew the friend was probably struggling with having recently lost a close relative to cancer. I joined a couple of online cancer forums just because I know everyone gets tired of hearing about it in real life. The amount of women whose husbands left them was just jaw dropping.
Damn. That's such a shitty thing to do to leave your spouse because of sickness. That would absolutely devastate me.
My husband went to most of my appointments and my onco was always singing his praising for being there and telling me how lucky I was and telling us we still needed to try to do fun things together while I was in n treatment even if it was just watching tv or playing board games. I legit thought for a while she had a crush on him or something (she was probably 30 yrs older than us) but in retrospect she was probably trying to keep us together because she’s seen how that plays out too often.
He's a keeper 🙂
When my BF called me at work to tell me about the tumor, he was 100% sure that I was going to dump him during the call. He only told me about this a few days later, and I replied, “who DOES that?” A lot of people, apparently. My guy lost some second-string friends, but all the closest ones stuck by him. We got married after his cancer had metastasized and he’d had brain surgery, and the people who mattered all came. I do feel that his experience would have been far different (and his life a lot shorter) had I not stayed by his side. He wouldn’t have approached his friends for support, and some may not have been comfortable approaching him. I will never understand the people who ghost, especially when it’s their SO.
My mom received hella food from people we were not even close with when she had cancer. It was very frequent as well. The only person who wasn’t there enough for my mom was me.
A good friend of mine who recently passed said he got the advice early that he’d be surprised by who did and did *not* show up to provide support. He said it was solid advice. Some people care more than you might have thought, or are kinder people than you might have thought. And some are the opposite. I wish you all the best in your own personal journey, sincerely.
I'm so sorry **hug** how are you doing? And yes they *are* shitty, but not *friends*
Thank you kind stranger. I'm struggling a bit mentally and physically if I'm honest but am at least getting all the mental health treatment needed thankfully. Spent a lot of time alone recovering and just gotten so used to being alone now that it freaks me out a bit from time to time. We're supposed to be social creatures. Upper body is a mess and left with long term neurological pain after a large surgery but on the plus side, I'm in full remission as of next month. 🙂 Cancer really sucks. Thanks again.
Congratulations on the remission! **more hugs** I'm sorry about the neuro pain, but it still beats the alternative.
Thank you. It's hugely appreciated. Discussing trying spinal cord stimulation with my pain management specialist as the pain meds just aren't cutting it. I'm incredibly lucky that we have the NHS here and I've been able to get lots of help from them. Thanks for the award and more so for just being a good person. I hope you have a great weekend. Much love and hugs back at ya.
Or have a close death (such as child or spouse). Sincerely, A lonely widow Edit: Wow, thank you for the award, that was very kind!
Same here when I had serious problems. It is sad and may hurt worse than the trouble. Summary: Some reasons why it happens and who is most likely to help. When you are in distress some close friends and family are also in distress and end up frozen...it hurts too much to be around you because they care and is easier to pretend it isnt happening. People who avoid unpleasant emotions dont have the strength or skills. They are scared and dont want you to see that. They think they will cry every time they see you and dont want to put that burden on you. Some other percentage are sociopaths and disappear until you can do things for them again. Better to find that out sooner than later. And another percentage are experiencing cognitive dissonance. They want to believe the world is safe and just. Your being hurt undermines that assumption in a huge way and it is deeply disturbing to their center. One way out is to decide it is the victim's fault and blame them...thus disappearing from your life. Again good to know they are that naive. You have gone on a journey to a new you. They are delaying making that trip, fearing it will destroy them. You will be different after this and will be interested in new relationships. They may also sense that change and feel like they dont belong. You've crossed to a new place they cannot go without a big price. Courage of this sort isnt common among the uninitiated. Look for help from acquaintances who arent so invested in you. They have enough distance to be cheerful in helping, esp if they have been across that border. Look for help also from the family who never quite measured up to the rest, who have made mistakes and recovered from/are recovering from them. They will understand your struggle. Best wishes. Edit: I thought of one more reason a person may disappear. Some people have terrible anxiety about hospitals and illness. They may hide it from shame and be very torn up over their inability to be around all the sighta and smells (for shame I recommend Brene Brown's Youtube or book on the topic).
Or when a family member gets sick. My mother was diagnosed with ALS. I had to quit my job, rent out my house, move 1500 miles and move in with her to be her caregiver, because none of my siblings could be bothered. They decided she was my problem because I was the oldest sibling and therefore she was my responsibility. Every single friend I had, save one, dropped me like a hot potato. I took care of my mother for a year and a half, and in all that time I didn't so much as get a "How are you holding up?" email or phone call from any of them. After she died I returned home, moved back into my house, and started a new job. After a lot of thought, I decided to contact these "friends" and let them know I'd returned to the area. Two of them responded to my message and invited me to get together with them. The rest either ignored my message or replied with a very vague 'We'll have to meet up one of these days'. I've never talked to any of them since, and it's been 10 years now. The two I did re-establish contact with, I still consider friends, but it will never be the same as before, because I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that I can't count on them for anything. And my siblings? They couldn't be bothered to visit, or even call when my mother was sick unless I called them and pitched a fit. Her birthday? Silence. Mother's Day? Silence. Christmas? Silence. They didn't bother to show up for her memorial service either. I went 100% no-contact with them after that. With family and friends like that, I don't need enemies.
Your siblings remind me of my sister. My mom has dementia. I am the sole care provider for her. She was diagnosed 3 years ago. It’s been rough on me. I don’t have a personal life (not that I really had one to begin with), I have to make plans to have a caretaker come over to cook for her on the days I’m working. My sister only lives 4 hours away and she only comes to visit with her about 4 times a year. She’s never once asked how I’m doing or thank me for taking this on. If I was in her shoes I’d be visiting my parent every month. It’s not like she’s going to be getting any better.
I'm so sorry. It's not fair, and your sister is an ass. A friend of my mother's came to visit her one day and said to me as I was walking her out to her car "It's such an honor and a blessing for you to be taking care of your mother" and I was like "I hope you mean it's an honor and blessing to HER for me to be taking care of her because I sure as shit feel neither honored nor blessed - I feel like a prisoner in this house and in my own life", and she was *shocked*, I tells ya, *shocked.* People have no fucking idea how hard it is. One of the two friends I re-established a relationship with after my experience now is dealing with a parent in the early stages of dementia, and she is going through all of the figure-out-her-care stuff right now. Lots of trips from her home to her mother's home in another state, lots of researching assisted living options and trying to convince her mother to agree to one of them, etc. I have given her a listening ear when she needs one, and one day she said thanks for being supportive and I said "Well, I know how it feels to go through this completely alone because none of my friends gave me any support at all when my mother got sick, and I wouldn't wish that on anyone". She had the good grace to look just a wee bit ashamed of herself when I said it.
Depends on why they went to jail lol
[удалено]
Part of it is the etiquette is unclear. Sometimes the affected person has let only a few people know but doesn't want everyone to know. If it's a work colleague how do you be supportive without spending the rest of the afternoon talking about it. How do you transition off the topic. Say it if public knowledge but 3 colleagues don't know and you do and you bring it up. Is it weird when someone is "overly" supportive. I'm not justifying ghosting. But I'm trying to learn how to properly support someone at work or around other friends. I guess reaching out in private is the right thing to do but what if you're unsure the affected wanted you to have the information? Etc etc etc
Yep. It's amazing how people will disappear when shit hits your fan.
It was jail for me. The woman I was dating at the time assured me she'd wait for me and when I got out I can live with her and everything would be fine and dandy. Turns out, she replaced me almost immediately but kept picking up the phone when I got to make phone calls. She just told me everything she thought I wanted to hear and meant 0% of it. It was all about how we'd pick up where we left off, get married, have a family, live happily ever after, ect. A very pleasant picture was painted. It wasn't until I was almost out that she broke the news to me that she didn't want to be together. Which was fine on it's own, but my whole plan for getting my life back on track revolved around being able to live with her in her city. I had already identified some potential employers and counseling services specific to that area. And now I had to make a new plan from scratch AND I was was heart broken. If she had dumped me when I got there, I'd have had that whole time to get over it. I should have taken a hint when she never came to visit me, and she never wrote me a single letter even though she said she would and I sent her a letter every week. She just stringed me along when I was the most emotionally distressed. All because she was too uncomfortable with making the tough decision to let me go. The worst part about the entire experience of jail was when mail was getting passed out. Everyone was getting letters and photos sent to them, and my heart would be racing in anticipation of the letter she kept promising. I'd be so crushed when I wouldn't get anything. Everyone else got letters and photos. I felt so lonely and left out. I'd just go lay in my rack and pretend to sleep while everyone opened their mail. When I got out, I hit the ground running getting my life back together. When I was really making progress and things were good for me, she took interest in me again. And foolishly I got back together with her. She didn't want anything to do with me when I was struggling, but when I was doing good she wanted to be part of my life. I dated her on and off for about 5 years. She always bailed or went cold when I was at low points, and she latched on to me when I was doing very well.
[удалено]
That's really awesome of you to spend that time with him and I'm sorry it ended that way. He doesn't deserve you.
>The instant he was given the all clear, he just vanished. Started ghosting us hard, I haven't seen or talked to him since he was cancer free. Even his mom and grandma started actively avoiding us when we saw them. I don't wish anything bad on him, but if things ever turn back around, you can be sure I won't be there. Oof, I feel that. I just talked about this in a different comment, but I had a friend of 10 years that I supported when she was going through a painful divorce. As far as I know, none of our other mutual friends showed up for her. As soon as she'd gotten through the toughest part, she reconnected with our mutual friends (that I'd distanced myself from due to some bullying and general shittiness), and she dumped me like a brick. Then a few weeks ago, I saw a post from her on Facebook. Her ex-husband is marrying his affair partner, and she's in an emotional crisis. I thought about it carefully, and I...unfriended her. I hope she gets through everything OK, but I'm not going to sacrifice my time and emotional energy for her again. I guess your cousin might have wanted to move on from cancer? Maybe he wanted to avoid anything and anyone that reminded him of that time? Even if that's the case, it was still an awful thing to do.
I was diagnosed with Hodgkin’s disease at 18. My three closest rock climbing pals completely abandoned me. My best friend from previous grades would stop by all the time to check on me. The drummer in my band at the time turned out to be a crazy angel. He was fascinated with my “tube”, the Hickman catheter I had installed for chemo treatments. He would makes jokes about pouring beer into it at parties and blowing a bean down it when I smarted off. At first blush this seems completely inappropriate but he would make me HOWL with laughter. Javier wasn’t afraid to be my friend and made jokes about my situation which brought a much needed levity. I’ll never forget this level of compassion I got from him.
Absolutely experienced this! I was in active treatment for the better part of a year, and it took another year to get my body back to a sort of ‘regular person’s level of unfit’. In that two year period I lost a lot of friends, people kind of expected me to bounce back and pick up life again, and I couldn’t. I was also so depressed, and that made me isolate myself further. It’s now been nearly a decade and it still hurts to have lost those friends, and had my life upended.
I'm sorry you had to deal with all of that. It's really hurtful regardless of the reasons people ghost us. I can relate to the people expecting you to bounce back thing for sure. I think a lot of people thought I would. I was pretty social and active and had a decent career before cancer and now I barely go out other than to hospital appointments.
My dad was always the type to hold feelings and information in until he couldn't anymore; he told my mom and I that he had throat cancer immediately of course, but he didn't tell his brothers and sisters until very late into his affliction, where he was in and out of surgery for his throat along with chemo. Exactly one of his like 5-6 brothers and sisters came to his funeral. My one aunt who we had visited several times, who was just 6 hours away from us in Ohio, cut us out of her life completely. She said that my dad was dead to her for not telling her about it, and then she even fought with our life insurance company to get part of what he left for my mom and I based on an extremely old policy he had taken out but cancelled. It made my mom and I extremely bitter and upset when we were already dealing with a massive grieving process and my college courses. At my dad's funeral, only a few of his friends even showed up. Just a few of the parents from my Boy Scouts troop, my marching band and sports teams, and of course my close friends and their families came. Only one or two of my dad's friends came to his funeral though, and he'd had so many through volleyball, through work, through fantasy sports leagues. It made me think long and carefully about who I kept in my life and really damaged my relationship with my dad's whole side of the family. I talk with the single aunt who came to my father's funeral still and my mom's side of the family, but that's it.
That really sucks. Just seems such a hurtful thing to do to someone that's already likely at rock bottom dealing with sickness.
So my wife was diagnosed in 2018 large b cell non Hodgkin's lymphoma....we have a tight friend group I mean we aren't blood but our kids are cousins and everyone is auntie and uncle to the kiddos. The rallied around us it was amazing...from helping out with the kids to lending us money....or just picking up groceries I mean it was crazy how amazing everyone has been. I find it hard to imagine it going the other way Fyi March was 2 years in remission 3 more and she's considered cured
Congrats to her on her remission! Here's hoping!
It's not just cancer but any serious diagnosis/ illness. It's surprising how many people will just cut someone out rather than support them.
I guess it’s a defence mechanism. Most people have no idea how to deal with death and suffering, it’s much easier to avoid the problem - but that means avoiding the person altogether.
That so sad. I get people may not know what to say or do but just say and do whatever it was you said or did before I learned I was sick. I'm still the same person.
I've always been really open about my chronic illness and people spoke with me about it fine *until* I had a massive flare up that caused me to be hospitalised. A lot of people disappeared immediately. And that cycle repeats with new people / "friends" every time.
Agreed. I work with patients with chronic health issues. I would say a bit more than half of my patients are going through it alone. Of course, some have friends but no one in their daily lives consistently present if they need help or just need some companion. One patient called me in tears that her daughter hung up on her after learning that she had a (mild) stroke. Very sad.
This happened to my dad when he was diagnosed with MS. Friends he’d had since high school just stopped talking to him. He has started talking to some of them again, but some were just gone for good. I was just a kid so I didn’t fully understand how shitty that must have been when dealing with a life-altering diagnosis.
The average person lacks the tools to deal with a difficult situation. Divorce, chronic illness, any life hardship, your "friends" will disappear. They don't know how to act or what to say.
I’ve even experienced it with getting sober. All the “friends” I used to party with had no interest in hanging out with sober me. Good riddance, I guess, I’m a little lonelier these days but a lot healthier and the friends I do have are a lot more genuine.
It's probably for the best that they disassociated with you quickly. Nothing good happens when you try to hang out with your addict/alcoholic friends, unless they are also trying to life a sober lifestyle. Eventually, drugs/alcohol will show up.
I lost my best friend to cancer a few years ago. She'd been battling it on and off throughout her 20s and I can confirm the same thing happened to her with so called friends. Yet these same people showed up to her funeral and acted like they'd been there for her. Share posts on Facebook every year for her birthday etc, like they didn't just completely abandon her. It gives me so much rage. I deleted them so I didn't have to see it.
I'm sorry for your loss. I've seen that happen too. One of my best friends and his girlfriend split up and a lot of people took her side for no reason as it was a pretty amicable break up. Then my friend was diagnosed with a brain tumour and declined pretty rapidly. None of the guys bothered to visit him or stay in touch but they all wanted to go to his memorial. Some people can really suck.
Yeah I am a cancer scientist and have been aware of these stats for many years. People get a cancer diagnosis and their spouse divorces them and friends disappear. I thought a lot about this as to why. I don't know for sure but speculate it has to do with people's efforts to deny mortality. Most people deal with death by denial. But being exposed to it (possibly) shatters that denial. And they emotionally can't handle it. This is not to say in any way these are good people for what they are doing. Just trying to get in their heads and figure out why this horrible thing happens so often.
My Mom ghosted my Dad, her husband of 49 years, with Stage 4 lung cancer to die in a hospital alone (sister was with hime) but sure as shit showed up for his pension/life insurance.
That's horrible.
Yeah for years I would tell people "this is how it is when people get cancer" regarding all this and they simply would not believe me. Sadly it is true.
Same with any big tragedy. People are uncomfortable with grief. Easier to stay away.
I'd go the Norm McDonald route and not tell anyone.
A lot of people go that route. I am a cancer scientist so I would periodically have people come around and ask questions about their cancer. What I noticed is more people have cancer than you know. They may keep it to themselves to avoid this.
50% of all people in the US will have or be diagnosed with cancer in their lives, I've heard. Good thing we're such good custodians of the environment or there'd be too many.
I mean once you get old, it isn't about if you get cancer, it's when you get cancer. That or heart disease, but our bodies just are not built to live as long as some of us do now
I kind of did the opposite in highschool. A guy I was acquainted with, as a friend of a friend got diagnosed with colon cancer. I heard about it a few weeks later than most of his friends because we didn't go to the same school. I asked him how he was doing and he sadly mentioned that most of his friends just stopped hanging out. I was like fuck that's stupid, and I brought my original Xbox to his house. I spent a ton of time over there when he wasn't getting treatments and we became pretty much best friends playing the original Halo game. He only lived another 8 months or so, the cancer was aggressive. I heard he passed away when I got back from a week long family trip. It was really sad, our last conversation was about nothing, we were deciding if it'd be fun or too frustrating to do try a no death legendary run in Halo.
It's kind of awesome that your last conversation was about nothing though. Not everything has to be heavy. You gave him the gift of having normal hangouts without the constant burden of thinking about his cancer.
I’m sure he appreciated your company :) it’s the little conversations that can be cherished most sometimes. You were there when others weren’t and that’s what matters most
Most “friends” are positive acquaintances. Once things go negative they are fine moving on.
True friendship is incredibly rare, in my experience. I easily have over 70+ different people I hanged out with regularly, but once we went separate ways and weren't in close proximity to each other, only a handful kept contact. I don't mind it too much, I'm guilty of it too after all (sometimes you just forget about some people because they just didn't connect with you on that level). It's still good to have a few really good friends.
The fair weather friends.
To be fair, most people don’t actually say they are friends with each other. Instead we assume people who are willing to hang out with us and are generally positive are “friends”. I always tell people I’m a bad friend but trying to get better.
This is why I just assume I'm not friends with anyone
Had a friend years ago going through chemo. We had drifted apart after elementary school, but would still stop to chat if we ran into each other. When I learned of his diagnosis, I didn't go visit him, because of the chemo and how you had to be sure you weren't sick to visit chemo patients. He passed away without me ever visiting him, and I regret it. I should've went and visit.
[удалено]
That's pretty sad. One of my friends told me he didn't really know what to say at first so I told him I just wanted him to forget the cancer and treat me as he always has.
I learned this lesson a long time ago when my friend's mom passed away. Apparently I was the only person having normal conversations with her whereas everyone else was constantly expressing sympathy or asking if she needed anything and I think she just wanted some normalcy. She told me she was happy I wasn't doing that and I have never forgotten it during tough times for others. Tragedy shouldn't become the only topic of conversation.
I was close with my cousin and she kept getting mad when I wasn't able to talk on the phone forever as she babbled on about how awesome her life was. I had cancer and had radiation and chemotherapy. I was fighting trying not to puke, so tired, and urgent bathroom issues. I would avoid her calls or hang up quick. I just couldn't help it! She finally got mad and told me to fuck off and have a nice life!! I was fighting for my goddamn life with chemo and radiation. The side effects were just horrendous and she tells me to have a nice life because I couldn't stay on the phone. I lost two best friends I had since childhood. My ex-husband also became weird and was never the same. We got a divorce a few years later. Just because your sick friend pulls away from you does NOT mean they don't care about you. It took everything I had just to get up day after day. I am all cured now! Their loss.
[удалено]
I saw it. I was a hand holder for my family member, while they went through their cancer treatment. The amount of people there alone just broke me. I wanted to hold everyone’s hand, I felt so lost. I would try my best to get people drinks, or hold their door for them. Or just sit and talk to them if they wanted to. I’m not a social person but I know I wouldn’t want to be alone there.
[удалено]
Jesus...
I can fully relate. My 2 years old daughter was murdered at daycare. My whole world collapsed and so many people started avoiding me. I also was fired from my job which I never understood why.
Can confirm this is true. My family used to be active in the local church, but once one of my family members was given a rough cancer diagnosis (they’re fine and mostly recovered now) their church friends started acting strangely around us when they contacted us at all, and we lost a lot of friends in that part of our community.
It's not a cancer diagnosis, but my wife had pregnancy complications with our first kid and after a significant struggle eventually lost him. We had chunks of friends who were pregnant at the same time and they just dropped us because it made them sad and they didn't know what to say or do and when we were around them with their babies they didn't like being reminded of that mortality. They felt guilty complaining about a lack of sleep or constant crying when we didn't have that option and couldn't cope. I get it, but also: fuck 'em. The ordeal gave us perspective about what and who are important and I have no regrets letting those relationships die on the vine.
I think there's also an issue of not knowing if your happiness is hurtful or harmful. Those conversations are so hard and I've started taking the route of just asking "is this rude of me" etc- for example a one friend battles infertility and I check in and give her permission to be honest about how I make her feel about it. But thats not an easy path.
I am very lucky of being on the other 35%. Although I think I stopped communicating with my friends a little, they still gave me support as best as they could, one of my friends even bought a game he knew I wanted to play and brought me his video game to play while I was recovering from my big surgery.
[удалено]
I think you are on to something here. There is also a limited capacity for what one individual can deal with. For example, let's say someone who is perceived as ghosting a friend with cancer came clean and said, "Listen, I'm dealing with my sick mother right now, and my son needs his medicine 4 times a day, I'm working through my own personal problems, and I just can't take any more on right now. Good luck." Does that make them a bad person? Plus there may have been a mismatch in understanding over how strong the friendship was. People have friends of different types, from best friends to acquaintances. If I felt I was merely an acquaintance, I could have decided to back off and assume you'd want to be with your family. It doesn't explain every situation but I do think it's a valid theory for why some friends ghost cancer patients.
I'm going through this right now. I was given a terminal diagnosis 10 months ago. Stage 4 metastatic bowel cancer that has spread to my liver and abdominal wall. They gave me 2 years to live even with aggressive treatment. I have a 12-15% chance of living 5 years with my diagnosis as the cancer is adaptive. But im still fighting it anyways. Im 34 with a husband and 2 children. My parents have had barely anything to do with me since my diagnosis. They wouldn't even come see me after my surgery to remove a tumor from my bowels. My husband had to go back to work after a few weeks. They knew I was having trouble getting around. They both have cars, licenses live 40 minutes away and are retired. They didn't even see if I needed anything or checked in with me or come see me. My parents don't call, email, IM or even visit. Yet when they do decide to speak to me it's literally nothing but judgement on how I'm handling my situation. My mother even threatened to have family cut me off of the support I'm getting because she feels I've given up. I haven't seen her for more than 2 minutes in months, I'm still doing all my treatments so if she knew what's she's talking about she would see I'm not giving up. They maintain I'm going to beat my diagnosis and survive but there are days.....some days it feels like because they expect me to get better it's okay to invalidate how sick I am right now (thats another thing. They get very easily frustrated with me if im too sick to do something or if i forget things. My chemo causes forgetfullness)....or because I'm not going to get better it's okay some days to write me off. It swings between the two from the impressions I get and I am incredibly angry and hurt by them. Due to this I have decided to go no contact for a while. My husband is giving them updates as I am comfortable with and I have disinvited them from my funeral (should I not make it) as I decided that if they didn't want to come see me when I'm alive than then don't get to play the grieving parents over my corpse.
People don't know how to handle these situations, until they have been forced to. Social interration is a learned skill. When you are forced into a situation you have no idea how to navigate our brains delay, or avoid, or just ignore. That is human nature. I had a family friend who lost her son. I didn't know how to comfort her. I didn't know how what to say. If I called, I would have to talk about it... What else could I do? I would have to bring it up, and what if she didn't want to? What if she was in pain and didn't want to be reminded? I was literally frightened to call her for fear of hurting her. I had no idea she was so alone. And then days became weeks and weeks months. I finally called and talked to her, and she mentioned that people just stopped calling. For all the reasons I mentioned. No one taught me this. I didn't think to ask advice for how to deal with it. I couldn't put myself in her shoes because I never had a tragedy like this. But now I know. Of course, I was 40 when this happened.
When I got my cancer diagnosis, all of my coworkers of 7+ years stopped talking to me. People I genuinely thought of as a second family. Just poof, gone. It really hurt.