Into my aloneness

On the spectrum of being introverted versus the opposite, I am introverted.  Not quite to the extreme, but fairly severely.  And certainly there have been times in my life when I have let myself slide comfortably into isolation while blaming it on the fact that I simply like to be alone.

Whenever I talk about my experience of having breast cancer, I always say that no one showed up for me.  It was very much a feeling of being abandoned and I do feel very much like I went through that experience alone.  Despite the presence of Ryan through part of it, despite the fact that my brother and sister-in-law were accessible via computer (they lived in Germany and had a new baby - my now six year old nephew Ellis), and despite the fact my cousin Jodie, who I am close to, was always available by phone.  It isn't entirely fair to those people for me to say that I went through it alone because I know from their point of view, they were there.  But, for me it was definitely an exercise in what it means to be truly alone, without support, entirely dependent on oneself emotionally.  It was alone in an extreme sort of way.

And in the years since having breast cancer, whenever I have to face the prospect again - meaning when I have my annual mammogram (always in mid July) - I retreat into a place of deep aloneness.  When my mammogram goes wrong, and they think they see something and want to do a biopsy - there is nothing I would rather be than in my own mind, in my own world, in my own space, entirely and completely alone.  As I was going through breast cancer, I don't feel that I really shared the experience with anyone.  Part of me wonders if, even when you have emotional support, whether it is possible to go through that experience feeling anything but alone anyway.  People have asked me over the years if I would have wanted support if someone had offered it in the way I guess I thought it should have been offered by someone.  The answer is, I'll never know.  I don't know if I would have let anyone in anyway, even if they had tried.

Last year my mammogram went fine.  The year before it did not.  I feel like I am due for it to go wrong this year.  When it went wrong, I called my best friend Nina and she got on a plane.  It was a first for me and a weird experience to have her there.  It was like I wanted her there, but I didn't at the same time.  It was hard for me to let someone into that space of mine that I had created in order to deal with what I was going through.  It was hard to share the experience.  It was uncomfortable, really uncomfortable.  I realize it is probably simply a problem of me not knowing how to accept emotional support.  I really don't know if I know how to do that.  Or if I ever have.  Or if I even want to.

My mammogram is coming up in July and it's starting to bother me some.  Make me anxious I guess.  I am going to Chicago for the appointment because I want to go back to my existing doctors .  Paul wants to come with me.  I, of course, would rather go alone.  He says he wants to be supportive, that he wants to be there for me.  I get it - of course he does.  I am having a hard time imaging inviting him into that perfect alone space of mine.  It's like every part of my body wants to reject that idea.  I feel bad because he really wants to be there for me and I don't necessarily want to share it.  I just want to go handle it, alone, the way I always have.