Survivor guilt?

Love your post, Micmel, and I agree with it.

Shnauzermom, I don't feel one shred of guilt. I've made the comment before, that I don't believe there's an omnipotent deity in the sky anxious to fill a daily quota of souls to enter the Pearly Gates. This deity isn't up there going, “Hmmm... I need 1,200 today and have 1,196, so my final picks are A, Bea, Cee and...oh for the heck of it, I'll go with Zee even tho Dee is the obvious choice." I don't feel like I'm still here because someone else took my place.

I want to live well for as long as I can. My being diagnosed with mbc has nothing to do with anyone else's life trajectory. There have been a number of people in my community who've passed away since I was diagnosed 8+ years ago including a co-worker's 7 year old son from leukemia, and while it sometimes shocks me (two weeks ago a neighbor same age as me had a heartattack on his front porch and died), and I feel many sad emotions and think of how unfair it is, I don't feel guilt.

Schnauzermom, so sorry its been a rough week

I think that when we are faced with other people's death, it definitely can bring up the questions and ponderings of "why them and not me???!!"

I do not know that I would call what I feel "guilt" per se, and as a person with a Jewish cultural heritage, we know what guilt is, trust me! LOL!

However, I absolutely DO ponder the why's and why not's of this disease. Why am I doing as well as I am versus another person? For my brain to wrap around these questions, I usually turn to my medical and scientific understandings of the human body and health. Sometimes this does help answer the question for me and sometimes it leaves things an even bigger mystery. So then I think I must turn to "luck of the draw" in some many ways.

Survivor's guilt is real, and there are many therapists that help people work through it. In wars, those who survive experience it quite a bit.

I do not think of being "at war" with my body and cancer. I see it more as a disease process that my body is going through. So maybe this could help you? Working with the semantics of the language around cancer a bit? That we are not winning anything here, and we are not physically in an actual war. But we are people, like many others, who are managing living with a crappy disease.

Sometimes, and this may sound morbid, I wonder how many of us kinda are ready to go...the struggle of being on medications is real. Our MOs are always trying to help us have the best QOL. I think of the people in my life who have passed along in death processes as lucky in a way. My belief is that they were here and had their purpose fulfilled in life. And are lucky enough to move on - wherever that may be. Some folks believe we are alive and then we are dead and that is all, we return to Mother Earth. Some folks believe in reincarnation. Some folks believe in heaven. I can only hope that the death process has brought relief in some way to those that it has greeted.

Wow, what an interesting thread. I love all of these posts.

Schauzermom, in answer to your original question - No, I have never felt guilty for surviving. It's a continuous battle and I refuse to feel guilty for still being here. I feel very tired sometimes as I know we all do.

I feel very blessed that I'm still here and able to travel as much as I do. I'm always getting comments by coworkers like "are you going on vacation again?? where to this time??" I used to feel guilty about taking so many mini vacations, but I'm over that now. Until someone walks a day in my shoes, they can't judge me.

I have compassion and feel sadness for all those that have passed before me from this horrible disease but will continue to feel grateful and appreciate every day I have left. I live in honor and memory of my mom, my best friend's mom, a dear friend I lost to cancer 5 years ago and countless others.

I have also had the [fleeting] thoughts of "get it over with". I think we look at our deaths more than other people because the date is closer to us. Doesn't mean I'm interested in dying any time soon.

I don't feel guilt at still being alive either. I'm doing the best I can. I hope the people who have died did the best they could. Maybe I'm luckier. Maybe something else. I feel badly for them and their families, and I cry when they're gone, but their lives are not mine.

Those that have died would not want you to feel guilt. They would want you to live as long as you possibly can (or want). That's what I wish for all of you who live on after I'm gone.

SchnauzerMom, I do find myself feeling guilty sometimes. I feel like my case was so hopeless from the beginning, with very advanced mets that required me to be hospitalized and on a 24-hour IV drip for weeks upon diagnosis, pregnant and within weeks of death if I didn't have my baby, while trying to hold off as long as possible to give my baby longer for his lungs to develop and a better chance of survival. Chemo and other treatments were not working and I needed to have the baby so I could be put on hormone therapy to shut down the party of estrogen and growth hormones surging through my body, although I was only 7 months pregnant at the time. I think all my doctors thought I was pretty much at the end when I was diagnosed with mets. Then, after I failed my first line of treatment, my liver mets further exploded to where they were taking over 70% of my liver. I have cycled through many lines of treatment and progressed many times. How am I still around? I feel guilty for all of the young mothers I knew who passed in the first year or two of early stage diagnosis and for the young women who never had the opportunity to have children due to this disease. I feel for the "lost" husbands with young children left to figure things out after their wives have passed. I feel for the people on BCO who have surprisingly gone more quickly than expected, many of whom seemed to have a much more "favorable", less aggressive cancer profile. It is my nature to be concerned more about the well being of others than myself at times and as much as I would advise someone else not to feel guilty, and I know rationally that I should not feel guilty, I can't avoid feeling that way myself.

Well said Divine. MBC has taught me to value myself and this extraordinary gift of life.