Hope Is Bullshit.

As soon as someone finds out that you're sick, they always tell you to "hope for the best", "stay hopeful", or any other phrase that uses the word hope. They think positive thinking is the cure for everything, but it's actually toxic. Toxic positivity runs rampant in conversations with sick people. "Stay strong", "keep a positive mindset", and "everything happens for a reason" are all bullshit. This toxic positivity shit does nothing but frustrate the person on the receiving end.

When your main issue at 15 is surviving a deadly disease, you often ask yourself, "Why me?".  Why do I have to live at the hospital while my friends go to parties? Why can't I just be a typical teenager?  Why can't I just worry about school and crushes like them? All of these questions stung with anger, and always will but they are all essential to your chronic illness journey.

At some point, the question of "why me?" doesn't hold as much pain but is instead left unanswered, but that takes a while. Surprisingly, it takes a lot of time to come to terms with the idea that you are simply unlucky. You end up begging for an answer because it feels so unfair that out of everyone, you have to deal with this really shitty thing. Turns out it is easier to just be angry at the world for dragging you through hell and back than just coming to terms with it. It took me longer than it should've to realise this, but eventually, I did. In no way am I here to spread some lies about how you're not allowed to be angry. You should and can be angry; hell, I am too and always will be. This should not happen to anyone, god forbid someone so young. No one should have to think about death this young. I learned the ins and outs of 3 hospitals before I learned how to drive. No one deserves any of this, you should be fucking angry. Curse at the world for picking you to be one of "God's strongest warriors". So, yell at the sky, journal aggressively, scream into your pillow, write shitty blog posts, whatever you need to do to get your pure teen angst out.

I'm not telling you to pretend that you’re okay and that you aren’t angry. Instead, I am telling you that you will always be mad, but you learn to manage it. You understand that being angry doesn't solve your problem, make the pain go away, or cure you. Don’t get me wrong, it's a valid expression, but it soon becomes a waste of time. It ends up blocking you from living your life to the fullest. Take it from me, I was a furious sick kid. I have since calmed down a little bit but do have my spits of rage on occasion.  During my second round of experimental drugs and what felt like continuous chemo, my anger was at an all-time high. I was fed up with feeling like I was dying and having my hair come out in clumps. The built-up feelings resulted in a crying fit in the nurse's station, sobbing to my doctor's to just let me die. I don't remember much since I was heavily drugged up. Still, I remember crying out the phrase, "I just want to go to a fucking party and kiss a fucking girl. Why do I have to do this bullshit? I am only 14, why me?". There were plenty of moments like this. Pure frustration combined with the harsh emotions of being sick resulting in many breakdowns. But at a certain point, the breakdowns lessen as you come to grip with your new normal.  You learn that your new life will still be filled with fear, a lack of innocence and teen ignorance and lots of doctor's appointments. Once you adjust to the new normal, and you can't even recognise your old self. When you cant recognise that the question of "why me?" started to sting less.

In my humble opinion, hope is all lies; if it was real, that "why me?" question wouldn't have ever stung. People would always say to me during my rants of fear and anger to always have hope. Why should I hold on to something to comfort myself just to be thrown off a cliff emotionally when I don't get what I hoped for. In her poem, Emily Dickinson describes hope as the thing with feathers as a thing you should always hold with you. That is complete bullshit. 

Hope is not essential to living a content life. Yes, overall positivity is beneficial to your emotional wellbeing. When you begin to use it to hide from the realities of life, that is when it is no longer practical. The day I turned 15, I found out hours later that I had to do chemo. The wish I made on the birthday cake didn't work either. I had hoped that for one day, a miracle would come my way, and I could have the day off. But the disease doesn't take a day off for anyone. My hope was strong, and my ignorance for the future was blissful. But that day crushed the last hope I'll likely ever have. I realised hope doesn't benefit me; it clouds my judgment. It prevents me from realising what is worth my time, who is worth my energy, and what is ahead.

When you are dealt bad cards, it's hard to be positive all the time, and that is okay. You don't need to be a ray of sunshine or the person people look to for their own strength.  Life is hard, no one can be happy and optimistic all the time. If they say they can be, they are lying. However, you learn that positivity and hope aren't the same things. Positivity is realising there will be good in whatever comes your way, while hope is ignorance. That's why it's okay to lose hope as long as you replace it with reassurance.

My current view of the future is not based on hope but rather reassurance. I have the reassurance that I can make it through anything, even if it isn't what I "hoped" for. It's better to live life and realise bad things will happen. Realising that you will be able to get through it, then live in a false fantasy only to be disappointed by life's constant chaos. In a way, that's comforting for me, knowing that I can get through it even if it knocks me back a couple of steps. I am not going to spend the days I have left in a turmoil of disappointment because I was filled with false hope. I am going to live it out with the knowledge that I am living it to its fullest. 

Life moves pretty fast. If you don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it. My life just happens to be moving a little quicker than everyone else's, and I choose to live it without bullshit, no hope.