I’ve been losing it the past couple of weeks.

And the thing is, I’m supposed to be better now. I’m supposed to be happy about being “cured” and that “nothing is wrong with me”. Except the thing that is still wrong with me is that I’ve spent the past ten months being sick, being in pain and being afraid … and I guess that just doesn’t go away overnight. It’s almost like I was able to cope with all the scary stuff better when it was all happening, because I had no choice…

I also feel like I’ve had to ask for so many favours this past year. And so now that I’m “better”, I can’t bring myself to ask for anything else. Especially when people never seem to ask me for anything, you know? The kid glove thing. It’s not balanced. Except I’m clearly not okay. Lately I can’t seem to focus on anything, I can’t keep my thoughts from going to dark and scary places. I can’t get through the day very well. I also haven’t been able to find enough work and I have only about 500 euros in the bank and I’m scared about losing my home.  I’ve been working like a dog on the websites in the hope that I’ll be able to make at least a partial living from that, but I can’t do all that work myself and need to rely on other people. Again, asking for favours. It makes me hate myself when I have to keep asking for things.

And so, when people say they’ll call or they want to get together and then don’t get back to me, I’m left waiting and waiting, because I just can’t call them. I just can’t anymore because I don’t want to put them on the spot. And yeah, I know I’m probably overreacting and being unreasonable, because people have their own lives and problems and what-have-you, and they’re not mindreaders, etc etc. Which makes me hate myself even more for feeling like this. A vicious circle.

I really am so grateful for all the help everyone has given me over the past few months, but I’m also ashamed that I haven’t managed to get back on my feet again yet. And I only have two months left before the next CT scan, which really scares me because it’s like having a time bomb ticking away inside me and I don’t know how much time I have until the next recurrence.

One of the hardest things I had to do after being diagnosed with cancer was learn to ask for help. And frankly, after they told me I was going to die, I kind of lost all embarrassment about it. I mean, what the hell. And yeah, I’m obviously not doing well at the moment, but it’s not only a question of feeling bad about asking for help, it’s not even knowing what to ask for.

I honestly don’t know what happened to make everything start unravelling, because I was feeling okay before. In fact, people kept commenting on how well I was doing. And I know that this too shall pass, but I’ve spent the past couple of days crying my eyes out and feeling so very scared and alone.  And I don’t really know why I’m writing about this here, except I’ve got so used to sharing everything with you guys. So thanks for listening. It’s helped me feel less alone.

And I’ll be okay again soon – promise!