Survivorship Isn’t Just Post-Treatment

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Longtermsurvivor 1
Longtermsurvivor 1 Member Posts: 19
in Long-Term Survivors #1

It’s a Lifelong Reckoning

  • Psychological misunderstanding: It’s not “mental illness”—it’s decades of being misunderstood, gaslit, and blamed without language to defend yourself.
  • Family fallout: Cancer doesn’t just hit the patient—it nests inside every corner of the home. Siblings sidelined. Plans canceled. Love buried under survival.
  • Physical devastation: Parts of your body taken. Energy drained. Systems collapsing. Late effects dismissed because “you survived.”
  • Social exile: Friends uncertain. Strangers afraid. Everyone walking on eggshells while you're the one trying not to break.
  • Medical dehumanization: Prodded, poked, pathologized. Rarely asked how it feels. Mostly asked how it tests.
  • Adult abandonment: And then you grow up—and suddenly the system treats you like your complexity is inconvenient. Help is promised, but never lands. You’re archived, not addressed.

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