As someone who was diagnosed with cancer in 2016 and who was very open about my 3 years of treatment, making it part of my public identity- I absolutely understand why people choose to keep their cancer experience private and sometimes explicitly hidden.

Firstly, work:
I have friends with life-threatening illness who have to keep their reality completely hidden for fear of losing their job.

As a self-employed therapist I was warned by others in my profession that I would lose clients, and lose referrals from colleagues for sharing my experience.

Others scolded me for expressing anything about myself in public that my clients might find.

But after that: negotiating the chronic misattunement of other people and having to soothe their anxiety is exhausting.

“friends” come crawling out of the woodwork to offer up thinly veiled “goodbyes” weeks after you are diagnosed.

Many write you off as dead already.

Others concern is cloying.

Still others ignore it like it isn’t happening.

Some are encouraging or advice giving in ways that are simplistic or burdensome or just wrong.

You become the lightning rod for others death anxiety. You ARE their death anxiety- as they project all of their unprocessed fear on to you.

Some people abandon you explicitly. Some press you to keep pushing or rise above.

Some don’t calibrate their demands of you at all.

Very few people stay near in just the right way - or allow you to tell you what you actually need of them.

Everyone looks at you differently.

Even asking for a seat on public transport felt like an act of violence- “Could I ask for your seat? I’m fatigued from chemotherapy” - their face would constrict with horror and they would begin issuing panicked apologies and it felt like to much work to take care of them.

I took this on, speaking publicly about my experience consciously and intentionally because my 25 years of training and practice as a therapist meant that I saw it as part of my job to teach others how to process complex experiences.

It is literally my work to help others embrace their humanity by claiming my own. I took this on as part of my labor in the world and as something I could give others.

Chadwick Boseman loved to act.

All of this would have jeopardized and derailed and detracted from his work.

People told me explicitly that my sharing this would disrupt my ability to be enrolled as a psychotherapist. (I beleived it was an extension of my role)

Coming out with cancer diagnoses often threatened livelihood, employability, access to healthcare etc.

One of the most important things we need to break down is the binary belief we have that living and dying are binary opposites with a hard line that exists between them, like an on/off switch.

We are actually always doing both.

The living are always dying.
And the dying are still living until they are not.

Live and death are intimate partners. Completely necessary to each other.

If you can begin to wrap your head around that, maybe you can then begin to support those with life threatening and life limiting diagnosis

Anyway: if it would be helpful to you to read about my experience- if it would help you support those in your community with life-limiting illness, or if you feel alone yourself - you are welcome to look at my blog.

I’ve also collected my essays -and some new ones about coming to terms with death, dying, bereavement etc. - and will have them available as an affordable ebook at the end of the month.

I’m also working on organizing a challenging death anxiety workshop

I didn’t even mention how the concretely religious or the lifestyle longevity and diet crew treat you when they find out you have cancer.

HOO-BOY. A CAN OF WORMS.