#theunkillablebitchseries

[theunkillablebitchseries]

8. Pandemic + Survivorship = All the Feels

So it’s been a really long while. So for anyone living under a rock or on a game show that keeps you in one house. Here’s the news- globally we are experiencing a pandemic of COVID-19 aka the Coronavirus. Supposedly it first popped off in Wuhan, China and then made it’s happy little way to Europe, other parts of Asia and the Americas. 

So depending on what day your job decided you could work from home or laid you off because you work in the service/hospitality industry (yay me) and if you are heeding the calls for social distancing (as you definitely should) you are somewhere between day 4 or day 7 of quarantine. Meaning you’re socially isolating as much as possible. 

I am on day 5. 

Day 1 was fine I could feel some weird anger creeping up on me I didn’t understand.

Day 2 was okay, I tried ignoring the angry but I don’t think I was doing a good job about it. 

Day 3 I started acknowledging I was angry.

Day 4 I was so angry I didn’t even understand it. I thought my blood would thicken and burst out of me from how angry I was. 

And it did.

Day 5 is better. Now I’m more sad than angry. 

But then my angry feels sad a lot of times. I don’t know if that made any sense. 

So whenever there was something bad going on in my life, it’d always hit me the worst at night. The lack of sun, and the quiet felt almost suffocating, as though there was no escaping whatever the problem was. I think that’s why when I was sick, the times it’d hit me the hardest were at night. 

It’s no secret that when I was sick my most dominant feeling was anger. I was angry I was sick. I was angry to put my life on hold. I was angry that I had to stay home and kind of just watch the world go on without my participation. Kind of like FOMO. I’m finding that that anger is coming back full force right now. I feel like once again my life isn’t mine, that I don’t get to just be. 

The thing is that as terrible as it felt to not be able to live my life like any normal 20 year old, there was comfort in the fact that as much as it felt like it to me the world was in fact not ending. People were still living their normal lives, many of them without any real struggles, many of them with that I had no idea about. There was comfort in thinking it’s just me. My friends were fine, my family was fine (relatively), the world was still spinning and the sun would come back tomorrow. 

I would go out as much as I could when I was sick, basically until I didn't have a strong enough immune system and I was just too tired to. My outings got less and less. And I just felt angrier and angrier. Defiant might be the better word. 

I remember at the beginning of treatment I went to a concert and my oncologist was so annoyed. Not smart but I was so hard-pressed to want to give up my freedom, what felt like my whole life, regardless of how short or long the time was. And as much as my sister and parents didn’t like it, I still went out. At least the weeks when my blood counts were up. 

A cancer diagnosis felt like a big fuck you to me. As ridiculous as it sounds, going out and trying to be normal felt like one of the only ways I could say fuck you back. I didn’t want to die so I wasn’t going to deny treatment. Every painful procedure, poke and prod, all the discomfort, I just had to take it. Even though, I know for the most part it was done to get me well, it still felt like abuse. It might sound dramatic but it felt like I was some lamb being led to the slaughter. 

My desire to just go out and be normal felt like reclamation, maybe a little reckless but it felt like one of the only ways I could shake my body and remind it, 

You are mine. 

Do right by me. 

Stop. 

Be better. 

Please stop. 

please. 

But also going out just reminded me that it wasn’t the end of the world. Mine often felt like it was going under but at least it was just mine. I took comfort in the fact that this wasn’t a big deal to others aside from my friends and family. I don't know how to explain it other than it felt good to go out in the world and see strangers and assume (even if it was wrong) that they were fine, to see strangers and think my blood hasn’t changed anything about their lives, to assume they aren’t trapped or overwhelmed by the same fear as I am. I don’t think I realized just how damaging that time was in this specific way. Social distancing is hard. People shouldn’t say it isn’t. It’s hard and honestly traumatic. I’m feeling so triggered by this need to stay inside and illness being the constant topic of discussion.

So in the wake of COVID-19, and having to stay home to flatten the curve and try not to spread the virus and because my lungs aren’t all that great, I have felt that same sensation of doom, or not being able to escape time x1000. Because now it’s not just me. It’s my family, my siblings and parents and partner and friends and the whole world. I can’t go out and think, “that person probably doesn’t hold the same worry that I do,” because chances are they do. I’m angry at the fact that I feel like a cancer patient all over again, that so many of those familiar feelings of helplessness and sadness are coming back. Because I’ve worked so hard to let those go. And it’s just. A scary time I think. For everyone. But the fact that I can’t wrap my head around seeing this end, at least for my treatment there was some sort of timeline- this on the other hand does not. We just have to ride it out. And I’m hoping it ends soon.

And to get a little more personal, there’s also something to be said about the fact that for so long the only consistent touching I’d get would be from doctors and nurses and not all of it was pleasant. In the end it left me feeling like an exposed nerve, paranoid and willing to lash out at the slightest touch. For a while after treatment I hated being touched, because for so long it felt like I was just meat to be dealt with, with little dignity or gentleness. Socially isolating from someone that’s been providing that for me is strange and just sad. 

All the resentment and fear and hurt from my time as a cancer patient is bubbling up, and I’m trying to move through it by having grace for myself, being patient with my feelings and reminding myself the world still isn’t ending. The loneliness is sharp, even with my family under one roof, it’s difficult. I didn’t expect to feel this way, like I was a cancer patient again but I do. And I’m sad about it, and angered. And very much triggered. It’s not pleasant being bombarded in your head with memories and feelings from one of the worst times of your life.

I never really know how to end posts, but to anyone who’s currently dealing with cancer or is a survivor and anything that I said resonated with you just know- I see you. I know. It’s hard. I know this time of quarantine is bringing up so much unpleasantness. Be kind to yourself. Breathe. We are okay. The world is not ending even though it feels like it is. We are still in control of our lives and of our choices. I hope we choose right. To check in with our friends and family. To stay safe and to practice social distancing. For us whose bodies went through some intense cancer shit, for those whose bodies are still going through that intense cancer shit, for those for one reason or another their bodies are fragile, for everyone. Social isolation is triggering and so hard. We deserve and need to care for ourselves and others. We are not alone, sending love and gentleness your way.  

Also fuck capitalism and the mess it’s made of this situation and so many others. :)

[theunkillablebitchseries]

5. I don’t know if I’d call it vulnerability

Lately I’ve been getting the question, “How are you so vulnerable?” And vulnerable I guess is what they think of my transparency when it comes to what I’ve experienced. My mental health/therapy journey, my cancer/treatment story, my survivorship stuff, and every other bump along the winding way. 

I hadn’t really thought about it much. What got me to this point of being “vulnerable.” The easy answer is my diagnosis prompted this need to share/overshare.  

But when I actually think about it, when I want an answer that feels honest, I think back to some random 3am night during the early days of my treatment. Probably March or April. I remember being in a lot of pain, my stomach was a riot of nausea and aching hunger. I hadn’t eaten in days because everything I ate would come back up either way, but I was working on eating a mandarin. 

I was sitting on floor next to my bed, the light from my closet glowing, the citrus burning my sensitive mouth and kind of having an out of body moment. I remember thinking, “this really can’t be happening to me.” Honestly, I had a lot of moments like that during treatment- moments of shock and disbelief that I really was a cancer patient. Strangely enough it rarely happened when I was actually hooked up to the drugs twice a week. It’d mainly happen when I’d be doing normal things, like going to the store or just sitting at home. Living in that dichotomy of doing “normal” while being a cancer patient was disorienting now that I think about it. 

Back to that night, I remember after a particularly vicious bout of pain (I really don’t know how to describe the pain other than it felt like my bones were being crushed, my skin was overheating and I was just very dizzy) that night, I tried getting my breathing under control, just trying to breathe in and out and unclench my tense body. I didn’t have many moments when I thought I was going to die, but when I did it usually was prompted by pain I could not see my way out of. 

This was one of those nights. So this really sharp all over body pain happens right, and when I’m able to catch my breath the first coherent thought I have is, “Fuck if I die, do my parents even know me???” While it was a very unsettling question it did distract me from the pain so I continued down that lovely train of thought and my gut answer at the time was, “No Jenni, if you die at the ripe age of 20 your parents would not know you.” And then it became this rabbit hole type thinking where I thought, would my sister be able to say she knew me well? Would my best friends? Do the people I love know, without a doubt that I love them as deeply as I do? And at the time I was sure the answer would be no. And that scared the fuck out of me. 

While I think I was open to some degree about my life before this little cancer situation happened, I think I was very open about my thoughts and opinions on things. Not so much my feelings. I had always held my emotions pretty close to my chest. One because I’m really shy contrary to popular belief, and two I think many of us can agree that being discerning with who we share ourselves with is very necessary in many situations. I learned that from an early age and never really let it go. My reticence has served as a very necessary survival mechanism for me throughout my life. But I’ve said before on my other blog and this one too I think, that cancer really just cracked me open in the best most uncomfortable way. 

So I’m sitting on my bedroom floor, mostly in the dark, in some of the worst pain in my life and my panic went from, “this pain is going to kill me” to “I don’t want to be this impossible and unknowable person.” I used to have this fucked up idea about love, that is comes in short supply- or not to get weird or anything but it’s almost like I had this capitalistic view on my love “supply.” I thought, for some reason I’m not too sure, that the less demonstrative I was with my affection and love, the more meaningful it was when I would give it and show it. I operated under this idea that I shouldn’t be demonstrative because it would cheapen the emotion, when in reality there is no such thing as a limit to love and caring and empathy. At least, not for me. 

I just started thinking to myself, that I have always been a pretty straightforward person, but never really direct with my emotions. People think I’m very comfortable with being vulnerable but I’m not- it’s an effort to be transparent and it’s uncomfortable still for me to be so open but I want to be knowable (if that’s a word), I don’t want to be this mystery, I don’t want my loved ones to not know where they stand with me, even though emotional intimacy is something I still struggle with, even though being straightforward with my emotions feels like such a risk. And not just with emotions but just with everything- being transparent about my life struggles is still difficult for me. 

But I want to be an open book. I don’t want to be cool or closed off or distant or give the impression everything is always fine and I’m living in the silver lining always. I want to be honest. Because what’s the risk in letting someone know I care about them? What’s the risk in saying, “I am confused and excited and figuring things out.” What’s the risk in saying, “I want to spend more time with you,” or “you are so important to me.” 

So this endeavor to want to be this “knowable” person started with a really excruciating night and a mandarin and a tangential thought about dying. 

And it’s lead me here. 

Conversations with my parents. I tell my mom I love her even though we both get awkward about it. I call my sister my best friend. I tell my best friends I’m proud of them. I call one of them the love of my life because she is amazing. I’ve declared myself the third wheel to two of my favorite couples ever because I love spending time with them. I double, triple, quadruple text sometimes because I miss my friends. I tell people I want to spend time with them. I tell people I want to get to know them better. I say, “I love you,” before hanging up the phone or saying goodbye. I write a TMI blog that gives way too much insight to my convoluted head, where I write for myself but then share with whoever. I have emotional days and spill to twitter or instagram or Facebook to whoever will listen that I’m so grateful to be alive and in this complicated and frightening body because fuck it- I could die today. In the next 2 minutes. Or I could not. I don’t know. I’m not big on regrets, but being an island of a person would be a huge regret of mine. A regret I care not to have. 

I have found so much freedom in being wildly straightforward. I have found so much freedom in having no chill. I have none. And I love it. Because I get to author my life, I get to let the people in and around my life know what my story is, and what their place in it is without any grey area. 

I know some people may call this brave, at this point I try not to think too hard on my choice of sharing/not sharing, so is it really bravery if I try not to put too much thought behind it? I’m not sure. I don’t know if this is vulnerability or a product of survivorship or both, but I know I just want to be honest. Mess, no chill, cringe and all. 

- Your Favorite Unkillable Bitch

[theunkillablebitchseries]

[theunkillablebitchseries]

3. In Which My Body is a Trigger

I’ve struggled with writing about this for almost two months now. 

Some days I don’t want a body. Some days I am wholly exhausted of being here. But I so desperately want to stay. There are days I am daunted by my body and all it’s done and survived. It’s like my body is a reminder of the list of things that have tried to kill me but have been unsuccessful. This body has a history that extends for beyond my 22 years of inhabiting it. 

I’ve come to realize that the thing about being a cancer survivor means not always feeling like one. Sometimes you feel like you’re still at death’s door, that the disease isn’t done with you because of all the little calling cards it’s left. Because of the intimacy to which it’s come to know you. How can something that twisted my heart and violently broke me open ever actually leave me? It seems impossible that at some point this disease will unknow me. Since the day of my diagnosis in 2017, I’ve had this feeling that the disease will never be done with me. And I don’t think I’ll ever feel completely out of it’s grasp. But maybe I get to choose how it grips me. 

Towards the beginning of April I started losing some weight, my fatigue came back with a merciless vengeance and I began waking up soaked in my own sweat. A lovely picture. After almost two months of doing different tests, none that concretely said whether I was sick again, I talked to my oncologist on Monday and she said there was no evidence of disease in the last test. Which is good. I’m glad. Truly.

But I’ve spent the last 7 weeks wrestling with the fear and apathy of possibly going back into treatment, a treatment plan that would be much more aggressive than my first round. There were days I couldn’t get up in the morning, the grief so heavy in my bones, mourning the fact that I no longer have full ownership of my body. There were days all I did was cry when everyone was out of the house because I was scared and frustrated at this body that wants to make staying here so impossible. There were days the anxiety and apathy fought so hard to live in my chest, I thought my lungs were about to burst out of me. There was a lot of emotional whiplash during these 7 weeks. And I’m only just now feeling like my feet are on some sort of ground. 

 This week my therapist and I touched on the fact that it’s so difficult to name what we’re feeling. Like I know what I’m feeling but it’s so difficult to name. This grief speaks a language I’m only just starting to understand. I ache in a way that has no words. Language hasn’t bled enough for my kind of hurt. And I’m writing right now in an effort to understand what I can’t exactly name. For all the times language has fallen short. For all the times the trauma took the place of the words. 

Part of my difficulty these 7 weeks is I’m trying to answer the question, what do I do with a body that is triggers me? And my frustration at the fact that I will always have to deal with this body. There is no getting a new one. There is no leaving the site of my grief and trauma behind, I am my own crime scene. 

I told my therapist that survivorship is so much harder than actually being sick. At least then I have some sort of map, a step by step guide to healing. Survivorship on the other hand? A whole convoluted mystery. It’s a different kind of lonely, of solitude. There is no linear path, or anyone to kind of walk me through it. Some paths you have to walk alone I guess. I’m trying to be patient, to take it day by day. Not thinking 30 years from now that I may still feel the same, because maybe I won’t. What’s the point of grieving or being upset about that hasn’t happened/may not happen? Not to mention, at some point I’d have to deal with the aftermath, with all the complications that come with survival. Physical, mental and emotional. In some ways being sick would’ve been relieving, then I could just go back to relying on instinct to survive, instead of working to live. Being sick again would’ve helped me avoid confronting so many of my thoughts and feelings. Such an extreme avoidance tactic that I don’t know what it says about me, honestly. That I’d rather be sick with a clear plan, instead of well with no clue how to move forward.

Even before that conversation with Dr. Frank, this Monday, I feel like something changed in the last week or so. And I don’t really know what it was. I told my therapist I don’t know if I turned a corner or hit a wall, the apathy and grieve having done a number on my nerves. Maybe the grief for the time being had run it’s course. I’m kind of frustrated that I don’t know what led to the switch but honestly, I’m grateful more than anything. But the thing is, I have felt like I’ve been in this countdown towards something that I couldn’t avoid. And now the countdown has stopped, and I don’t know what my next step is. I feel like someone who so expected to be hurt, that in the end wasn’t. Now I almost feel paralyzed. Maybe that speaks to my inability to let things go, to let this go. And if it’s me, if it’s my inability or even refusal to let this go well then why I am holding onto this??? That’s a rabbit hole I can’t even see the top of. Maybe it’s that the being in the middle of it is so much easier to understand. The aftermath of it though? It’s something I’m only just beginning to figure out. 

These days have been easier or at least more often than not they’re better.  I can’t say what has made me feel lightest I have since the beginning of April. This turning a corner/maybe hitting a wall reminds me of a line from The Kite Runner, that I feel kind of rings true for me too. 

“I wondered if that was how forgiveness budded; not with the fanfare of epiphany, but with pain gathering its things, packing up, and slipping away unannounced in the middle of the night.”

Maybe the biggest lesson here is being patient, is having an open palm, the understanding that the hurt will come but it’s not forever. Everything, the good and bad, will run it’s course at some point. And I’m trying to be okay with that. To accept it. To keep my palm open. 

The truth is I often feel like an angry and bitter person. Tangled up in the remembering, in the heavy grief that is so present it may as well be my shadow. I am a deep blend of melancholy, uncertainty but more than anything the desire to want to be better. And I think that has to count for something. 

This is me.

Choosing to grow where nothing was meant to live. This body where things, including myself, have gone to die. I choose to grow here.  

[theunkillablebitchseries]

1: In which I feel like maybe it’s me aka am I gaslighting myself?

You know, I didn’t used to cry all that much. Sure, things would make me sad- but to the point of tears? Not really.

Now? I’m fucking waterworks. It’s so annoying. But also kind of nice I’ll admit.

This new blog is supposed to be helping me (and my therapist) identify triggers. Honestly it feels like my sad brain just manages to twist everything into something about cancer or surviving and just everything I’ve been through. And I hate that phrase “everything I’ve been through.” It makes me feel like a basket case, and Lord knows I feel that way often enough. 

Medical trauma as defined by counseling.org is, “Trauma experienced as a result of medical procedures, illnesses, and hospital stays can have lasting effects. Those who experience medical trauma can develop clinically significant reactions such as PTSD, anxiety, depression, complicated grief, and somatic complaints.”

My therapist’s reaction to such little research done of medical trauma: “Bullshit.”

Medical trauma as defined by me, “Some BULLSHIT.”

Now I’ve been seeing this therapist for a minute now and we’re gonna be trying this thing called Exposure Therapy. Apparently exposure therapy is the main method for treating medical trauma. Just the name of this method makes me repress a violent shiver. Right now we’re working on getting me to tell the story of my diagnosis and treatment and all that without freaking the fuck out. Currently, I’m still in the hyperventilating/crying part when I try to story tell my different procedures- especially the one where they took out my port. 

I feel like it’s gotten worse as time has gone on. I used to be able to think about it- the hospital visits, the procedures, everything without having a panic attack or feeling wildly angry. Random shit just sets me off. 

Anyway- triggers. 

Today it was a simple question my coworker posed a simple question for our icebreaker to start off our meeting. “When you’re going through a hard time what is a good memory you think of that helps you.” Everyone was sitting in a circle on the floor but I like laying down on the floor. It’s a good thing I was already laying down because I fucking hated that question. 

Everyone went around the circle sharing their positive mental buoys, all while I was on my back on the floor, thinking about the last time the grief kept me in bed for three days. And during those days I couldn’t drudge up a single happy memory to try to see me through, how all I could think of wasn’t the mountaintops but the valleys. That the ache hadn’t killed me, that I had learned to take a punch. 

What keeps me going when I’m literally at the fucking end of my rope is the fact that I’m still here. (That I’ve lived through EVERYTHING that’s come for my fucking neck. So, no I don’t think of happy memories colored in an array of joy, I think of how even on the days when I thought the ache would kill me- it didn’t. It didn’t. It didn’t. That’s what I think of.

I know how to survive, that’s what keeps me going.

But what’s so irritating about the whole thing is that I feel like I can’t honestly engage in so many different conversations without it circling around to cancer and all the lovely bullshit it brings. I hate it and I am frustrated by it. I know the point of the question was to be uplifting, but man did I feel like such a fucking downer. An honest one, but a downer nonetheless. Basket case remember? I feel like I’m operating at such a different wavelength than other early 20-something year olds, I can’t relate. It’s like I can’t even have a normal conversation, without me inadvertently making it serious and depressing. AND I DON’T MEAN TO. Cancer falls out of my mouth before I even have a chance to stop it. And at this point am I just dwelling on this shit? Am I holding myself back from my own healing? Am I preventing myself from moving on? I DON’T FUCKING KNOW. And I’m so frustrated. (insert crying emoji) Is this normal cancer survivor stuff? Who fucking knows? I so rarely can get a solid answer about any residual cancer related stuff (physical and emotional health-wise.) 

Whatever. Point is I’m confused by my own self, the thing that keeps me going is the fact that I’m still here to keep going and I don’t know how to have normal conversations anymore. 

I’ll leave you with this

“come celebrate 

with me that everyday 

something has tried to kill me

and has failed.”- Lucille Clifton

[theunkillablebitchseries]

7. Changes

“You almost said that you needed it.”

It’s no secret that I have spent the past 3ish years since I was first introduced to cancer, freefalling through anger, depression, resistance, joy and gratitude. Some days are bad. Most days now are good. Most days I’m not angry, or at least not the same kind of angry I used to be. It’s almost like I’ve let go of this grudge I’d been holding against myself and this body. Mostly. I am angry but it feels more like all I’ve experienced has made me feel so ferally alive. I am so hard-pressed to give up this life, to not be wholly in it. I used to think about throwing myself from the highest cliff I could find with frightening persistence, just to be done with this body and that is such a different place from where I am now. 

I went to Europe for the first three weeks in September. The first two weeks I was alone, the last week I was joined by my sister in Athens. Our first full day in Athens we toured the Acropolis (screams in Spanish) and as we made our way down the outcrop we found a cute café for lunch. The food was bomb, the sangria was bomb and somehow the conversation led back to cancer. Not in a bad way though- my sister and I tend to reflect out loud a lot about that time in our lives. Me the patient, her the caretaker. Us, changed.

One of my biggest questions or insecurities even is that, I know I’m different since having cancer. I think I’ve grown and changed and become better. I mean, I was 19 when I got sick and now I’m almost 23, even if cancer weren’t a factor I can’t imagine that I’d be the same from 19 to 23. It’s just I probably turned out a bit different than I would’ve without it. 

 The thing is I didn’t know if this intense growth happened because of this whole bad blood thing or simply because that’s life. You grow, you learn, you change. Along that same vein, I remember telling my sister I don’t want to give cancer any good, I don’t want to attribute any of my growth to cancer. In a lot of ways it felt wrong, or like giving in, or even validating it’s presence in my life. Like if I became a better person because of this horrific, traumatic thing doesn’t that make it worth it? I hated the thought of needing cancer in order to be better.

I don’t know what I was saying, sitting outside in that cute, crowded café but I remember saying in reference to cancer, “I think I needed-” catching myself, rewording the sentence to something that basically meant the same as need and hoping my sister didn’t notice. But she did.

I’m just so glad to not be so angry anymore. At myself, at my body, at life, at God. For so long letting go of that anger almost felt as though I was surrendering to the idea that what happened to me was okay. That not being angry about it anymore meant I was okay with it having happened. While I have some sort of peace around it even if I still wish it hadn’t happened. 

After all that came with the bad blood, I am better. So much better. I am more patient, I am slow to anger, I’m quicker to forgive, I laugh louder, I don't take myself so seriously anymore. I love harder. Every day I want to be better. 

And maybe I would’ve gotten to this place even without the cancer, but that’s not the life I’ve lived, so this is what I’m making of what I have now. And you know what? I was a cancer patient, I am a cancer survivor. I will always be a cancer survivor, God willing, and the only way to have the lessons that come with being those things is having had cancer. So maybe, I did need it. To be who I am today, to learn things I still can’t really name. I am not 100% sure but at least now I’m giving myself the space to explore that. Maybe cancer broke me down in a way only it could, only to give me the space to build myself better than I otherwise would’ve. 

So my sister noticed my little slip. 

“You almost said that you needed it.” 

Me: *crickets

“I remember when you first finished treatment how you said you didn’t want to need it in order to be better,” she went on to say. 

“I think in a way I did need it.” It doesn’t feel like such a betrayal to myself, to my autonomy to name that anymore. 

What struck me most about this conversation with my sister is her final comment on it.

“Well, you go through things in life and you’re not supposed to stay the same. That’s not the point of life.”

And it’s true, it’s so true it’s almost ridiculous, because what is the point of experiencing so much in life if it doesn’t change you, if you don’t learn from them?

I’ve outgrown a lot of the hurt, although I’m sure it’ll always be there in some way shape or form. Every time I drive past that hospital, every time I see that big building in downtown Seattle. Every time a Facebook memory pops up with a picture of my parents and I getting lunch after my first PET scan. I think I’ll always remember the heartache, still sometimes sit in the grief, sometimes stay in bed all day because of it. 

While as shocking and terrifying as that chapter in my life felt, it doesn’t feel so out of place in my life story anymore. The days I wake up, still in some sort of shock over it are very few, more often than not I wake up thinking, “yeah, it happened to me.” Maybe I’m just used to it at this point? But it feels more than that. Like I survived the inevitable and chose to be better for it. I’m not so confused by it anymore, and thank God for that because that confusion over what happened to me, haunted me for so long- it was it’s own kind of ache. It makes sense to me in a way I can’t at all articulate. I don’t ask or wonder why it happened to me anymore; I think that’s the blessing of not needing to know. It’s kind of like that prayer- God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference. 

Maybe that’s what I’m feeling. Serenity. 

It feels good. 

“you have turned the pain to a grace.”

[theunkillablebitchseries]

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Day before the end of treatment.

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A look inside my brain while in trauma. This was 18 days before I was diagnosed.

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4. Affirmations for the Survivor

I’ve been in therapy for about 6 months now. That’s around 24 sessions. 1 hour long sessions each. Lots of money I didn’t really have but knew I needed to let go. So. 6 months of therapy. And I think I’m done. For now at least. 

I don’t feel like I’m constantly running on below empty. The ache in my chest doesn’t pulse in my fingertips anymore. And I don’t hear this clock in the back of my mind ticking as loudly anymore. I’ve accepted I don’t have an answer to the question, “What did you learn from having cancer?

I still feel the ache but it’s only in my chest. I know the clock is there but I can acknowledge it without seeing my life run through my fingers like sand. I don’t feel like I’m supposed to know the answer to this life question or like I’m running out of time to figure it out. 

You know how I know this time is a little different? Back when I was having a good day and all of a sudden the depression would creep in. A weighty thought. A throbbing sensation. And just that inkling-hinting at my internal and long fought battle with my troubled mental health could send me down the rabbit hole of my mental illness and connected my messy heart to speakers cranked all the way up. My confused head and heart combined to make an unforgiving tsunami that I couldn’t help get swept up in. And as masochistic and awful as it sounds, it was difficult to try to let go and resolve so much of that hurt and trauma, because for all of my adolescence and young adulthood being so unwell was what I knew. 

Now, when I feel the depression randomly prodding outside my skin, even if I were to acknowledge it, or try to dredge up some sort of negative feeling just to see if I could out of curiosity and disbelief, for the most part I come up empty. It’s not so easy to get swept up anymore. It’s like there’s very little for the heavy to latch onto now. 

The thing is, people talk about healing as though it’s just frou frou, self care, yoga mats and bullshit. Or that it’s a stagnant state of being. When really, it’s an ongoing process that is messy and confusing and unique and often painful. Most of my therapy sessions felt like grasping barbed wire, or like this hurt was ballooning in my chest about to crack me open. But I learned to grab the barbed wire so I knew what I was letting go, eventually that balloon popped giving way for something better to take that space. And the best kind of broken I've been has been open. Getting to this healthier and better place has been my biggest challenge in life. Working through my trauma and hurt has felt like a painful relief. It was me letting go of my familiar discomfort. 

For so long my heart felt so unwell. Like I was running so below empty. And I used to think there was no possibility of getting better. I had ignored my depression, I had tried to tourniquet my own trauma so it wouldn’t bleed onto everything else in my life. I tried to self medicate. All to no avail. Some days I’d wake up thinking, “I am going to feel this way for the rest of my life. I am actually going to die feeling this way and I just have to learn to live with it.”  Often, I found myself so exhausted by my body’s insistence on halfway surviving, on still being here. I was just so tired of trying. At the beginning of this year I was so desperate for some sort of peace that I felt closer to 16 year old me with a bottle prescription painkillers in her shaky hand rather than 22 year old me who wanted to be better. I knew I needed help. I thought I was going out of my mind or that I would need to commit myself somewhere before I did something desperate. Hence, therapy.

My first therapy session all I did was cry. I was so relieved to find someone I felt I could talk to about dying, wanting to die, but still wanting to be here without putting me on suicide watch. Because the thing is I don’t want to die. I never have, even when I’ve tried. I’ve just been so exhausted. It was a relief to find a therapist who could help me work through this seemingly insurmountable grief. I didn’t have to figure it out on my own- which clearly hadn’t been working. I wasn’t so alone anymore.

I feel healed. I feel like a constant work in progress. I don’t think I’ll ever be 100%- whatever that means- because life is messy and complicated and brilliant and terrifying and beautiful and holy shit I’m so happy to be alive and here. So yes- life is messy and I am a mess but I’m okay with that. I am a happy little mess now. I’m good. I feel good. I know I’ll always have to work at this healing thing. That it doesn’t just happen but that you have to cultivate it. Now at least I feel like I am capable of doing that. My feet are on good ground. Healthier soil or whatever. Progress and more healing feel possible, tangible in a way they never did before. I am making the choice to move forward rather than just be dragged along.

I used to think that whatever feeling I had, good or bad, that I just had to deal with it. I often pictured myself as my own punching bag. Whatever hurt or joy I felt I just had to take it. There has been so much freedom in realizing I don’t have to be at the mercy of my most unkind emotions and angry self. I can choose to say that I don’t deserve my own anger and resentment. I am not at the mercy of my wayward unforgiving emotions. I am not my own punching bag, I am not the landing place for my vicious feelings. I don’t deserve to feel so heartbroken and upset all the time. I can choose what is for me and what isn’t. 

And I choose this. 

To remember I deserve good things. I deserve every good thing. Because it wasn’t my fault I got sick. It’s not my fault I was drowning in my depression for so long. I didn’t deserve any of that. I am a good person. I deserve my own kindness, my own love. I deserve the good. All the good. 

I choose this.

I choose what is fleeting and what can grow here. To have an open palm, to remember everything is not forever. That it’s okay to be a survivor. That I need to be kind to myself. To give myself grace in this process. To have an open palm. To be willing. 

More than anything I choose me. Myself. I choose to be here. To still be here. To stay here despite it all. The view from here is so complicated and beautiful. I’m so grateful for it. Scars, miracles and all.

Jenni Martinez-Lorenzo. Presente. 

[theunkillablebitchseries]

2. Holding space for myself

These past 3 weeks have been wildly challenging but also cathartic. Challenging because I’m still navigating how to deal with a body, with blood that is my own trigger. Cathartic because this body has needs, and will take regardless of what I feel is in my capacity or is convenient to my every day life.

I am extremely unkind to and impatient with myself. I rarely give myself grace, and I’m naming that and recognizing that in an effort to be better and kinder to my (traumatized) self.

One thing I hugely struggle with as a cancer survivor is not gaslighting myself. I so often feel that being two years post diagnosis makes it unfair of me to have all these feelings about my diagnosis and about my treatment and about all I experienced in that time, even when these feelings and reactions still feel so fresh and present a year post treatment.

And the thing is all that grief and all that anger and all that sense of loss are things I’m only now two years later processing and feeling with intention. It’s not that I never felt them, I would but only when I was overwhelmed by my own body, by my own blood, and when my body demanded it of me. The body and mind will take even if you’re not ready. Right now I’m not in the thick of it, I’m not beating this body and I am not completely consumed by survival. But there are people who are actually going through treatment and have cancer right now and I don’t have cancer right now and it feels like I shouldn’t feel this way and that just adds another layer of guilt to my already very complicated feelings towards this body that I resent but also so desperately want to live in.

I can’t help but think, who am I to have all these feelings that feel so fresh and so tied to my treatment and my disease that is no longer active in my life? Who am I to have all these feelings when I’m not in the middle of it?

I spent the majority of my treatment, of my illness feeling numb and apathetic and angry. I had a lot of thoughts and a lot of feelings about what I was going through but I think maybe as a survival mechanism I made it a point not to really delve and analyze those thoughts and feelings for the sake of my capacity at that time. At the time what I thought was a good day was when I didn’t wake up throwing up or I didn’t wake up feeling like my bones were being crushed. My only outlet when it came to those emotions was my blog I made during my treatment and during my time being sick. But rarely did I actually talk to anyone about how I felt or what I was thinking- I kind of just let myself be. It honestly feels like I just went through the motions of waking up, going to the hospital, getting poked and prodded getting bad news or getting OK news, coming back home throwing up for the next week, feeling somewhat better the following week but then having to do this all over again and again and again for almost a year. And even back then, while I was in the middle of it all and feeling what I was feeling (and still am experiencing) I didn’t know how to name them; I wasn’t in the space to feel and heal within breaths of each other. But then, isn’t that normal? To feel certain things, not wholly understand them and with a bit of distance you can better understand them?

I was, and still am, such a mystery to myself. Looking back, I can say while I knew I was experiencing lots of emotions and thoughts, I wasn’t able to sit with them, I wasn’t able to understand them or even name them. I confused myself- I still do. But I’m getting some more clarity on it all. I think I was in such a toxic and heavy place I had no capacity other than to be the landing place for everything and just absorb and absorb.

In those moments where I actually gave myself some sort of grace and space to actually sit with what I was thinking and feeling I would write about it but after I finish writing about it it was kind of like I said to myself OK that’s dealt with into the next thing.

I need to be better about giving myself grace. About holding space for myself. I am not a particularly patient person. Not even with myself. And this whole giving myself grace and patience when my knee-jerk reaction is to ignore my needs and keep it pushing- its hard. But I can do hard things.

I want to be kinder to myself. To be okay with the times when all I am is a pulse that aches and insistent lungs and a desire to still be here despite it all. I am a cancer survivor. And it’s complicated and terrible and awe-inspiring all in one. And I need to be okay with it all. I want to be okay with it all.

[theunkillablebitchseries]

Rules of Engagement

It’s gonna be a little like fight club up in here. (I haven’t actually seen the movie though.) 

Per my therapist’s suggestion after my last emotional bender that lasted a week, I’m going to start writing a lot more frequently about this thing called survivorship and my life in general. Maybe we can figure out what freaks me the fuck out and keeps me from functioning like a normal 22 year old. 

When I wrote my first cancer whatever related blog (The Becky Chronicles) I wrote it with the intention of creating this space between myself and well meaning people with their well meaning questions about my health. I think people maybe operated under the assumption that because I was so public about my journey/experience that I was down to talk about it in person. The Becky Chronicles was meant to give those who care about me and were curious, insight on what I was experiencing/feeling/etc. without me having to engage with you in person. I could barely talk to my family about it- the closest people to me in my life were difficult to open up to- so my blog was my way of keeping loved ones/people in the loop but at a distance and in a space where I still felt comfortable.

My therapist being the smart woman she is caught onto my habit of using stories in order to (try to) explain what I’m thinking and feeling, so she suggested keeping up with the blog. But I wanted a relatively clean slate- and continuing the Becky Chronicles felt the opposite of a clean slate. 

I could easily privately journal but I do find this cathartic- it’s like that by announcing my hurt and publicly owning it, it doesn’t have to swallow me whole. Hopefully this isn’t just a catharsis of what aches but can be a celebration of all the joy I still get to experience. So if you’re curious as to what I’ve been up to lately, all the healing and hurting and celebrating I’ve been doing- you’re in the right place. Or maybe you’re just curious what a 22 year old cancer survivor looks like (at least in my case) you are also in the right place. 

In truth, who knows if anyone will read this, but for those that do I ask you follow what I’ve dubbed The Rules of Engagement a la Fight Club:

- We do not talk about the blog (in person)

- Read

- Feel free to comment online (tumblr, FB, whatever) but please don't expect a response

- We do not talk about the blog (in person)

This is me.

Naming my pain.

All the places I hurt.

Standing in it.

Then letting it live outside my body.

‘Til next time,

 - The most unkillable bitch you know

[theunkillablebitchseries]

6. Updates

So it’s been a minute. 

Quick life updates:

1. I went to Europe for 3 weeks and had a whole lot of thoughts I’m still trying not to be intimidated out of writing about (maybe it’ll end up being a part of this post?)

2. I started school. UW’s School of Social Work. Hate it but that’s also a long winded thing.

3. The blood is good. Strange but good.