Am I Just Being a Brat?

Shannonlw7 said:

i have the same feelings
i have the same feelings about my sister and my best friend. my sister i had to locate her after i was diagnosed because i was afraid of dying and her not knowing..she is only 21 and had ran off to texas, she called me one time and wanted to know "how" someone gets rectal cancer, like she was disgusted by it, and i never talked to her again, until a few months ago when i found out she was back in wv and hadnt called me, so i wrote her a letter telling her i was pretty upset about her not calling or writing me, and she said, i'm sorry your sick but..it wasnt like i could just leave and come home. well, i never would have asked her to do that, and now, my cancer is back..i dont even plan to get in touch with her. and my bf..although i talk to her almost everyday, its always all about her..her new job, new boyfriend, or whatever..just nothing about how i am doing or feeling..and having these feelings toward her hurt me more than the ones from my own sister, maybe she doesnt want to think about me being sick so she talks about everything else to keep my mind off of it or something. i dont really know, but it does hurt.

maglets said:

tough one
Kimby this is a tough one and I have been up and down on it for all 5 years. I find that when there is a crisis...especially surgery friends appear in droves to help with cards, flowers and food. Then after my third surgery there was less and less reponse. After 5 years I find even my best friends are more distant, moving on with their own lives.

At times this really gets me down and I feel abandoned and sorry for myself. Then when i get some strength I go out into the world and it is all there ready to receive me.

I honestly don't know what to say about your best friend....my gut reaction is there is no need for you to apologize....she really hurt your feelings. I think I might just let it float for a few days and see what happens. Forcing her to give you an excuse is obviously not going to make you feel better.
What am doing yapping on...I just told you you were the wise one

it's tough
mags

usakat said:

You being you...and you are great!
Hi Kimby,

Ahhh...relationships with friends and family...they're like putting on your favorite sweater when you're chilled - they can make you feel warm and cozy. Although other times they can leave you cold and needing a heavy coat. People, and even more so relationships, are so complex - I think sometimes we forget that. All those little complexities and intricacies are as vast and numerous as the drops in the sea, ebbing and flowing...sometimes we ebb and other times we flow with the people in our lives.

Anyway, I absolutely do not think you are being a brat. Like you said, you feel what you feel, and if you feel hurt, hurt is what it is...only for now I hope. You know you'll recover, and hopefully when you do, you and your friend will start anew.

Perhaps some of what may have caused your conversation to unravel is you asking why she didn't respond/call you back/e-mail you, etc. Some people can handle a direct question or inquiry such as that and give you a straight forward response, but others will feel totally backed into a corner, especially if she didn't have a good excuse, like you mentioned. My guess is her defensiveness and bad apology is because either she didn't feel like she had a good excuse, or more likely, she couldn't come up with the words to tell you exactly how she was feeling.

I'm guessing your good friend, who has been so helpful to you throughout your battle, and who has had her own experience with cancer, looked up all the statistics, survival rates and all the scary stuff about your cancer. She has probably lived with the idea that she might lose you too soon, and then BAM, out of the blue comes this great news. She may not know exactly what that good news really means. No evidence of active disease??? I'm sure she needs to sort through it, and perhaps even see you enjoy good health for awhile - sort of a seeing is believing kind of thing. Think of it as her defense mechanism - she doesn't want to get her hopes up to have them dashed later. We all know what that is like - we LIVE it!

As for her apology. It wasn't one. The ever so wise and dearly departed Randy Pausch, said, "A bad apology is worse than no apology." He says the person receiving a bad apology is left insulted - I suppose it comes down to feeling like you have not been heard and the reason for the hurt has not been acknowledged. Some people however, don't know how to apologize. They don't and they may never know how, even if you try to explain exactly what you need to hear. You may never hear a decent apology from a person who does not know how to apologize. I have a person in my life who doesn't know how to apologize and I struggle to just accept that fact and move on when conflicts come up. I've learned it's easier that way and life is too short to hold grudges.

As for what to do now? I say give it some time to let the chill fade and let the warmth of your friendship rise to the surface again. Perhaps when it does you two can come together without you feeling the current sting of the hurt and her feeling defensive. If you don't hear from her first, maybe in a week or two, I say go ahead and either call her, or drop her a note or a "thinking of you" card/e-card. Once the raw emotion simmers down you two might naturally flow into a heart-to-heart talk and finally understand where each of you are coming from. I think you'll intuitively know when the time is right if you have to make the first move.

And Kimby, it may not be the same, but you have a huge group of friends here who are cheering with you and your NEAD status - we actually know how special that moment is. There is that old saying that a joy shared is a joy doubled. We're sharing in your joy!

Big hugs to you, Kimby!

Katie

PhillieG said:

Still laughing
I read this in the morning and your "you'd think I have a penis but I swear I'm a woman" just floored me. Sit down, some men do have feelings. The only thing that men often have to be facing DEATH before we get in touch with them. That aside, I don't think you're being a brat at all but very often people do not know how to handle when someone they know or worse yet, care for, has something bad happen to them (like cancer - not great). I lost a few "friends" but gained many more after I got cancer. It does sound like she has been a very good friend for you up until now. Who knows how she's feeling? No one but her. She could feel like she has no purpose now or like others mentioned, maybe she has her own personal issues to deal with. I would not say anything, she may come around. I can understand how you must feel, some people do not handle good or bad news very well it seems.

That's my opinion but I have a penis :-)

I was confused by your comment "The hardest part is that she is an 11 year survivor of NHL".
I would think that maybe she was hit too hard with a hockey puck or high sticked but maybe I'm not understanding something.

Think it through before you do anything.
{{{hugs}}}
-p