People want to hear, that your cured, you kicked cancer's butt and you did so with grace and decorum.
They really don't like to hear that someone is living with active cancer or has been told it will most definitely return.
Telling someone "Oh no! Don't think like that; be positive!" is not helpful. It's not negativity; these are bare facts, and telling someone to be positive, completely invalidates their experience.
Living with an active cancer or knowing it will return, sets your life on a whole different trajectory! I'm not saying, that it has to hold us back but what I mean is, that's a whole other emotional world to work through.
Cancer throws up so many new questions and emotions for anyone. And as a young person, living with an active cancer/knowing it will return just jumbles those questions up even more. Do I date? Do I tell this person about my cancer? Do I allow this person to love me? Do I have kids? Will my illness return/get worse, just as I'm starting to put life back together? Can I even plan ahead? (I'm writing from a young person's perspective but I'm aware that these issues come up for older adults also)
When you tell us to be positive, you not only invalidate our experience, but you also ignore what this diagnosis means for our young lives, and the decisions or considerations we need to make.
It is a complete fallacy telling someone with such huge life changes going on, to be positive. This is is our reality.
I have felt quite stung recently, when those I do not know very well, have said such things. I understand why they say these things but it doesn't make it any more pleasant to be on the receiving end of! It's difficult for people to hear, and by saying 'be positive', they get to keep the rawness of reality at arms length.
So I guess , as a young person, next time someone says something similar to "be positive!", don't allow this to discredit that muddle of emotions and big questions. This is your experience, not theirs and you are entitled to all of those feelings, even if that other person doesn't want to hold the space for the truth of what you are telling them. It also doesn't mean that you are not positive or you are pessimistic. And even if you are, for one moment, not being positive, you are absolutely entitled to that!
And if you're one of those people that persistently touts positivity, please have a wee think about what you're really communicating to that other person when you suggest mindless positivity as a way forward.
