Not sure I should even post about what has happened since it probably won’t help me much, but 2016 was the last time I felt like life was good. I had a job I loved…I was fighting my fears and trying to let go of old flames and succeeding. My past depression and anxiety were not rearing their ugly heads often, or at all. I even met a man that I thought might be a person who would be with me for the long haul…and oddly enough, so did my friends and family.
Things went extremely fast with this new guy. We just clicked. Within two weeks, he had the key to my place and somehow I trusted him when he told me I wasn’t alone anymore. Things were good for a while, and we spent weekends together sharing common interests. I’d cook, he’d clean…we would play board games and hang out with friends. He wanted to take me to meet his family out of state a month later…I couldn’t go because I didn’t gave leave time and I felt it was too soon. Normally, I would have run away screaming from anyone who wanted to move so fast but it was so natural and easy at first that I didn’t see us for what we actually were. Things started to unravel at the start of 2017, and my life, as well as my relationship began to fall apart.
I lost my job in January 2017. I had been there for years helping to build a startup with a team I considered my family. I wasn’t too scared at first, having the support of the new boyfriend, and many supporters helping me look for work, but after a few months of no success finding work, anxiety crept in. I got moodier the more scared I got, and two months passed. Then, I had a massive panic attack, fearing that I would be evicted, and wanted to pack up my place and get things into storage. My panic was largely ignored by my boyfriend, who felt it was irrational (duh, it was panic) and that packing could be done whenever…and accordingly decided he would rather play games that weekend instead of supporting me when I needed him most. We talked about it later and he could not understand why I was hurt by his actions, as he believed that he could always help me later. And help he did…he found boxes for me, and we started packing my things. But he made the packing about him. He stacked every box in my living room, and cleared my dining room so he could game there when he came over. I called him out on it but I was bothered that he felt like game space was more important than me feeling ok.
Shortly after this incident two things happened that I thought were great news. I got into a retraining program that would require me to be in classes several times a week, and every other Saturday for 4 months. And I finally landed a job! I felt hopeful.
However, I quickly learned that my boss was a narcissistic martyr who quickly started gaslighting me and resented my schooling schedule, despite being assured in my interview that the schooling schedule was acceptable to all parties. He was also paranoid about our mutual boss sabotaging him (and our whole team) and he tried to convince me that our boss would soon tear me and my work apart.
I was working 12-14 hour days when I wasn’t in school. I was exhausted and miserable and desperately tried to keep my head above water but I couldn’t maintain my relationship, schooling and the heavy workload and the antagonistic boss. My boyfriend stopped doing anything to help me at all and complained about everything I did wrong or right. I thought he would understand that when I finished school things would get better. But we never really talked about that, we danced around it. He got more and more detached A month before I finished school we fought and he ended our relationship. I had wanted to try and reset, but he was done. He said he wanted to be friends. I said no out of anger.
The next day I got bitten by a spider and swelled up so much that I had to go to the doctor. The injury lead to another fight with the boss…he peppered me with accusations about me having mental issues, questioned why I was even in school and basically told me I was useless. I was so frustrated that before I went to school I called HR and reported his behavior and requested to be reassigned to someone else. He found out and dedicated himself to subtly messing with me on a daily basis. And then, a few weeks later, he was let go. I was informed that it had nothing to do with my particular situation, but I felt guilty for reporting him, regardless. But the real kicker was that it meant the rest of our team had to scramble to cover his workload.
That would have been fine, except that two weeks later I got sick. The whole office was ill. Two weeks later everyone recovered. Except me. I was told by two friends to go to the doctor…and somehow I had mono. I spent a month recovering. And a month later, I had worse news…
I was diagnosed with a very rapidly growing tumor in my breast. My life was completely upended. I reached out to my ex for help and he tried to pretend he cared but ultimately ignored me when I started chemo. I didn’t hear from him after that first treatment. I felt terrible that he could hate me so much it would trump sympathy and empathy. I wasn’t looking for him to help me, I just wanted him to know what was happening. And if the shoe had been on the other foot, I would have tried to support him. Foolish, I know but regardless of what happened between us I would have had his back.
I didn’t get much in the way of help during the holidays from my new breast cancer support team and spent Christmas terrified and alone. Then I got the flu just in time for my birthday. I spent the next two months constantly coughing. The doctors said it was probably the chemo but it turned out to be bacterial bronchitis.
There’s so much more story but I’m exhausted by telling it. Needless to say, I’ve survived most of the treatment and am cancer free at present. I’m in radiation now with a few weeks to go, but I’m in pain, still alone and feeling hopeless. I should be happy I’m alive and that I’m soon going to be able to start over… but I’m lonely, sad and can’t even remember who I am. My face tingles, my toes are numb and my mind doesn’t work right any more. My big toenails had to be removed and my fingernails are dead, making it impossible to do much because I’m scared they are going to get ripped off accidentally. And I look as hideous as I feel.
I can hardly do the things I love and I know progress is slow after being poisoned for 4 months, operated on and then cooked for 6 weeks…but it’s really hard to stay positive.
Maybe it’s just the fact that treatment will be over soon but that’s where the fears really kick in. I’m not normal anymore. I’m not me. But people will see my improving and assume that means I am ok, and that I’m the old, functional person they knew before… and that’s even more terrifying.
I don’t know how I will get through this. I’m not even sure I want to. My life has gone into stasis and the slow crawl of recovery looms large in my mind. I was told I’d feel “normal” roughly a year from now. Whatever that will be.