having Cancer, is it wrong?

[aurevoir]

Hello.

 

I was curious..

does this make me a bad person?

 

I have a friend best friend, she is recently diagnosed with cancer.

I don't feel anything. I care, but I just don't feel anything.

I don't feel sad, mad, upset, angry, hurt, happy, excited. Nothing.

Indifferent maybe, i don't know how to react. I don't want to be fake and cry and all of that stuff. I am wondering if this is a bad thing?

 

Maybe this is some sort of defense mechanism that I don't know about myself?

That when others are in terrible pain, people I know, i subconsciously choose not to react? Maybe? I don't know. I mean, i am so used to suffering and seeing suffering. I am used to it, that maybe now I am just immune to it?

I can't cry anymore. Alot has happened to me and others around me in the past and I guess i've just grown a hard shell around emotions that relate to suffering? Does this make me a cold person?

 

When i was younger, someone also that i knew had passed away due to cancer. I didn;t cry. I didn't feel anything. Is that wrong?

 

Honestly.

[HouseKitten]

Well, is she a close friend?

 

Just because you 'know' someone has cancer, it doesn't always feel very real until you start to see the effects. My great-aunt died of lung cancer last year and I was fine right up until we saw her last before she died. She was very thin and pale, and she looked sick. It was disconcerting. That made it more real. Chances are right now although the logical part of your brain knows she has cancer, the emotional part hasn't really made the connection because there's nothing to give it a shove.

[Seraphim]

Maybe you are not connected to your own feelings.

[Cognitive_Canine]

I think with something like cancer, it's tricky.

 

The person is diagnosed but their life isn't affected. They are alive. They are often healthy and show few symptoms other than what got them to see a doctor. They won't appear sick for months or years. And sometimes, they pull through it. As science increases, the likelihood that you'll survive increases. And even if it is your undoing in the end, it could take years and years for it to be that way.

 

And, then, after a long struggle, they die. They die as expected. It's not a shock. You've been slowly preparing for weeks as their oncoming death was predicted by a doctor months ago.

 

Meanwhile, a person who is hit by a car...there is no time to prepare for mourning. It's completely unexpected. It's shocking. One minute they are there, the next they are gone. You haven't had time to tie ends and say your goodbyes.

 

When we are young, we don't understand death quite as well. But, then something happens; someone you are close with dies suddenly and before their time. After that, you become far more aware and responsive to death.

[aurevoir]

Well, is she a close friend?

 

Just because you 'know' someone has cancer, it doesn't always feel very real until you start to see the effects. My great-aunt died of lung cancer last year and I was fine right up until we saw her last before she died. She was very thin and pale, and she looked sick. It was disconcerting. That made it more real. Chances are right now although the logical part of your brain knows she has cancer, the emotional part hasn't really made the connection because there's nothing to give it a shove.

She is my best friend.

Of 5 years.

well.. we haven't been talking much.

we got into a fight along time ago, we started talking awhile ago.

but i am so used to my new life without her so it;'s hard to keep in contact with her.

I wasn;'t in contact with her for over a month, thought it was better that way.

Until now, i heard she has cancer.

 

She had a tumor in her cervix in january.

the same time she told me to get out of her life...

when she we started speaking again, she told me she had a tumor and all that stuff.

I don't know.

Maybe I don't care? I do care but at the same time I don't.

 

I don't know what I am feeling.

[Capricorn3]

Maybe you are not connected to your own feelings.

That's what I thought too. I have to admit I find it a little odd that you don't feel anything at all for your best friend on hearing the news she has cancer - total lack of empathy/sympathy is not what most people would consider "normal", so maybe there's something more going on within and needs to be looked into. Not saying you're a bad person or such, but just that's it's unusual (imo).

[aurevoir]

I do have empathy and sympathy.

Honestly, maybe i just... don't like crying. I can't bare to like.. deal and be faced with all those emotions. I was depressed before, and I feel that if i let it in everything will come crashing down again. Maybe that's a possibility. Call it selfish, but I do care about her. I do. Even when we weren't friends, i cared.

 

.....

[aurevoir]

I think its just like a defense mechanism.

That I am not aware of until now.

To throw anything and everything that could potentially bring me back to my depressive state...throw it deep deep into my mind.

ignoring it completely.

[yonkeehoi]

It is a defense mechanism. It is perhaps the same as in war (so I've read) where someone's buddy would be killed, the soldier's reaction would be considered 'empty' by most, whereas, in reality he was just damned grateful it wasn't him.

[OntheWire]

I'm guessing you're a religious and/or spiritual person.

[aurevoir]

I'm not religious or spiritual actually.