(no subject)

[the_rck]

My psychiatrist thinks I should find a breast cancer support group, either in person or online. Google hasn't shown me many face to face options. There's a weekly group that meets downtown (I think) in a bank on Wednesday evenings. I could go to that some weeks and not others because we have other things going on on Wednesday evenings. If it is downtown, the bus might even be an option, even after 6 p.m.

There's also a monthly group on Monday evenings at St. Joe's, but that's a pretty long car or bus ride away, and I'm not convinced I'd want to do it. If I did get there by bus, getting home the same way would be much more difficult. The buses run later now than they used to, but they're not, on most routes, more frequent. Hm. Yes, the bus website says that the bus from St. Joe's to downtown runs hourly after 6:30. I'd have a forty minute wait after the meeting and a twenty five minute ride to downtown. The bus from there to home wouldn't leave for another forty minutes. The bus station lobby would be open. I suppose the A-Ride is an option. The time involved would be similar, and $3-$5 each way isn't terrible.

As to online, I know my sister does stuff on Facebook, but... Facebook. The American Cancer Society has online forums, and those are probably okay. I mean, at least I know the organization isn't some fly-by-night thing that's going to sell my data to snake oil salesmen. The other site I found was breastcancer.org, and I'm not convinced. All of the pages say they were last updated in April of 2015, and I can't find any indication of more recent content. It may be there, but it's not public. There are personal stories listed, lots and lots of them, but not one is dated as to when it was posted.

I just hate signing up for things like that. Loathe it. Also, from what my sister says, there are some folks in the community who won't consider me a 'real' survivor because I didn't do chemo (and don't consider her a real survivor because she didn't do either radiation or chemo). I really don't want to deal with assholes on the subject. Really, really not.

Comments

[retsuko]

I'm surprised your psychiatrist doesn't have a group in mind already. Is she researching some as well?

[the_rck]

She didn't say she was. I expect she would if I asked her to.

I'm not finding anything encouraging, though.

[garnigal.livejournal.com]

Also don't rule out the possibility of finding someone at the meeting who is going your way. Obviously you can't guarantee it, but if you put it out there at your first meeting you may be surprised.

[the_rck]

That's a possibility. It's just hard. I'm agoraphobic, so going out to begin with is hard. Asking strangers for help is harder. I also want to have a plan that relies only on me, if that makes sense.

[thornsilver]

Wow, that's a new way to be asshole I've never heard of before. Live and learn.

[the_rck]

Apparently, people are even nastier to women who have to have double mastectomies due to genetic risk factors without waiting for actual cancer. When you've got an 80% chance of getting it and a 60% chance that it will be aggressive and otherwise nasty, I'd say it's as bad as getting it. It completely alters your body and your life and is scary as hell, but... Some people think it doesn't count.

Online groups tend to fragment into very specific subsets, so it's easier to find a welcome with other people who've been in the same place. I think I'll have to join Facebook, however, and I really don't want to.

[rahirah]

Well, for what it's worth, I can at least assure you that the American Cancer Society forums are totally legit.

[the_rck]

I figured they were. I just have some issues about signing up for anything, particularly if it's very large. That sharing of information feels so irrevocable. Which makes no sense given how open I am here about who I am and what's going on in my life.

I also worry that dealing with an online support forum will be a chore, something that makes me more anxious and that I put off and put off.

[evalerie.livejournal.com]

Another option would be to search Yahoogroups and see if there is a group there that seems compatible. I've found that for some topics I need to hop from group to group for a while until I find one that I like, but for most topics there are so many options that there does turn out to be one that I'm happy with. For whatever that's worth.

I know two other local people who have had breast cancer. If you would like to be put in touch with them (well, one is Chris and you know where to find her as well as I do :) ), maybe they have some advice about support groups, or maybe they themselves would be a resource to talk to?

[the_rck]

I'll poke around Yahoogroups since I'm already signed up there. I'm just finding this hard to deal with because I fear that such a group would end up being something I ignore because it makes me anxious and something that makes me anxious because I'm ignoring it. I don't know. I suppose Yahoogroups are easy to leave...

Chris rather suddenly stopped talking to me last fall. I'm not sure if my message got buried and she lost track of it or if she was too busy or what happened. I was too stressed out at the time to follow up and ask (and not sure how I'd deal with it if she didn't answer that message either). Prior to that, we'd been having lunch together about once a month during the school year.

[evalerie.livejournal.com]

Me too. I think going back to school *and* having Ross five days a week kind of took over her life. I don't think it's anything personal against either of us.

[the_rck]

None of the groups on Yahoo look useful, sadly. There are several that are geographically specific and several that are for folks with stage IV (I had stage I). There are a bunch that are talking about 'natural' treatments that will magically cure/prevent breast cancer, and a number that are very small and seem personal (follow so-and-so's journey type things). There were two that looked kind of promising, but one, when I clicked through, was entirely sexual spam messages for the last few weeks. The other was based around a website that set off warning bells in my head, so I think not.

I went far enough down the list to get to groups that only matched one of my two search terms.