Navigating Friendships and Cancer
When you’re in your 20s or 30s and you’re diagnosed with cancer, lots of things change. One of the things you’ve told us can be most difficult, is navigating friendships in life alongside cancer. We unpick the gnarly topic of friendship and cancer, offering tips and advice for managing your relationships.
When you’re in your 20s or 30s and you’re diagnosed with cancer, lots of things change. One of the things you’ve told us can be most difficult, is navigating friendships in life alongside cancer. We unpick the gnarly topic of friendship and cancer, offering tips and advice for managing your relationships.
When you’re in your 20s or 30s and you’re diagnosed with cancer, lots of things change. One of the things you’ve told us can be most difficult, is navigating friendships in life alongside cancer. Because you may be the first of your pals to get diagnosed. They might have experience of losing someone they love to cancer. Some people might pull away, while others step up. And it’s not always who you expect to do one or the other.
After being diagnosed with cancer, maintaining and even re-establishing relationships with your friends can be so hard. Some of them may say the 'wrong' thing, some may not even know what to say resulting in them becoming distant and unresponsive, and some may turn out to be those magical unicorn friends who get it *exactly right.*
In a survery from our friends at Maggie’s, 59% of the 250 people living with cancer polled said that friends struggled with knowing what to say after they were diagnosed. 35% said they had lost friends because they didn’t know how to cope with their diagnosis.
What to say to someone who’s just been diagnosed with cancer
Top tips on how to support someone with cancer
But why do relationships change, and what can we do about it?
Your friends are important. But it’s also important to recognise that relationships do change during treatment and beyond – and that’s OK. You might lose people. But you might gain special friendships too. Connecting with others who’ve had cancer can be incredibly powerful. There’s no need to explain, no need to talk about cancer unless you want to, and no need to be anywhere other than where you are.
Existing relationships change for lots of reasons. They might feel complicated or strained for lots of reasons, including
- you feel crappy and may (understandably!) be irritable while you are being treated
- being in hospital a lot
- not being able to do the same things as you used to
- acting differently because of your diagnosis
- looking different because of treatment
Friends can find these things difficult to deal with, or make sense of. Most people you know won’t have much experience of being around someone with a serious illness like cancer. This can lead to them acting in these ways because they don’t know what to say or how to be.
It can help to think about the situation from their perspective. Think about how you would have been with people like you before your diagnosis. Chances are you'll be able to find a little bit of tenderness towards those people who say the 'wrong' thing - as long as they're not intentionally hurting you.
Not everyone will understand - that's OK
Some of your friends may stay with you and become an amazing source of support. They might know how to improve your mood and listen to you when you're down. These are true friends and relationships like this can blossom during cancer treatment.
But not everyone will be able to understand what you’re going through. It's normal to lose touch with some people. If this happens, try not to let it get you down – friendships change all the time. There's a quote we love - friends are there for a reason or a season.
It's important to note that you might change too. Cancer can give you a different outlook on life. You may not relate to your old friends as well. And that's OK. It's all part of the cycle of life.
Lifting the Lid
Back in 2020, we sat down with two young people who've had cancer, one of their friends and experts on managing friendships and relationships. Georgie and Sadruz talked about what young people with cancer need from their pals, Pippa provided her perspective on supporting someone diagnosed with cancer twice, and Dr Katherine Hood and Glyn Harries from Young Lives vs Cancer shared their expert perspective. Watch here:
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