After being diagnosed with stage IV stomach cancer in my thirties, I started a blog to keep my family and friends informed. It is well read by those who love and care about me. I quickly found out however, that if I posted how crappy I was feeling from treatment, or that'd I'd been crying, I got all these pitiful responses. I couldn't take it; they just made me feel worse. Especially if I posted on a Monday when I was feeling awful, but the person didn't comment until Thursday, when I was feeling fairly good.
My second reason for posting anonymously, is that I am a pretty upbeat person and I grew up with a family that tried very hard not to talk about things that might upset someone else. This has made it hard to be completely transparent about the realities of stage IV cancer. I needed an outlet for these emotions, without knowing that my mother and aunts and uncles were reading them.
Which brings me to a caveat. I will only share this blog with a few friends. A few more may figure it out from googling about young women with stomach cancer. If you are in the know about my true identity, please realize that this is not being shared with everyone, so if you bump into my parents or something, please don't say anything.
I have thought about blogging about what it is like to be a caregiver but I fear the backlash from my family.
ReplyDeleteI totally recommend blogging anonymously. I'm glad to give some advice if you need it.
DeleteThe question I have is, do you WANT to be more transparent with your family even if they have a history of privacy about negative emotions or whatever it is. My guess is that they would love to talk to you about it. People change and need different things as time goes by. If you want to, take the chance that they do too.
ReplyDelete