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I had cancer 17 years ago when I was diagnosed. There was no internet. I mean there was an
internet but it was in the very early stages. There were none other resources that were
available, certainly nothing like we are doing today. It would have made all the difference
for me. I didn’t even have a support group.
And so I felt totally alone and as I said, the people that felt most comfortable to me
were ultimately, when I met other survivors, but today there’s so much available that
it’s almost overwhelming to kind of sort through and see what you need and that sort
of thing.
Todd: Darryle, when we sat down with you and talked about you coming and being a part of
this powerhouse panel, you discussed that you wanted to talk about, you focused on emotional
support, and many of the things that you submitted to me, items you’d like to talk about was
about emotional support one way or another and right then when I asked you that question
about how did you feel, to the whole panel, you were the first one to jump in.
So what is it about that feeling – that feeling of being positive? I see it come up
in your blogs, in your writing, and the worry and how to handle that – what kind of advice
do you have for women that are dealing with the emotional side of it?
Darryle: Well right now if it’s for people it’s hard to say only in the sense that
I don’t know where they are in their journey. If it’s at the beginning, truly, and you
know you are paralyzed by fear, and then on top of that you start getting everybody saying
to you ‘be positive’. Well that is a trick. That’s a trick I couldn’t do.
I remember somebody giving me a book and it said ‘don’t ever allow yourself to think
a negative thought’. Okay, well you try that when you’ve just heard you have cancer,
and I think that a lot of women, you feel on top of the fact that you are terrified,
you feel that you need to feel a certain way and you can’t be negative . You have to
be relentlessly positive, and it’s simply impossible.
And I think women also tend to be very, very *** their selves. We also tend not to
ask for help when we need it, and I think those are things that are very, very hard
to do and I think having cancer is something that taught me how to do it and I think that
it’s something everybody should do, but I want people to not feel this burden to be
positive because I think that really…in some ways people say ‘well, the more stressed
you feel, the worse your cancer is going to be.’
I went to a survivor conference recently and it was all about that. The survivors feel
this burden to somehow make themselves feel less stressed and it’s a vicious cycle. It’s like catch-22