Protecting others from the negatives of my diagnosis

So, I see an amazing counselor at Roswell who has been absolutely wonderful throughout everything. During our session today, I realized that my balancing act of always countering the bad with good was about protecting everyone around me so they didn't worry as much. That doesn't mean that the positives aren't true. It just means that I'm intentionally using them to make other people feel better about my cancer, my treatments and my symptoms. I don't want people around me to feel bad because of me. 

I'm totally going to continue doing this but I'm going to try to do it less with people in my inner circle. On here, however, I'm going to protect. Because I want people reading this who may be recently diagnosed to know what to expect in all aspects. During treatment, we have bad days and good days. Frequently the bad days outnumber the good days and the "good" in "good days" is directly related to the "bad" in "bad days". My "good" chemo days would not be the same as good days when I'm not in chemo because I still don't feel great, my brain just randomly shuts down on me, and I can't do nearly as much as I can do on normal days when I'm not in chemo.

If you are someone who is not going through this but know someone who is, don't try to force them to be more positive about it all because some days you just need to let yourself feel how crappy it is. But you can see if you can do anything to help make the less sucky days better. Yes, being positive can have a huge impact on how people tolerate the treatments and helping them get to the other side of them to get rid of the cancer altogether but when other people try to remind you of the good things with the intentional of trying to get you to feel better about it while also not knowing how crappy it all is, it's so frustrating.

It's interesting that I feel the need to make others feel better about my cancer diagnosis and treatment when other people want to help me feel better about everything. I don't want others to feel bad for me. I don't want pity. I also like talking about the cancer stuff because right now, that is my life. It's also really interesting. There are so many cool new developments in cancer research, treatment and detection that I wouldn't know about if I did't have cancer. So, the balancing act helps me be able to actually talk about the cancer stuff without drawing pity from those around me.

And I really am OK.