QoL (not so) FastBlast!: Reverse Cancer Gatekeeping (aka Cancer Envy) with a Little Regular Cancer Gatekeeping, Grief Tourism, and an Existential Crisis Mixed In. And Cats, Too. #Rannygazoo
Confused by that title? So am I and that's what living with cancer is like.
I briefly wrote about the phenomenon of Cancer Gatekeeping several months back. This is where folks think less of folks with lower stages/grades of cancer and fewer deficits. It’s not totally hard to understand why as many are prone to participate in this so-called auction of suffering regardless of cancer or not. It can feel good to feel superior to others, even if it’s in a completely unhealthy way.
All of us, cancer or not, have our own shit to deal with. It all sucks in its own way. Some situations may be more physically painful. Some may be more emotionally oppressive. Some might be financially devastating.
It’s all terrible. Just in different ways.
I’ll even go one step further and note that some situations may even be worse in every way imaginable. That doesn’t matter. There’s never a reason to pull rank or diminish what someone else is going through.
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There’s a reverse of this situation that makes much less sense, yet here I am writing about it. What’s worse is that I worry that, like Cancer Gatekeeping, I am sometimes guilty of it myself. I can handle the guilt of sometimes thinking less of others, because I ultimately know that it’s a completely lame behavior and do my best to not let it negatively impact how I speak and treat others.
Reverse Cancer Gatekeeping (aka Cancer Envy) is when someone wants to come off like they have so terribly and you should pay attention to them. It’s partially motivated by perhaps gaining some level of street cred by exaggerating how bad one may have it. And maybe things aren’t so great in such individual’s lives, but any turmoil is used for a form of adulation. It’s basically a form of grief tourism conducted by other patients and not Muggles (click this link if you missed that post).
Yes, Cancerfølken can be narcissistic assholes, too. So much so, that they can be fine misleading people for some sort of personal gain. Maybe it’s cool kid points, maybe it’s followers and likes. I can tell you that, while it may be about money, cancer is generally a terrible market for financial gain. I mean, the Cancer Card hasn’t gotten me anything beyond early boarding on planes. Ultimately, it’s all about the offender themselves.
I think it’s much worse than Cancer Gatekeeping as it’s taking advantage of the actual suffering of others for personal glorification. To borrow a phrase from the great Leanna House (of Thanks Cancer! fame), IT’S ALL JUST SO SKEEZY AND GROSS.
Ironically, the person who introduced me to this concept has been accused of just this behavior. When I asked this person about this being true or not, I was told that ultimately it didn’t matter because cancer issues were being spotlighted.
Yeah, I didn’t buy that either. Neither did many folks in the cancer world who now have a disdain for this person. Representation matters, but so does MISREPRESENTATION. It devalues the work of so many others and even this particular person.
I don’t mention any of this to remove myself from and suspicion. I recently had an “incident” where I came across some updated stats from the National Cancer Institute (NCI) that gave me a ton to think about.
Basically, the overall survival rates for my type of brain cancer have improved in recent years. I mean, they’re still terrible, but seeing that I wasn’t quite as terminal as I had thought I was… or portrayed was more upsetting than uplifting. And that’s kind of messed up. Despite the fact that I will still likely die far sooner than most anyone reading thiessed up. s, it felt like a piece of my identity was based on a lie.
Did I kind of know this all along and overplay my situation for some attention? Had I tricked myself into believing that ultimately it was bringing attention to cancer issues?
It was only worsened when I read that folks with oddball astrocytomas (what I have) are associated with longer survival rates. While this would logically explain why I am not dead yet, it was nauseating to read. Again, pretty messed up.
“Thankfully”, I kept reading and saw that irregular tumors such as mine statistically have a prognosis of 74 months. For those keeping count at home, that’s the end of next Summer for me.
Phwew! That was close. Somehow the thought of dying soon was reassuring.
But then I realized what I was doing.
After I abated my anxiety by reminding myself about the irrelevance of statistics, this lead to some introspection— a sign that maybe I’m not much of an actual narcissist. I explored if I was more motivated by actually helping others by constantly yapping about cancer stuff or motivated by what little attention it brings me? I’m sure it’s a little of both, but is it healthy for me to dwell so much in the cancer advocacy space?
Ultimately, I choose to believe it’s more about helping others but am I just telling myself that to feel like I have some control over the chaos? I definitely don’t think I’m really a reverse gatekeeper, but there is definitely something going with me. That won’t stop me from doing any of my “creative advocacy” work, though. This Substack is just as much about helping myself cope as much as it is about helping others so I appreciate you coming along for the ride as I figure this stuff out through this week’s existential crisis.
Again, you are very, very good at expressing yourself. I've been through some of these same emotions in my life. However, you are so much better at expressing them. As you say, life's issues sure can make us wonder and take us on a rollercoaster ride. Just now, I am waiting for a CT scan .The wait for the scan is about six weeks. I have unexplained blood in my urine again -the last time was fifteen years ago. I'm waiting for a different medical group to get me in sooner as they told me they could do. And on and on it goes as I'm certain you understand. And I can only imagine the gamut of thoughts and emotions someone like yourself might be going through with something more long-term. Great article!
I'm in the middle of a book right now that focuses (in part, at least) on how important knowing you're going to die is. That's a bit of a TL;DR, but Buddhism is very good at this - reminding us that our time here is limited, whereas in the west we tend to bury our heads in the sand. Ultimately, life is a lot more vivid if you're aware that there is an expiration date, and even more so if you think this end might be very soon indeed. Dude talks about hunters seeing every hair on their prey, which seems like a trivial and creepy example to use, but it makes sense in the context of the book.
Anyway, that's where my weird brain just went. I'm glad that last meme wasn't a cat one.