I reflected on my situation with endometriosis and God knows what else tonight and I realized that being involved in my dad's experience with cancer PREPARED ME FOR MY OWN ILLNESS. It was around the time that he got sick that I remember having concerning symptoms and just starting to explore my own health because I was concerned that I might have cancer too. I was put on birth control and ended up focusing all my energies on helping my parents with my dad's cancer.
When he found out his cancer was terminal, he had just gotten out of a week-long stay in rehab for his alcoholism and they didn't catch the cancer then (or maybe he did and didn't tell). His response was to return to drinking and say, "F**k it, I'm going to die anyway." He drank, he smoked, he mixed booze and pills; he was aggressive and violent and threatened to kill everyone at least once. He emotionally and verbally abused his family and allowed his friends to do the same and fully expected us to put up with it gracefully because he was dying.
I realized that me being exposed to all of that was not for me to make peace with the man who hated my mere existence simply because I was born disabled; it was for me to learn how not to be when it came to dealing with my own condition. So far, my illness has given me anxiety, pain, tears, and a bit of anger, but I have not resorted to drinking, drugs, wanting to hurt anyone, or verbally abusing others. I am frustrated, however, by my family's reaction to this: my mom doesn't want me to talk about it and has told me I make every conversation involve it and my stepdad has his own things going on. My brother asks my mother about me, but he doesn't wish to talk to me because our dad told him I wasn't worthy of love because I was born disabled. My mom also makes a point of telling me that they cannot afford to and don't want to come with me when I go deal with the treatments. I want to find 'family' or supportive people who actually have the energy, willingness, and capacity to be supportive and help me deal with this. I bought Ancestry DNA for myself as an early birthday present, so maybe that will help me find family who are capable of being supportive.
Like, when I told her that my appointments were scheduled for a week before Christmas, the first thing she said was, "What are we supposed to do about Christmas?" Like, no support whatsoever. I know there isn't a lot of money in the family, but she talked at me as if I were a problem.
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