So Why Did I Survive?

Now here is an interesting problem that I get - not sure if everyone else does though so don't take this as a common occurrence it may be just a few of us...

You can look at this particular question a number of ways and you can rationalise it different ways too.

When I've done all the basic rationalisation I came to the conclusion that I did it for myself. Yes I did it for me. Why me? Well because frankly the way other people treat me now, there is no way I would have done it for them. By that I mean that I had a sort of idealogical, rose tinted view of survival and what it would be like. You see, it would be like starting all over again, with a clean sheet of paper. Things that weren't great beforehand would be better, I'd make the word a better place (OK I might still do that! :-)), I'd be treated with a bit of respect, that relationships would somehow magically mend and become closer as they had drifted apart.

I felt that adversity would indeed build a lasting bond and produce this much better life because I had survived and because I saw life as precious and it meant something. What I went through (and am still going through) must have mattered, it was character building stuff, it changed me a lot, it made me more sensitive, more caring, more tolerant (yes it did!!!) and it gave me a whole new outlook on life.

And yet, as I've said before, only I changed, it's still the same old, same old. OK - I've heard from a very drunken source just how frightened everyone was for me but no one has ever said that to me sober. No one has ever admitted, just a little, that they were worried about what was going to happen to me and its as if it never happened. That's what has surprised me the most. No one gives a flying **** about me really apart from me - sure my parents but that's different and my mum I know has taken it the hardest but we have always gotten along just great and I know that it wounded her more than just about anyone else.

I survived (accepting all the medical stuff of course and good fortune and early diagnosis etc) because I wanted to, more than anything I'd realised that it was important to fight this and those who don't inevitably lower their chances (that's what I believe anyway). It wasn't pleasant, it wasn't heroic, it wasn't some huge battle it was as it was, tough going, stoic stuff. I did it because I truly felt things would be different afterwards. Tonight I feel robbed of that - nothing has changed, things are still the same, attitudes linger and I get treated the way I always did and get taken for granted. That's life and what you deal with - I'm sure everyone deals with that sort of stuff day in and day out and that's fine, why should I be any different?

Well - I should be different because that's what I thought would happen and it hasn't (well it hasn't yet). I'm not particularly bitter about it, it just is what it is really, nothing has changed which in my opinion means that perhaps the only person who gets to learn from the whole experience was me. It seems a waste that no one else took away the messages and positives of the journey really. Just me then :-) As normal.