CANCER ETIQUETTE: What NOT to say to a Cancer Patient!

Today, I wanna talk about Emotional Awkwardness, an important topic that has affected my life in the past months given my current personal situation, which I will now explain briefly.

I have Cancer, was diagnosed almost 2 years ago and a couple of months ago was told I was(am) terminally ill. Given this situation, I came to realize many of my friends, family and people around are Emotionally Awkward. Now, I know at the beginning it is normal for people to be shocked or say something "not appropriate", yes, but this is when they first find out about a situation like this; then they have time to process things and react accordingly...or so you would think. But no, at least not in my case. Many people around me, STILL don't know how to act or what to say, or how to behave with me, which bothers me a lot!

Now, to help you a little bit, I will explain what being Emotionally Awkward is. It is the inability to react emotionally in accordance with one's goals and the rules of the environment in different everyday situations, exhibiting deficient, exaggerated or inadequate emotional responses.

AKA, Emotional clumsiness, prevents us from properly recognizing, understanding and managing our emotions and those of others, as we misinterpret their communicative signals and react improperly. This, when it becomes a trend, affects health, relationships and productivity.

In my case, it has affected relationships because people has gone "missing" from my life, they prefer to "disappear" and pretend things are not happening (the cancer in this case) so that they don't have to deal with them...or with me. Which only affects our relationship, many times, up to a level where there's no going back, there's no "fixing" of said relationship; therefore, due to their emotional awkwardness, those long-life friendships/relationships are forever lost. 

Now, in an effort to help my friends and people around me deal (a bit) better with this situation, I made a video with some "tips" and advice regarding the "Cancer Etiquette" you can abide by; however, it didn't seem to work very well since most of my friends continued to be Emotionally Awkward and then I decided to end up those relationships. I am not happy about it, but at the end of the day, it is the best you can do when you're in a situation like mine. I mean, I already have enough dealing with Cancer to, on top of that, deal with people who only makes me feel bad or frustrated.

This post is kind of a "last chance" to help some of those lingering relationships if they want advice from the source on how to behave before this situation and also -hopefully- a brand new opportunity for people who have friends in a similar situation (not necessarily Cancer) and want to do better at communicating with them and expressing themselves better when around them.

What NOT to say to a Cancer Patient! 

Remember this advice comes from someone who knows what they're talking about as they're living the actual situation, so listen carefully and don't be afraid to apply them into your life. Please, feel free to leave a comment if you have any questions or anything you wanna share. Also, feel free to share with anyone you think could use the advice.