I am getting to know me better

March 23, 2025

I’ve told a few people about my situation. I did not go public with it. The most important person I told was my sister. She helped me tell my daughter and parents. She attended most of the doctors’ appointments with me in the early days. I was direct with everyone. I didn’t try to dance around the subject, and I just came out saying I have cancer. I’m having surgery. I’ll let you know when I know more. For most people I only told them I have uterine cancer. I have only discussed the cell type and what the literature says about the prognosis to a few people. I happen to have a positive oncologist. He is upbeat about my prognosis, so I share what he says not what I fear.

The bigger question for me is why I do I want to conceal my diagnosis. That’s complicated. At first I rationalized that I don’t want people to worry about me forever. I didn’t want people talking about my health amongst themselves or feel its their job to spread the news.

I’ve also been very angry. I have actively been trying to understand what is causing the anger. My anger didn’t start with the C diagnosis. I’ve been in therapy for almost four years and trying to get a grip on my anger. I started therapy before either of my illnesses were diagnosed.

The first therapist was a cognitive behavioral therapist. I chose that route because it’s supposed to be effective and fast acting. She said I was co-dependent. I never really bought into that 100% but there were behaviors I could stop, like not fixing other people’s problems. So, I stopped. It was fairly easy. I don’t offer help until I am asked for help. But that really didn’t get to the bottom of my issues. So, I started writing. I told my stories, and I analyzed how those stories shaped my life. The overriding theme was shame. I am dyslexic. It made reading and writing very difficult. I am old enough that dyslexia was a new diagnosis when I was young and not at all understood. All I knew was I was dumb, stupid and less than perfect. Those adjectives were reinforced by teachers, classmates and even people I worked with in my adult years. I started reading about dyslexia and I found a paper on dyslexia and shame. That was it. I’m ashamed of being different. I am ashamed of being less than perfect. I am reacting to these diseases with shame. My go to reaction to shame was to cry. Crying isn’t an acceptable response according to the world. I was a crybaby, sissy, ungrateful and I was being threat with physical assault if I didn’t stop crying. “Stop crying before I give you something to cry about.” Anger was more acceptable and it gave me power. Power to move people away from me. Power to get want I want I need and also what I wanted. Anger became my go to emotion.

I have been hiding my dyslexia for most of my adult life. It’s really been in my 50s that I started to openly talk about my reading and spelling delays. I learned to read. I also write well. I read and write well enough to earn bachelor’s and master’s degrees, but it’s spelling that I never have been able to master. It’s amazing that a feeling that I felt as a small child could have a hold on me for my entire life. It’s also disappointing that all the work I did to understand what was causing my thoughts and behavior 3 years ago didn’t automatically help me with this new development. I am glad that I’ve reached this conclusion again. At least I’m consistent.

I’m not going to change my decision to keep this diagnosis private. Although I’ve been feeling down and discouraged about my cancer I am starting to come to a new understanding.

One more thing that I want to share with you all:

I put the sex in dyslexia! 😊

Denise