Emotional Meltdown...

I'm sorry you're having such a stressful day. A nap usually helps me, but that doesn't sound like it will fit into your schedule. Can you get to bed early tonight and/or take some ME time?

Oh dear, you had me chuckling with snot fest, and then giggling with the account information and finally laughing out loud with the family expectations.

Dr. MKE's prescription - take the phone off the hook, pour a glass of wine, put on some comfy jammies and read some trashy book in bed.  Tomorrow is another day.

oh felicia!

i can surely relate ........... i just had it out with my mom over christmas plans, my brother over my nephew's b'day on thursday, and my employer over a scheduling issue ........... it seems that NOBODY has a flipping clue that WE are tired and overwhelmed and overcome at times!

like i have posted many, many times .......... "i have hair now, so 'it's' over as far as everyone else is concerned" .......... never to be spoken of again, never to be factored in to 'their' plans, never to (in my mothers words) screw up another holiday for 'everybody'.

i am so exhausted trying to keep up their expectations that i cry myself to sleep most nights ............... "snotfest" says it all!  

i'm not sure how much longer i can keep appearances up just to please, appease, and mollycoddle these people ........... avoiding being chastised and belittled by my "loved ones" has become truly physically and emtionally exhausting, to the point of screening phone calls, skipping sunday dinners, avoiding my nephews travel hockey games and sleeping a ridiculous amount of my life away in order to avoid yelling and/or crying it away!

i am finding my "post treatment" life extremely difficult and trying ......... NOBODY and i mean NOBODY gets it ........... my dad actually told me today that "you've put your mother through enough with your illness, you'd think you could have taken christmas day off for HER, since cancer ruined your mother's last 2 holidays ........ and you KNOW how much christmas means to your mother"!!!!!!

................ ummm?  helloooo?  ........... and they wonder why i keep to myself?????????

the point to my rant being ............ i feel your pain felicia, and i cry the same tears ............. i get it (as do we all here) ............. but no amount of napping seems to cure their "head in the sand" attitudes lol!

i'm sorry you had a crappy day ............. i hope tomorrow is better.   

Are you kidding? a good snot feast feels sooooo good.

We all have them once in a while. Good for the soul.

Bad days make the good days so much better!

Janis

Sometimes I get so tense and wound up that I wish I could cry buckets! And I usually feel calmer and more relaxed when I cry; then I can think more clearly, or, if I am tired of thinking, rest more soundly.

I can relate to many of the comments above, like wondering when or if others are ever going to understand that the 'cancer journey' does not end when aggressive treatment ends, or that I will not return to the 'old normal me' that can manage as much as I once did.  I also have learned from my experiences with cancer that my life is as precious as others' lives, that I have the duty to myself to set limits on others' expectations of me, and that I have the duty to myself to set limits on MY expectations of me.

I hope you all find some peace and comfort over the holiday.

Brenda

Hi Felicia:  I had the same thing on Sunday just broke down sobbing crying, snotting, and my cats hid under the bed. I really wonder what they think some days.  Mine was preceded by losing yet another thing this time my bank card.  I know it's not a real problem but just having to go to the bank AGAIN for another card and just the chemo brain and forgetting things.  I felt better after my meltdown and I'm so glad no one was around for it.  It's always the little things that get me finally, it's the build up of things. I really hope you feel better now though.  Thanksgiving as well, thats a big one.  The whole holiday season coming up I can't even think of it. And I really hate that everyone thinks the last treatment is over and I'm miraculously going to be myself again, my legs feel really heavy as well and I really notice it after walking a flight of steps.  My sister is having a surprise birthday party for me this weekend and my son and his fiance are coming down 1300 miles and I still feel so tired and I look awful and I can't even keep makeup on because my eyes tear up and then the nose starts running its' nuts.  I'm so happy I found this site, I thank god for each and every one of the women on it and I am so grateful for it.  Happy Thanksgiving every one enjoy your turkey and take it as easy on yourselves as possible.  Gee I'm turning into a real ebabbler I'm usually so private.

I had my surgery Oct 4, 5 years ago.  Two weeks later I was taking over for my husband's office mgr. because she had a heart attack.

I was supposed to learn all the billing, appts, filing, letters, you name it.

I did my best but was exhausted.  Then the holidays. Daughter (can you believe it)asked that I delay chemo so as not to bring down her vacation over Christmas.  WTF!

DH simply forgot I had bc.  He was off in his little world worring about the office and billing.  Screw that , I finally had a meltdown and said he'd have to hire someone.  I'd ans the phone and make appts. and that was IT.

No one, and I mean no one either helped with Christmas dinner or even mentioned my dx thru the holidays.  I was the only one at our family prayer to thank god that I was doing well and did't have to take chemo.

That sort of thing will never happen again! 

I really got mad and told them off about 4 months later and felt so much better for it. (of course the wine helped)

Supermom is no more, I got rid of her that Christmas.  If it gets done it will be done by all.  Or not at all.

We're going away together this year, so no one has to cook or put away all the decorations.

Yipppeeeee!

Hello all. 

Felicia, you sure did hit a cord with everybody.  We've all hit that meltdown point and can relate.  I know if I hear one more time that "I'm getting to be more like my old self" and can I just handle this, this and this, I may just explode--Yes, yes, ok fine old self sure--now tell me where my car keys are, what I did with my notes on the important project for today's meeting, or why I came into this room to begin with .  They have no concept of what you have to deal with.  You know it's funny how many of us define ourselves the go-to-people, the problem solvers etc.   Now I find that I have to simply walk away from some things (and sometimes find a private place to go scream etc.).  Like Iodine said it has to be done by all or not at all-great line.  I am so glad that we have each other to share these thoughts and experiences with so that we can rest assured that we are not alone and not losing our minds.  Felicia, hope today is a better day-do we need to tell the cat that it is ok to come out?

Take Care Everyone

Perhaps it is the stress and responsibility of being the go-to gals that has caused the cancer ?

omyoga

I am so happy that I found this thread....I feel we are all so tired of the mask we wear to our loved ones, friends, and co-workers that sometimes the only thing you can do is have a snot fest meltdown.  I myself have had several in the last two weeks.  The only one in my circle that seems to realize how serious I am is my dear partner.  I work retail and have found a "friend" or so I thought in my assistant manager.  Over the last two weeks life has gone downhill and fast.  First, my partner in the hospital with what was originally thought of as heart problems....but now they are leaning more towards lupus.  Then we come home one night, and our house is broken into....everything trashed or stolen (fur kids all ok and accounted for)....then, after working 65-70 hour weeks my onc asks me to cut back and my manager has a freakout, so against my onc's wishes, don't cut back....now I have shingles and no one can understand why my onc has taken me off work for the next week....duh!!!! my assistant says we all have stuff that happens to us and we just have to put it in our past (I really don't think any of us can put cancer in a little neatly wrapped package in our past...it just doesn't seem to me to be something that gets thrown back like other things like my divorce, my parents dying, etc, that I have found a way to put back).  I have 20 year old employees that come in crying that they were just in an arguement with their boyfriend and they don't think they can work.  I have another employee that is 19 and has something wrong every second of everyday and can't afford to go to the doctor....but can afford not to come to work when scheduled.  One of my rules is that you always need to be out-running me....I don't complain at all about the pain I'm in, but since I don't talk about it, I must not be in any pain......whatever! 

that felt really good to get out.   I'm not going to allow myself to feel guilty about taking care of me...none of us should.....we didn't make it this far to let the stresses of work and others expectations kill us.  Bring on the wine, the jammies, some great movies and party hardy!!!!  Here's to my first black friday off in 15 years!   (Yes, i even worked the black friday during chemo.)  This Thanksgiving is all about me....and my family that I've built within my house,  my partner and our pets.

Many blessings to you all this holiday!  Debkc

Snotfests are good for the soul.  Better to let it out than bottle it up.  Keeping it under wraps is like trying to keep a beach ball submerged under water.  There's better ways to spend our precious little energy. 

<>debkc, shingles can be very serious.  Take good care of yourself. I had a case also, but they passed quickly.  Hope yours do too.  Happy Thanksgiving everyone.   

Dear BinVA

No, no, no !  We are not responsible for our cancer !!!  Some people have long-term stress in their lives through no fault of their own - special needs children, bad teenagers, asshole husbands, job insecurity.  Some of us cope just fine, some get ulcers, some get depressed, some get high blood pressure, and over a long period of time some get cancer.  We certainly have no control over our DNA or how our body responds to stress.

One book was so specific about stress and breast cancer that it claimed left breast cancer was due to stress with our children and right breast cancer was due to stress with our husbands.

One thing I have noticed is that women with breast cancer are superwomen and that is one reason why they are superstressed.  It is in our natures to be organizers, achievers and we take on too much.

I am at work so may be abrupt at times - today is a snow day and it is very slow.

omyoga

Felicia, I hear your pain.  Back when I was married, kitchen duty was a huge area for conflict.  My ex would fix a meal every few months and somehow that puffed up to doing his fair share of the kitchen responsibility.  Hello!  Last time I looked, people not only eat every day, we eat multiple times daily! 

It makes me think of that scene from Alice in Wonderland, the one where the cake made her grow, and the drink made her shrink (or was it the other way around?).  Anyway, I felt like he would point to the few meals he made and eat the cake to puff it way out of proportion.  When it came to my role, everything I did seemed subject to the drink, which made it all shrink.  Methinks the women's movement from the 60s has a lot of unfinished business to complete.