Just a thought

One of the biggest things I am sent emails about it about how do we make it so that all the people in our community are having their needs meant. For the newly diagnosed just being told to take a deep breath helps and knowing that others are here and have walked the walk. If you have an RC it has its own set of issues body image, sexuality, and fear of what the future may bring. And we are all grownups here and know that not everyone will do well this is a cancer support site. Now the question here is how do we as a community serve everyone’s need?

A part of that is recognizing that there are varying needs depending on where your path leads with blc. One thing that I had trouble explaining to my husband was that I had a need to vent to say what I really was feeling. I kept it all inside for a long time because I did not want to hurt him with these dark thoughts the what if it wasn’t ok. I could not talk to my family because no one would really listen they didn’t want to hear it; it would be ok, I was going to be fine. And I was not a child who could feel safe just because someone told me it was so. And I was just dealing with the what ifs in my dark place. Holly’s frustration is she just wants to have these conversations in a real way with others that talk back and understand that these dark places exist. As soon as possible I will be setting up the groups so that Mets has a place that survivors can post and not worry that they will scare others or be told it will be ok. Where they can say what they want and not worry about the intensity of it hurting or upsetting others as they try to cope. We all want to fix things and we cannot always sometimes just listening is all that is required. This does not mean that there is not a place for the chins up and you’re in my thoughts there is.

As I was saying the challenge here will be how do we make sure everyone’s needs are meant? It is hard for the administration because how do you find balance? Someone gets upset because women are posting in the men’s area and they are embarrassed to post there now. But the next guy might hear just the right thing from the wife’s perspective in the next post. People talking about RC’s scare the person with non invasive. Another receives a new perspective when they read about someone with struggles much worse than theirs. I am sure that no matter how well meaning what I am writing is I will get a few nasty grams out of it. This is not a perfect world and this site is not perfect heck if the world was perfect we wouldn’t need this site. All we can ask of each other is to be there and try to understand even when it is hard.