The Feral Truth: Maybe Don't Be an Asshole in the Comments

I saw a post this weekend that pissed me off.

Not because of the person who wrote it.

Because of the comments.

A caregiver came into a support space clearly struggling.

She was caring for someone with cancer.

She'd been researching.

Trying to help.

Trying to understand.

Trying to ask questions.

She admitted she'd become so overwhelmed that she'd recently ended up in the ER with a panic attack.

She was losing sleep.

She was trying to care for her child at the same time.

And the person she was caring for had repeatedly told her:

"You stress me."

"You cause my cancer."

"You're going to give me new cancer."

She wasn't asking anyone to tell her she was perfect.

She was asking:

How do I handle this?

And then the comments came.

From people with cancer.

And some of them were basically:

Well, maybe you ARE stressing them out.

Stop giving them information.

Their battle isn't about you.

And my blood pressure rose approximately 47 points.

Because apparently we need to say this out loud:

Having cancer does not give you a free pass to be an asshole.

There.

That's the post.

Thanks for coming.

Except obviously I have more to say.

Because there's nuance here.

Maybe this caregiver is overwhelming her loved one.

Maybe she's researching too much.

Maybe she's asking questions when that person doesn't have the emotional bandwidth to answer them.

Maybe she's trying so desperately to help that her help has become another source of pressure.

That happens.

Caregivers screw up.

I have.

We panic.

We research.

We fix.

We push.

We sometimes forget that the person with cancer gets to decide how much information they want and when they want it.

So by all means...

Set a boundary.

Say:

"I know you're trying to help, but I can't talk about this right now."

Or:

"Please stop sending me research unless I ask for it."

Or:

"I need you to listen instead of trying to fix this."

Those are boundaries.

"You gave me cancer" is not a boundary.

It's fucking cruel.

Cancer can explain behavior.

Fear can explain behavior.

Pain can explain behavior.

Exhaustion can explain behavior.

Medication can sometimes affect behavior.

None of those things automatically excuse behavior.

That's an important distinction.

Because somewhere along the way, we've created this idea that when someone becomes seriously ill, everyone around them is supposed to absorb whatever gets thrown at them because:

"They're the one with cancer."

Yes.

They are.

And that is unimaginably hard.

They deserve compassion.

Patience.

Grace.

Support.

Autonomy.

They also remain responsible for how they treat other human beings.

Both things can be true at the same fucking time.

And caregivers?

We're allowed to have feelings about what happens to us too.

I am so tired of the idea that acknowledging caregiver pain somehow steals attention from the patient.

It doesn't.

Cancer may be happening in their body.

But cancer happens to a family.

The person beside the patient may be scared too.

They may be exhausted too.

They may be losing sleep.

Missing work.

Raising children.

Managing appointments.

Researching at midnight.

Watching someone they love suffer while feeling completely fucking helpless to stop it.

Their experience is different.

It is not irrelevant.

What really bothered me about those comments was the complete lack of curiosity about the caregiver who was asking for help.

She said she'd been to the ER with a panic attack.

That should make us stop.

Not sharpen our knives.

Maybe the first response doesn't need to be:

"Here's everything you're doing wrong."

Maybe it could be:

"You sound completely overwhelmed."

And THEN:

"It might also help to give your loved one more control over when and how you talk about their cancer."

See?

We managed to tell the truth without being a dick.

It's possible.

I checked.

And this applies beyond cancer.

Someone can be hurting and still hurt you.

Someone can be traumatized and still treat you badly.

Someone can be terrified and still say something they owe you an apology for.

We don't have to choose between compassion and accountability.

In fact, healthy relationships require both.

I can understand why you snapped at me...

and still tell you it wasn't okay.

I can understand that you're terrified...

and still refuse to be your punching bag.

I can give you grace for your worst moments...

without pretending those moments didn't hurt me.

Maybe that's what bothered me most.

Caregivers already question themselves constantly.

Am I doing enough?

Am I doing too much?

Should I push?

Should I back off?

Did I ask the right question?

Did I miss something?

Am I helping?

Am I making this worse?

Trust me.

Most of us don't need strangers on the internet adding:

Maybe you caused this too.

We are perfectly capable of torturing ourselves without assistance.

So if someone comes into a support group overwhelmed, hurting, and asking for advice...

Give advice.

Offer another perspective.

Tell them gently if you think something they're doing might be making the situation harder.

That's what support communities are supposed to do.

But having cancer doesn't automatically make your perspective more compassionate.

And it certainly doesn't give you permission to verbally body-slam a caregiver who's already on the floor.

Sometimes the person asking for help needs correction.

Sometimes they need boundaries.

Sometimes they need resources.

And sometimes they need someone to say:

You don't deserve to be treated like shit just because the person you love is sick.

All of those things can be true.

The Feral Truth: Cancer deserves compassion. Patients deserve grace. Caregivers deserve grace too. And absolutely none of us—patient, caregiver, survivor, stranger in the comments—gets a medical exemption from basic human decency.