Letters to the Universe

"Self acceptance comes from meeting life's challenges vigorously.  Don't numb yourself  to your trials and difficulties, nor build mental walls to exclude pain from your life.  You will find peace not by trying to escape your problems, but by confronting them courageously. You will find peace not in denial, but in victory." ~ J. Donald Walters

I've been feeling numb a lot lately.  Dissociated.  I'm not sure what the problem is, but it's making it hard for me to generate much interest in anything.  Maybe the prospect of writing more  about my early life has stopped me dead in my tracks.  It certainly wouldn't be the first time.

I don't have to write about it. 

It could also be because of my pending trip to Houston.  I'll see Dr. Kronowitz on December 6, to take a look at his latest handiwork.  We're going to have to talk about the necrotic tissue.  There is no good answer to the question of what's going to happen next there.

If we're going to leave the hard ridge, I'm going to be very very unhappy.  This has nothing to do with anyone other than me.  Dr. Ross promised me, two years ago, that at the end of all of this, no one would be able to tell I ever had a mastectomy.  Well, guess what?  Anyone could tell something terrible has happened. 

On the other hand, if we're going to do something about it, more surgery is guaranteed.  I don't want to have more surgery.  I'll never get back to even a semblance of my former physical fitness level if they don't stop cutting.  Then, of course, there's that other thing.  Stop hurting me.

I know this seems trivial compared to the possibility of dying from breast cancer.  It's not trivial.  I'm happy to be alive and well.  I'm happy to have hair.  I don't want my breast to look like a bride of Frankenstein breast.  Not trivial.

In case I haven't said it lately:  I hate having breast cancer. 

Now.  Back to being numb.

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"When we honestly ask ourselves which person in our lives means the most us, we often find that it is those who, instead of giving much advice, solutions, or cures, have chosen rather to share our pain and touch our wounds with a gentle and tender hand. The friend who can be silent with us in a moment of despair or confusion, who can stay with us in an hour of grief and bereavement, who can tolerate not knowing, not curing, not healing and face with us the reality of our powerlessness, that is a friend who cares."~ Henri Nouwen

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When I originally started this weblog, I had a couple of ideas in mind. I lost my best friend of 30 years to a heart attack and this was a means of continuing a "conversation" with her. She knew me when I was an angry, rebellious, hip young woman, when I was still an independent spirit unencumbered by adult relationships and responsibilities. We grew up together. I would write posts as if I were still writing letters to her.

I also thought it might be a good place to examine the path from there to here. I was a strange, isolated and abused child. My future shouldn't have amounted to much other than a life of drug abuse, prostitution and physical/emotional abuse. And yet none of those things have come to pass. Against all odds, I'm a productive member of society, my husband isn't allowed to even raise his voice to me. I earn my own money (even though I do so in Crazy Land). I've never been addicted to anything other than Diet Coke and nicotine. The only prostitution I've ever engaged in was limited to renting my soul to Crazy Land (or other wonderland places I've worked).

The only way to figure out how my trajectory landed me here in this moment seems to be to retrace the arc of my life. It's a tough path to follow, dark and disturbing. Sometimes I'm unable to wade through the underbrush to get to the seminal moments that lead to this present. Many memories are lost to me, buried away by trauma. It's also been my hope to reclaim some of those memories, no matter how brutal that unearthing may be.

Last week, my therapist reminded me of that intention. It was as if she'd wakened me from a deep slumber. However, I think my heart was already leading me back to my original path. My ongoing examination of the events leading up to my father's death fit into the original plan. Aside from breast cancer, nothing has defined the latter part of my life so much as his suicide.

Some of my friends who are kind enough to join me from day to day have read the posts from long ago, when I was trying to set down the bare facts of my early life. Some of them have come to know me during my two-year (and counting) breast cancer ordeal. Some of them love to visit Crazy Land.

Because I've grown to care about so many of the people who visit me here (and whom I visit regularly), I've become reluctant to expose them to the past. Most people can't tolerate knowing about much of it. (My best friend was one who could.) Nonetheless, I'm going to try to retrace my steps and get back to that original intention. It requires a lot of inward focus and, though I always try to be entertaining, sometimes I may not be.

Crazy Land will always be with us. I don't anticipate being freed from the asylum anytime soon. And let's face it, if I didn't write about Crazy Land, it might cause me to have to make an involuntary visit to a long-term mental health facility.

Some days I won't be able to walk backward into the darkness. I'll no doubt find other things to talk about. Some days I may blither on about what's going on in my life outside of Crazy Land. Who knows? Heaven forbid that I should be rigid about this.

I'll always want to hear from you. I can't tell you how many times, especially lately as I talk about my dad's suicide, that comments from you have made me pause and rethink things. Comments have caused me to question my own assumptions and conclusions. You raise my spirits and make me laugh. You renew my faith in human beings. You, the new people to whom I speak, are treasures beyond compare.

Because of that, I wanted you to know that the nature of the blog is going to shift a bit. Be forewarned. I know that some of you carry your own traumas and I don't want to add any more to your burden. If some of you choose to let go, if things become less entertaining or so weird that you must turn away, I'll be very sorry. I would wish it not to be so, but I will understand. I will continue to visit you in your own weblog worlds.

If you're interested in my previous posts about the past, please take a look at the following links.

Just the Facts, A Timeline
Sexual Abuse, Again
The Past Falls Away
Just the Facts, Part 2
Just The Dreary Facts, Even More
Deeper Into Darkness
A Small Bright Spot
My Own Good Reasons For a Suicide
Pariah
Torture
Alone

You Just Can't Make This Shit Up
The Baby Comes and My Father Finds Someone Else He Likes More Than Me

Well, this is about all I can do today. If you've made it through this many posts, you're a real trooper. Maybe I can finish tomorrow.

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"Rage cannot be hidden, it can only be dissembled. This dissembling deludes the thoughtless and strengthens rage and adds, to rage, contempt." ~ James Arthur Baldwin

I did as my father asked and called Shannon. I left a message on his voice mail and he called me back a couple of days later.

Several months earlier, my father showed me a recent photograph of my half brother. He looked startlingly like my father. I wished that I had never seen the image. I wished that I could destroy the memory it created in my mind. When I heard Shannon's voice on my answering machine, I wished to obliterate the sound. Hearing it awakened all the old demons, the memories, the rage. The images unfurled themselves behind my open eyes. I hated him. I'd never met him, but I hated him.

Shannon's mother had taken my own mother's place in my house. She had attempted to make me treat her as my stepmother. Grace. Her name is Grace. Amazing how even typing the name is almost more than I can bear. If I hated him, I hate her a thousand times more.

I called him back and left another message. I told Shannon exactly how to get in touch with me. At that point, playing phone tag was a very expensive game for me. I needed to just get it done, get the contact over with so that I could get my father off my back. My illness left me with little energy to get through my day and the pressure was eating up all I had left. I was exhausted and enraged. I tumbled through flashback after flashback as I moved through my days.

Meanwhile, my father was still haranguing me about talking with Shannon. The only thing that would have made him happy was for me to get in my car and drive there, wait for him outside his house and have some big, fake happy family reunion with this person I'd never met. The more he goaded, the angrier I got.

I made myself clear. I called Shannon. I told him how to get in touch with me at work and at home. If he chose not to call, that made him a coward. You know, if you want to talk to me, then do it. Otherwise, leave me alone. This is what I told my father. I had done as he asked. I refused to pursue Shannon any further. The suggestion that I might made me want to set a building on fire and watch it burn.

My father dropped the issue for a while. Then he called me in the middle of a chaotic afternoon and demanded that I call again.

"No," I told him. "Not only will I not call him again, I don't want to hear from you, either. Ever."

My father was astounded. I'm certain he never expected to hear those words from me. I was prepared to enforce the separation. He continued to try to negotiate with me, but he'd finally gone too far. We ceased to have regular contact.

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"Many of us spend our whole lives running from feeling with the mistaken belief that you cannot bear the pain.  But you have already borne the pain.  What you have not done is feel all you are beyond the pain." ~ St. Bartholomew

I hate the holidays. I can't remember a time when I didn't. I think, for a while when I was very young, I imagined that there was some possibility for "happy" holidays, but I don't think the vision was well-developed or lasted very long.

When I was a child, the holiday season always meant at least a solid month of my dad enjoying his favorite sport even more regularly than usual. His favorite sport was hurting people. My birthday, the days leading up to Thanksgiving, from then until New Year's day, Easter--they were all really fine excuses to engage in torture. Sometimes it would last for an hour or so, sometimes a day, sometimes many days. He tortured my mom. He tortured me. He tortured us both. Sometimes he tortured my pets.

It's funny that I'd forgotten how easy it is to dissociate when I think back to those times. I feel blank. My brain has clicked to a different channel. The channel is called "Numb."

Just to add some extra zest to the whole holiday festivities, my dad upped the ante by killing himself nine days before my birthday, a bare month from Thanksgiving. That event has cast a lovely glow over the holidays, too.

The weather is changing. Right now, the sun is shining and I'm watching leaves being blown off the trees. Tomorrow, it will be cold and windy. While I get ready for Thanksgiving dinner, the past will be replaying itself in the back of my mind. No one will hearing it buzzing around in my brain like a wasp.

I hate the holidays.

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Owner was out of the office a couple of days last week while his office was being painted.  He's back today and unhappy with the paint job.  That's entirely predictable.  Owner is one of the pickiest people I've ever known.  Hemorrhoid Guy, as a joke, left the vacuum cleaner and some Pledge furniture polish right outside Owner's door.  Owner's attention to detail is legendary.  (Note to self:  If you're going to call him that, try to learn how to spell the word, "hemorrhoid.")

Even though he hates the paint job, Owner sashayed over to my office a little while ago to ask me if I'd like to have my office painted.  Not particularly.  That means I'm going to have to move a bunch of stuff and probably end up working in Loathsome's office in the interim.  After I move back in, I'll have to inhale paint fumes for a week or so until they dissipate.  He asked me that question two weeks ago and I told him then I'm fine with the way things are.  He's decided we're going to paint my office. 

Then Owner made me follow him around, pointing out to me how much the entire place needs paint.  Maybe we could paint everything else first and get to me sometime late in 2008.  Or early 2009.

"What if someone were to come here?"

Well, people come here every day and we try to distract them from noticing by making them fill out employment forms and lecturing them about safety.  No one yet has commented on that smudge above the copier.

I received an injury report a little while ago.  Yes, I love getting those.  One of our female employees was lifting a pallet on Friday and hurt her back.  Did she report it then?  No.  Why?  Because she didn't think it was a big deal.  I called her foreman and told him to have her call me.

Hurt Girl called me in about half an hour.  After some time-consuming pleasantries, I asked her if she'd seen a doctor.

"Well, no," she said, "I think I just strained it on Friday and I soaked it in the spa all weekend and it's not any better.  I thought I'd report it just in case."

"Well, 'just in case' I need for you to see a doctor."  Yes, I'm a bitch.

"I don't have a regular doctor.  Can you recommend one?"

I told her I can't recommend one, but I can find her a doctor who's listed on our worker's comp HMO list.  I gave her the name of someone we use regularly. 

"But I live in (fill in name of small town about 20 miles from here).  Can you find me a doctor there?"

The answer to that question is that I should be able to, by checking in on our insurance company's website.  I typed in the URL and waited.  This is the message I got:

Firefox has detected that the server is redirecting the request for this address in a way that will never complete.  (Most of my requests in life have apparently been made in a way that will never complete.  How appropriate.)

I tried it again.  Same message.  I told my injured employee I'd call her back.  I called my insurance company and asked them to find a provider.  I sat on hold for 20 minutes, then the woman got back on the line and said she was having problems.  Really?  I asked if she'd like to call me back.

I received an email 3 hours later.  Let me repeat.  Three hours.  It's a good thing no one's bleeding to death.  She couldn't get access to her own company's website so she sent me an excel spreadsheet with names of doctors.  They were not organized by name, by specialty or by city.  Yeah.  This is mighty damn helpful.

I located some potential doctors and called the Hurt Girl back.  I gave her a couple of names and told her to see them so she can start feeling better and I can complete my report.  She called me back in 10 minutes to tell me that one of the doctors doesn't accept workers compensation patients (even though they're on my list) and the other didn't answer the phone. 

I gave her some more names and now I'm waiting to hear that none of those doctors accept worker's comp, either.  Our insurance company is a nationally known, highly reputable provider.  They do an excellent job of taking Crazy Land's  astronomically high monthly premiums.  This whole HMO thing was supposed to be the way Insurance Company was going to keep a lid on those ever-increasing medical costs.  I guess the best way to do that is to make sure no one ever sees a doctor.

Well, Hurt Girl hasn't called back.  In exactly one hour and 25 minutes, my day here will be over.  The time can not possibly pass quickly enough.

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"In individuals, insanity is rare, but in groups, parties, nations and epochs it is the rule." ~ Fredrich Nietschze (He got at least part of it right.)

It's been a busy day here in Crazy Land.  Work, work, work.  Don't they know I have more important things to do?

Good news:  Loathsome is back on the big project and out of the office.  Bad news:  He's been calling about every 30 minutes with computer problems.  Lying Boy (our fabulous IT "professional") has been out, so I've been the designated go-to girl.  Basically, that means that I listen to him whine for a while, tell him (for the umpteenth time) that I can't help him, then I wait for his next call.  The scuttlebutt around the office is that he's unhappy with the onsite printer he's been given.  It's old.  Loathsome does not do old.  Unless it's really, really old (like antique Tibetan Buddhist altars) or he can dress it up in coordinated, tasteful clothing.

Mr. Moneybags swears that Loathsome is sabotaging the printer so he can get a brand, spanking new one.  I don't know.    Mr. Moneybags has an obsession with co-workers sabotaging things from databases to (now) printers.  It could just be another manifestation of this particular nuttiness.  I do know that Loathsome only wants the shiniest, newest, most aesthetically pleasing everything.  That would, of course, include printers.

I'm officially taking wagers on how long it will be before he drops another multi-million dollar tool.  Second wager is how long he will hide the fact that he's done it again.  Get your dollars in now.  You snooze, you lose.  My best (based on previous experience) estimate is about a week until the accident.  We won't find out about it for two or three.

I've been filling out Environmental Health and Safety forms (part of my ever so eclectic job description) all morning for Hemorrhoid Guy.  Every last one of our clients asks for different information.  The same client can require different types of information from year to year.  It's fine; I only have to search through old files to ferret out the bits of data to suit their capricious desires.

Hey, I'm versatile.  I'm flexible.  I have no problem with said searching.  The hitch in the whole process is that, though Crazy Employee has graced us with her presence, she's too busy making personal calls to answer the phone.  The Information Superhighway and the receptionist were both out this morning, so I was answering the phone.  (Hence the ongoing Loathsome encounters.)  It slows down the data search considerably.

That brings me to the final Crazy Land anecdote for the day.  It's time for Crazy Employee to update the employee manuals.  We have new workers' comp insurance forms that haven't been included in all of the old manuals.  When Information Superhighway told Crazy that she'd given the last of the manuals to The Ladies' Man, Crazy replied that she'd just had the receptionist put some more together.  Superhighway repeated the problem, then took Crazy over to show her the empty cabinets where the manuals should be.

No, this time Crazy Employee did not cry.  Let me not understate the significance of this show of self-control.  However, she did grab a handful of hair from both sides of her head and moaned "Oh God, no!"  Even the residents of Crazy Land are baffled by her hatred of the dreaded employee manuals.

Crazy doesn't have to copy them; we send them to Kinkos.  She doesn't have to punch holes.  She does not have to collate.  All she has to do is place the main text in a binder, with pages that require signatures in the front pockets.  The back pocket contains special information (like workers' comp insurance information, for instance).  And it turns out she's delegating the task to the receptionist.  That's what we all love about Crazy Employee.  She's completely incomprehensible.

I have therapy today, so it's an early day for me.  I probably won't get around to checking in on my blog friends or even responding to comments and posts.  Rest assured that I'll be back to my regular routine as soon as possible.

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Apparently, veggie platter was lost in the refrigerator. It has been located and people are now eating it. I guess that means I'll have to bring something next time. I guess that means I won't be spitting in it, either. It's a mixed blessing, really.

(I attempted to post this yesterday, but tblog would have none of it.)

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"I believe that more unhappiness comes from this source than from any other--I mean from the attempt to prolong family connections unduly and to make people hang together artificially who would never naturally do so." ~ Samuel Butler

I didn't see my dad for about a year before he died. He'd been married before he met my mom and had a son from that marriage. They never had a relationship while his son (Shannon) was growing up. My father liked to cry and feel sorry for himself about it every once in a while.

I spoke with my parents for an hour every day after I moved out of their house. A year before Dad checked out, he started calling me a couple of times every day, haranguing me to get in touch with Shannon. It was critical to the development of their relationship. My father had always made me feel that he'd sacrificed having a boy to provide financially for me. When I was a little girl, I believed it was my fault. It made me angry. It bruised my soul.

I've never had any interest in getting to know Shannon. I resented him, the Golden Child left behind. I do not feel connected to him. For me, sharing a genetic link doesn't imply a relationship, although it's likely that Shannon is possessed by the same madness that infected my father and everyone else in his family. Why would I invite that into my life? It's a terrifying possibility.

Furthermore, I thought my father used his blossoming relationship with his son to carry on with his first wife. Before he started nagging me about it, my father had gone to the state where his son and ex lived (and where virtually all of my father's family lived) for a visit. He stayed at his ex-wife's house and my mom stayed at my aunt's house. When I found out about that, I was enraged. I didn't want to do anything that would encourage that kind of behavior.

My dad didn't have a lot of good things to say about Shannon, most notably, that he had a drinking problem. I've had a rule since I was a teenager: I don't have relationships with addicts who aren't in recovery. I was very ill at the time and the thought of receiving some of those 3:00 a.m. phone calls that alcoholics like to make ratcheted up my already-high anxiety level.

Nonetheless, I finally gave in. I called Shannon and left a message.

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Follow up to Thanksgiving event.

No, they did not eat any of the vegetable platter. No, they didn't even take it out of the refrigerator.

What am I bringing next year? Nothing. Absolutely nothing. And I may spit in it.

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"Work may include battles of will as Metal brings intensity and inflexibility to the day." ~ my Chinese horoscope for the day

We're celebrating Thanksgiving in Crazy Land today. It's our usual comedy of errors. Crazy Employee sent out an email telling us the company is buying the Honeybaked Ham and soliciting side dishes. Owner immediately answered that he doesn't want any Honeybaked anything. He either wants a ham that someone has cooked in their own home or he wants nothing at all. Surprise. No one went home, bought a ham, glazed it and baked it. Mr. Moneybags wonders if Owner will boycott the whole affair. What a naive thing to think for a man who's worked here at least a decade now. The inadequacy of the ham is all the more reason for Owner to be there. Prepare for torture. Owner will spend the entire hour (or however much time it takes for everyone to gulp down their food) talking about how bad the ham is. He will also probably be unhappy with all side dishes. There's no half way with Owner.

I have my own issues with Crazy Land Thanksgiving. About ten years ago, when I was in the depths of my three-year stress-related illness, I summoned what little energy I had to spare to bake a pie for the office Thanksgiving party. I make my own pie crust. It was a lot of work and left me completely depleted. Back in those days, I still felt very emotionally connected to Crazy Land and the people who worked here. See how far I've come?

I brought my lovingly prepared pie and, at the end of the lunch, no one had touched it. There it sat, uncut. A couple of people came up to me and said they were saving room and looked forward to tasting it. No one did. I was deeply hurt. Do I hold a grudge? Not usually, but when I do, I never ever let go.

Since that day, I have never prepared even a morsel of food for any Crazy Land get together. When I opened the email asking people to say what they'd bring, I thought about reviewing this whole incident and informing everyone I'd be bringing potato chips. Yes, I know no one wants potato chips with ham, stuffing, sweet potatoes and green bean casserole. This is exactly my mean-assed point.

When I discussed it with my mom, she suggested that, since I have an extra loaf of sandwich bread at home, I should have just brought that. I could plop it down on the sideboard and dare anyone to comment. Woe to the person who would be so foolhardy.

Then I thought maybe I should have Hubby make his famous chicken tenders. He likes to use unbreaded chicken breast, stick them on the George Foreman grill and press down on that lid until they're so dry that it you can't even cut them with a steak knife. You can chew on them for an hour or so and they still retain their hard, stringy quality. They're like petrified wood. Sooner or later, you just have to swallow and hope no one has to Heimlich maneuver you. Since no one would touch them, though, it would be hard to really enjoy my little joke.

I took the high road. I brought a pre-prepared vegetable platter from my local grocery store. If no one touches it, I can always take it home and eat the carrots and celery, etc., as afternoon snacks. See? I hold onto grudges, but I'm not vindictive.

I'm in a bad mood about the whole business and don't even wish to attend. On the other hand, I have Owner's sarcasm to look forward to, because I know it will put a serious damper on everyone else's fun. There's always that.

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"Where does discipline end? Where does cruelty begin? Somewhere between these, thousands of children inhabit a voiceless hell." ~ Francois Mauriac

My mom and I were watching a Thanksgiving-themed program on the Food Channel this weekend. She reminded me that my dad wouldn't allow her to have a potato masher. When we had mashed potatoes, she had to do it with a fork.

It's a small, mean thing to make one's work harder than it has to be. It was just another way my father enjoyed making her life miserable. I have to remind myself periodically: My father thought it was fun to watch other people suffer. The more suffering, the better.

Remembering that fact always makes me feel like someone has stabbed me in the heart.

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One day, many years ago, Owner made the Golf Pro follow him around all day with a can of air freshener.  I will leave it to you to figure out why.

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This is from my wonderful friend, RubyShooz.  Please pass it on to the people who make a difference in your life.

“Gratitude unlocks the fullness of life. It turns what we have into enough, and more. It turns denial into acceptance, chaos to order, confusion to clarity. It can turn a meal into a feast, a house into a home, a stranger into a friend. Gratitude makes sense of our past, brings peace for today and creates a vision for tomorrow.”
-Melody Beattie

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I just received a comment about my most recent post from a very kind man.  He is a member of a support group for survivors of a very rare and (at this time) incurable cancer.  He could have been stern with me or angry with me.  There are a whole range of unpleasant reactions he and others would have a right to express.  I thought I should clarify my position on support groups.

I am asocial.  That's the bottom line for me.  I was a member of a Survivor's of Suicide support group after my father died.  I found it amazingly comforting to sit in a room with 12 other people who knew exactly what it felt like to live through that terrible, terrible event.  Every week, we'd all stand up and say our names, the names of our departed loved ones, the date they died, and how they chose to leave us.  That was as far as I ever got.  I listened to everyone talk and I cried for the two hours it lasted every week.  The very last week I went, the facilitator actually asked me to talk about my feelings.  I talked, but I never went back.

I also participated in fairly long-term group therapy a couple of times in my life.  I think my unwillingness to share my heart or my thoughts with groups of people stem from those experiences.  They were not positive.

I understand how important it is for people to reach out to others, to have a stable base of supporters who are living through the same difficulties and traumas that you are.  Please know that I don't mean to disparage that need or anyone who finds hope and solace through support groups. 

This much I know:  We all get through it how ever we can.  Whatever crises life sends your way, the important thing is to just get through it.  No judgments.

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I'm not a joiner.  I don't do support groups.  Throughout my breast cancer treatment, my primary care provider and my psychiatrist constantly urged me to get into a support group.  "It improves your chances of survival," they told me.  I read books that said the same thing.  It came to seem almost like a judgment, that if I was unwilling to do the required sitting and sharing, I was inviting death to make a house call.  My doctors disapproved of my decision and they disapproved of me.  It made me angry and it caused me to question my own intuitive understanding of what I needed to do to get through treatment.

I didn't care what anyone said.  The thought of sitting around with a group of women, some of whom definitely would not survive the fight, and talking about having breast cancer made me just want to go ahead and die.  I decided that, if that's what was required of me, I'd have to take my chances.  No support groups.

If you asked the people who saw me every day, they would tell you that I always maintained a positive attitude throughout my treatment.  They're right, but they're also wrong.  Mostly I was focused on how much everything hurt.  I was primarily aware of how big the pain was.  It was as if I'd become a 600 pound lump of agony.  I was open to distraction, though.  As a matter of fact, I sought out distraction wherever I could find it and whenever I had the energy to use it.  When people told jokes, I laughed.  When they looked at me and started crying, I comforted them.  Then I made a joke,  so they could be distracted from my pain.  I don't think they knew the diversion was less for them than for me.

I was not upbeat all of the time, not even most of the time.  I'm not even sure what "maintaining a positive attitude" really means in that context.  I was relatively confident that I wasn't getting ready to die any time soon.  I was certain that I was going to be required to endure whatever the treatment regimen dictated.  Is that the same as being upbeat?  I'm not so sure.

Today, I read an article from WebMD that made me feel better about being asocial and stoic.  It turns out that the commandments "Thou shalt be positive or die" and "Thou shalt participate in support groups or die" are wrong.  Here's the proof:

Attitude Doesn't Affect Cancer Survival

Oct. 22, 2007 -- Having a positive attitude may help cancer patients deal with their disease, but it doesn't directly affect survival, according to one of the largest and most rigorously designed investigations ever to examine the issue.

The study included more than 1,000 people treated for head and neck cancer; the emotional state of patients was found to have no influence on survival.

The findings add to the growing evidence showing no scientific basis for the popular notion that an upbeat attitude is critical for "beating" cancer, says University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine behavioral scientist James C. Coyne, PhD, who led the study team.

"I wish it were true that cancer survival was influenced by the patient's emotional state," he tells WebMD. "But given that it is not, I think we should stop blaming the patient."

'The Tyranny of Positive Thinking'

Jimmie Holland, MD, agrees. The Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center psychiatrist is a longtime critic of the "mind over cancer" proponents who tell patients they must stay positive to survive their disease.

In her book The Human Side of Cancer, Living with Hope, Coping with Uncertainty, Holland coined the term "the tyranny of positive thinking" to describe the belief.

"The idea that we can control illness and death with our minds appeals to our deepest yearnings, but it just isn't so," she tells WebMD. "It is so sad that cancer patients are made to believe that if they aren't doing well it is somehow their own fault because they aren't positive enough."

Holland does acknowledge the benefits of staying positive during cancer treatment, and she is an advocate of techniques like relaxation, meditation, support groups, and prayer to help patients cope with their disease.

But she says there is no credible evidence that positive thinking alone directly influences tumor growth.

"People really want to believe this, so even very good studies like this one probably won't change public thinking," she says. "But the scientific community is getting the message."

Attitude and Cancer Survival

The newly published study included 1,093 patients with head and neck cancer who completed quality-of-life questionnaires during their treatment.

Coyne says the study group was limited to patients with a single cancer who had similar treatments to better assess the impact of state of mind on survival.

A total of 646 patients died during the study follow-up. Even after accounting for other variables that could affect survival, a patient's emotional state was found to have no bearing on whether or not he or she lived or died.

The study appears in the Dec. 1 issue of the American Cancer Society (ACS) journal Cancer.

In a separate review of other studies published earlier this year, Coyne, University of Pennsylvania colleague Steven Palmer, PhD, and ACS researcher Michael Stefanek, PhD, found insufficient evidence that participation in psychotherapy or cancer support groups plays a role in survival.

In that report, the researchers concluded that the hope that emotional state is a driving factor in cancer outcomes "appears to have been misplaced."

"If cancer patients want psychotherapy or to be in a support group, they should be given the opportunity to do so," they wrote in the journal Psychological Bulletin. "There can be lots of emotional and social benefits. But [patients] should not seek such experiences solely on the expectation that they are extending their lives."

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"Laziness is nothing more than the habit of resting before you get tired." ~ Jules Renard

The Golf Pro is connected.  I've been friends with Owner and his wife for 30 years now and he's even more connected than I am.  He's the stepson of Owner's ex-brother in law (Human Slime).  What?  Why does that matter?  Human Slime owns 20% of the business.  Big deal, you say?  Well, that's what I say, too.   Owner is paranoid that Slime will sue him for paying his employees too much, not generating enough profit or simply creating a trumped-up crisis that will inevitably end up in filling his coffers with a few more pieces of gold.  That's just how Slime rolls. 

Owner fears that Golf Pro will serve as a spy in Crazy Land, who will provide Human Slime with information that will bring the company to its knees.  He's also afraid Golf Pro will start his own Crazy Land company and steal all of our customers.  Neither of these things is going to happen.  Because neither of them wants to work.  Why would you go to all the trouble to litigate or take customers away when you'll just end up working after it's all over?

Golf Pro has never worked, even though he's been employed here almost as long as I have.  For years, as I handled all of the day-to-day business affairs, Golf Pro entertained himself by re-enacting Seinfeld episodes for me.  I prepared sales tax reports and Pro reminisced about playing golf in college.  I struggled to reconcile complex weekly billings with our primary Client in Wonderland while Pro left the office for hours to buy pants.  If all that wasn't bad enough, when profit sharing time rolled around, Golf Pro got the same amount I did, even though I actually did all of the work.  To be fair, though, Owner has treated Pro poorly over the years (in hilarious ways, of course).  I'll share some of those incidents with you when I'm able.

Everyone who's ever worked here has disliked Golf Pro.  They know he's not doing anything.  He's become one of the main sales people now and we only see him maybe three our four hours a week.  That's right....he's out buying pants.  To be fair, he does take our clients golfing regularly, too, but I don't think that qualifies as work in his case. 

Loathsome and the Pro almost came to fisticuffs in the office several years ago.  I don't remember what provoked the fracas, but I do recall hearing Loathsome yell, "You wanna piece of me?"  Nothing like working in a civilized, professional environment.  Loathsome has always hated Golf Pro because he's a slacker.  Pro hates Loathsome because he's arrogant and haughty.  It's hard to pick a side in that conflict.

Mr. Moneybags, whose wife coincidentally happens to be Hispanic, thinks Golf Pro is racist.  I've tried for years to point out that Golf Pro's mom is Hispanic and I happen to know he's not a racist.  You know how it goes, though.  Mr. Moneybags never likes to be confused by reality when he's decided to activate the hate button.

Owner and everyone else who works here (and most of the people at Client in Wonderland) know Pro is a shirker.  That's why, when Owner wants to irritate everyone in one fell swoop, he lectures us about what a great job Golf Pro is doing.  Works every time.  Unfortunately for the Pro, it makes everyone hate him even more. 

I don't hate him.  I was enraged with him for many years, but then I retired from my job as chief slave after I suffered from a stress related illness for three or four years.  After that, I was highly annoyed with him.  Then my dad killed himself and I was diagnosed with breast cancer.  Now, as far as I'm concerned,  Pro can go buy as many pairs of pants as he pleases.  It's a big job.  What with all that not working and the copious amounts of alcohol required to play golf with clients, Pro adds on more poundage every week.  Finding the right sized designer khaki pants gets harder all the time, I'm sure.  It's a big job, but I know Golf Pro can handle it.  You know.  He's got some time on his hands.

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This is my Chinese astrological sign.  No, I am not vengeful.

Birthday
Tuesday, November 03, 1953

Sign
Snake

Element
Water

Chinese Name
SHE

Lunar Years of the Sign
1917 1929 1941 1953 1965 1977 1989

Description of the Sign Personality
Depth and charisma make the Snake a formidable presence. What you see is not what you get. The Snake's many interests and insatiable thirst for knowledge result in an increasingly complex persona. Furthermore, with the Snake's penchant for secrecy, they're not likely to let us see how much there is to know about them. More than any other sign, the Snake knows how to present itself, when it wants, in the most favorable light. The downside of this is that the Snake is likely to tire of and discard us lesser mortals. An even bigger danger is the Snake believes in revenge; so, don't cross them. Like the Dragon, the Snake is a karmic sign and likely to experience lots of extreme highs and lows in their lives.

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