I'm terrified of loosing my dad to cancer but we don't talk about it much

I'm terrified of loosing my dad to cancer and I don't want this to get any worse but we don't talk about it much. I don't want to be at school most of the times I just want to stay at home and help my dad with this. School tries to help me but sometimes I just end up loosing it. My friends always put a smile on my face but I don't talk about it much because they don't understand properly even if they try to it doesn't help me. I also have a friend with lung cancer and she is only 14 and I just feel like everywhere I go it won't leave everyone I care for or need alone and I hate it. I just want it to stop.

Hi,

It sounds like you’re going through a really difficult time at the moment, worrying so much about your dad and not being able to talk about how you feel. It’s great that you have friends who are there for you and ‘put a smile on your face’, but although they may try, there is no way they can fully understand what it’s like for you unless they have experienced something similar.

It seems like you’re very close to your dad and want to spend time with him and support him. That’s a wonderful thing and I’m sure it’s a great comfort to your dad that he’s got such a loving and caring son. What about other family members, is there anyone else that you can talk to? It’s very common what you say about not talking about it when someone in the family has cancer. It’s usually such a big and scary thing that people tend to try and avoid talking about it. This is also because people are afraid of upsetting each other and they think that talking about it will make people sad and upset. And of course, it is upsetting to talk about someone we love having cancer… But the thing is that everyone is thinking about it anyway and if no one opens up and talks about it, you all go around feeling sad and upset on your own and that can be a very lonely feeling… Talking about it makes it possible for you to support each other instead of thinking that you protect each other by not saying what you feel… Many teens in your situation talks about ‘staying strong’ for their parent and you may feel the same…? That’s an admirable and positive attitude but remember that staying strong doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t talk about difficult emotions. Actually, it’s quite the opposite, talking about it will usually make it easier to deal with and so, we’re often able to stay stronger by talking about it than we would by keeping it all inside us.

So even though talking about it won’t make the cancer go away, it will help so that the emotions are not just building up inside you and it won’t feel so overwhelming. Venting your emotions instead of bottling them up will usually make it more manageable and you may not feel that you end up ‘losing’ it quite so often.

You say that the school try to help you and I wonder how…? Perhaps you have a teacher that you can talk to or perhaps the school could arrange for you to talk to a counsellor if they haven’t done so already? Right now, it seems like your life is very dominated by cancer and worries and it’s natural that you want it to stop. You are very welcome to get back in touch with us again if you want to talk things through with us in private or we can help you find out about local support in the area where you live. Just use the ‘get in touch’ form that you used before but remember to tick in the box asking if you would like us to get back to you via email.

Hope to hear from you…

Warm wishes, Hilde

Page updated 02/03/16