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Another reason this hurts so much is because I have breast cancer, which I am dealing with holistically rather than the usual conventional treatment, and maybe she's mad b/c she doesn't believe in that, but if that's the case then she surely believes I'll die and she still doesn't want to talk to me?
That's insane. Obviously she doesn't want to watch you slowly commit suicide, and she'll remember what you are doing to her long after you are dead. My wife's aunt ignored her breast cancer for over a year and the time from diagnosis to death was less than 2 months. It's not just the knowing that she's dead, it's made much worse by the knowledge that she could have done something, when she had time, but she didn't and then she died, and her family all feels guilty because they wish they would have known so they could have done something, but they didn't.
You should start looking at yourself as the woman that killed her mother, because that is certainly how she sees you.
Yes dear, I know about fungating tumors--it's a sickening thought and I'm well aware of it. I also know someone who burned from the inside out due to a rare side effect of chemo. Rare, but the woman was genetically related to me and I also have a tendency to react badly to meds and to anesthesia. The truth is that many people who die of cancer, die due to the treatment but the docs can claim success b/c they didn't die of cancer!
And how many people do you know who have chosen holistic therapy? I'm talking about going to a holistic doc, not researching supplements on the internet. The fact is that when folks heal from using alt methods, the docs will dismiss it as spontaneous remission and say that it must have been a coincidence. I know 3 people that happened to, but none of them did nothing and all did something. For one of them all she did was make amends (AA style) to all the relatives and friends she'd screwed over but a big component of healing is mental/emotional.
Since I run in holistic circles, I know several people who are or who have successfully treated their cancer with this method. One of my best friends is a 62 yo woman who looks 20 years younger and is 6 years out from a dx with no conventional treatment.
And at the rate I'm going I will be very much alive and well for at least 5 years.
Apparently you missed this:
And now let me ask you this. I don't normally do this with people but you came at me with both fists flying and you need to hear this. When you got cancer, did you change your lifestyle? Did you stop eating sugar and start eating more vegetables? Did you research and start taking supplements to help balance your body and did you get concerned about your vitamin D level? Did you make sure you have an exercise routine in place with no excuses for bad weather days? Or did you just trust that the doctors know what they're doing and carry on as before in the habits you had formerly? This is not a "blame the victim" game, but I'm taking the American Cancer Society at their word when they say that 90% of all cancers are preventable. If you just say you avoid sugar I'll believe you're serious, but most people still eat it long after the chemo is over. And no, I don't buy the moderation argument--who knows what moderation is? Nobody I know. Also, you apparently are one of the lucky ones in not suffering too badly from SEs of treatment, but people are all over the board with that and some are knocked into the ground with it. I've done a lot of work with my treatment but I've never been knocked into the ground and have felt better and better and I feel better now than when I was a kid b/c I've had health problems most of my life and found out thru this that many of those health problems were caused by mercury poisoning that occurred when I played with the contents of a thermometer when I was 11.
Yes, my cancers were cured without me having to give up a cookie now and then and missed day of exercise too. If a holistic approached worked, we've have studies that prove that and we'd all be doing it. Conventional treatment didn't kill me, wasn't horrible, and my cancer was cured. I just can't imagine NOT doing that. My life is too important to my children and husband to fool around with something that 'sometimes' works when I have something that works 99% of the time. If you didn't have children that love you, I wouldn't care what you choose to do, but children changes all that you have to do what is best for them and that's not a cure that 'might' work.
Yeah, I too broke a thermometer when I was growing up and had a heck of a fun time playing with all those little silver balls. It didn't cause my cancer or any other problem.
You think you are doing fine. But have you ever thought how your daughters feel , did you take min to feel in their shoes? It is not easy at all to deal with mom who has a breast cancer and still refuses to take medication for that. You traumatize slowly your daughters. May be your marriage did not work out may be your ex husband turn on gay what ever if YOU EVER LOVE your kids ,, you have taken the treatments and try to be healthy for your kids, Behaving as stubborn as much you can and still expect your daughter to be on the phone all the time for you...
I find that poster offensive also. No one has walked in your shoes. Your daughter is still a kid, I have all the faith in the world that she will come around when she gets older. Focus on the positive responses. I find similarites of my son is some of your posts. I know he loves me. I know he cares about me. And he many ways I think it is my own fault because I have raised them to be independent and they assume I am independent too (I am in many ways. Mothers seem to be the head of the family hierarchy and we always to do our best that we have it all together. Then comes that moment that we need support--and our own family members can't see it or they find it impossible to actually notice we need help because we have always appeared strong. So we suffer in silence.) She is still a kid, no where near an adult.
As other posters have said in many different ways. Taking the cell phone away will not fix the problem, it will only escalade it. I think when you do have a phone call from her stay positive, ask what she had been up to.
Good luck to you stepka. With my first pregnancy and complete stranger gave me this advice: "don't listen to any one's advice, parent from your heart".
I have always parented from my heart too. When they were little I always knew what to do and I guess I resembled what they call a helicopter mom when they were little--I was always there to pick them up when they cried. This one didn't cry as much though.
As they got older I lengthened the leash more and more but I must say that with this daughter I was more uncertain--she would not get her drivers license or a job when she hit 16 so I told her that if she wanted to have any fun she was going to have to get a job. She waited a year and then rode the bus every other day to her job. To this day she does not have her DL! When she was home I didn't give rides to fun places either unless I was totally available and felt like it--she was not to expect rides unless it was for something important and she agreed to that. I made the girls call for their own appointments too--they hated that but I was teaching them how to live as an adult. So, maybe I did make them too independent but I don't regret it really.
So maybe I'm trying to be the head of the family here but I'm failing miserably as a matriarch!
I did not read every post so excuse me if some of this has been said:
-Apologize to her for not receiving treatment. It is not "your body". You are her mother. That body carried her inside. What happens to you affects her. You choose to not get the treatment that is most likely to be effective. She is preparing for the results of your choice.
-Communicate with her in other ways. I hate when people call me and I am much older than her. Facebook is probably the easiest but you can also pursue Twiter, Instagram, Snapchat, etc. Just keep in touch with her and her life. Letters and postcards and care packages also work.
-Do not feel too good about paying for her college. That is your responsibility as a parent. The phone is a perk but paying for her education is your obligation.
I wish you the best of health and I hope that you resolve these issues with the girls soon.
That's insane. Obviously she doesn't want to watch you slowly commit suicide, and she'll remember what you are doing to her long after you are dead. My wife's aunt ignored her breast cancer for over a year and the time from diagnosis to death was less than 2 months. It's not just the knowing that she's dead, it's made much worse by the knowledge that she could have done something, when she had time, but she didn't and then she died, and her family all feels guilty because they wish they would have known so they could have done something, but they didn't.
You should start looking at yourself as the woman that killed her mother, because that is certainly how she sees you.
It's not insane. She's not committing suicide. She's not ignoring it. She's not "doing nothing". She stated in a previous post that her tumor has shrunk since she started treating it holistically. If you read other posts from stepka on other threads about how she is treating it you might have a different opinion then the one you shared above.
-Apologize to her for not receiving treatment. It is not "your body". You are her mother. That body carried her inside. What happens to you affects her. You choose to not get the treatment that is most likely to be effective. She is preparing for the results of your choice.
-Do not feel too good about paying for her college. That is your responsibility as a parent. The phone is a perk but paying for her education is your obligation.
.
You must be kidding. Parent's bodies don't belong to their children nor is it parents' obligation to pay for college.
I have always parented from my heart too. When they were little I always knew what to do and I guess I resembled what they call a helicopter mom when they were little--I was always there to pick them up when they cried. This one didn't cry as much though.
As they got older I lengthened the leash more and more but I must say that with this daughter I was more uncertain--she would not get her drivers license or a job when she hit 16 so I told her that if she wanted to have any fun she was going to have to get a job. She waited a year and then rode the bus every other day to her job. To this day she does not have her DL! When she was home I didn't give rides to fun places either unless I was totally available and felt like it--she was not to expect rides unless it was for something important and she agreed to that. I made the girls call for their own appointments too--they hated that but I was teaching them how to live as an adult. So, maybe I did make them too independent but I don't regret it really.
So maybe I'm trying to be the head of the family here but I'm failing miserably as a matriarch!
It would help both of you immensely to sit down and have a few heart-to-heart talks with each other.
Maybe I can give you a bit of insight from a daughter's perspective. Although I'm 62 now, I was never one to call either of my parents (they were divorced when I was about 15). He remarried.
Unlike all my other siblings, I moved out of state years ago. My mother would call regularly. If she left a msg, I'd call her back. But I didn't often call her, and never called my father, although I'd answer if he called, which was rarely.
The reason I didn't call more often or reach out a lot to my parents is that I simply wasn't raised that way. I did not grow up with close, daily connections with either of my parents. The birthdays passed, school events, whatever....neither parent made much effort to be in attendance, give me a birthday party, or pay me much attention. Although I loved them and we got along. (My dad was off starting a new life with his new wife, and my mom was very self-involved and not faring well after my dad left. Her time was limited with that and with my four siblings, so not much time left for me. Which is fine.)
So when I grew up, that pattern continued. It was nothing personal.
It's like that song "Cat in the Cradle." Your children become what you raised them to be, whether intentionally or by example. Often, they become what you were to them when they were young.
Maybe that's not the case with your college daughter. Maybe she's just very involved with her life, a lot going on, meeting guys and school and new friends. She's young and immature. It's not unusual to be self-involved at that age. But let her know that you miss talking to her. Be forthright. She will probably make more of an effort.
Even if her case is like mine, it can be changed. But you have to make a pattern of routine, frequent contact with her. Phone calls are best, but emails are okay. Texting is sort of brief as a form of real communication.
I knew it was a matter of time before the Cat in the Cradle verses came out
I did not read every post so excuse me if some of this has been said:
-Apologize to her for not receiving treatment. It is not "your body". You are her mother. That body carried her inside. What happens to you affects her. You choose to not get the treatment that is most likely to be effective. She is preparing for the results of your choice.
-Communicate with her in other ways. I hate when people call me and I am much older than her. Facebook is probably the easiest but you can also pursue Twiter, Instagram, Snapchat, etc. Just keep in touch with her and her life. Letters and postcards and care packages also work.
-Do not feel too good about paying for her college. That is your responsibility as a parent. The phone is a perk but paying for her education is your obligation.
I wish you the best of health and I hope that you resolve these issues with the girls soon.
I've tried to stay out of the cancer issue but your comment about OP's body not belonging to her anymore is just ridiculous. Yes she is a mother but her body belongs to her and it's ultimately up to her how she chooses to treat her illness. If her children were small I might think differently but they are grown women and OP has the right to chose how she wants to live or die. I think people are making more out of the daughter's lack of communication than there really is.
This young woman is probably just out living her own life right now and not putting that much thought into her mother. It's not nice but it's pretty normal for a college kid. I doubt it's all that deep. She's busy with classes, she's hanging out with friends, she's going to parties, she might have a boyfriend and mom just isn't that interesting right now. I think it's that simple.
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