I Gotta Tell You Something
After posting on socials about my diagnosis, I was flooded with messages from people from almost every season of my life. Some of these messages warmed my heart, some not so much. The funny thing about disclosure is that no two reactions are the same. They run the gamut from “Oh is that bad?” to “I’m devastated”.
I know that all reactions are valid, and I can’t expect everyone to respond how I might like. However, it gave rise to a lot of questions surrounding disclosures of such gravity. What are the rules? What constitutes a “good” reaction versus a “bad” one? What and how much responsibility do I assume as the person dropping the bomb? The list could go on. A common reaction I’ve experienced is what I have coined “panic visitation”. People hear this terrible news and feel called to do something. They want to visit, or they want me to visit them (I think I set a new PR last month for people hosted, and if those folks are reading this I love you all and please come again soon).
When I first got the diagnosis, It began a chain of emotionally charged discussions starting with the people closest to me and slowly fanning out to a public social media declaration. My sister and her family knew first as she was at the appt with me. The next day I drove home and told my mom (arguably one of the deepest emotional troughs I’ve ever been in, certainly top 3). When possible, I tried to have face-to-face conversations, thinking news of this magnitude deserved the communicative prestige of being in-person. Over time, after I had told everyone in the core group, I moved on to folks further out, and eventually I started telling new acquaintances within the first 5 minutes of meeting them. Disclosure morphed from a tragic obligation to a mercurial compulsion. I simultaneously wanted to take it to my grave and shout it from the rooftops. My sentiment was “This is what is happening to me, even though it doesn’t look like it”.
With this announcement, it feels like a rewind button has been pushed. I’ve been in this headspace for ~2 years, and frankly, I don’t want to go back to ground zero, despair and devastation. Shepherding other folks through their grief shouldn’t fall to me. It’s obvious that this grief has roots in love and I can appreciate that, though my focus is on today. Rant over.
With all this talk about Disclosure….
