Cancer 127

I had a particularly bad stoma spillage the other day. I won’t go into too many details in case you are eating, but I was changing bags when my remaining bowel decided to do a Surtsey over my stomach and trousers. It was a heavy and messy affair, but it is what you have to learn to live with when having a stoma, particularly when there is the additional burden of diarrhoea relating to chemotherapy. Some problems just don’t mix well.

MY current experiences have made me wonder whether we have got it all wrong. The zeitgeist is that we should be encouraging men to cry. I think we should be encouraging a return to the times of the stiff upper lip. Could we have survived World War Two if we broke down and cried every time something horrid happened? Perhaps crying really is a sign of weakness. Is there a place for a new book, “Real men (and women) don’t cry”?

There are places for crying, hidden away at night worrying about life, or watching a soppy film. Winston Churchill cried all the time and no one would say he was weak. We have spent several decades being told by psychologists that we should cry, we should express our emotions, that it is helpful. Is it? Or are we creating weak people? Look at the current problems with mental health. Instead of encouraging people to be weak, to need psychologists – which may itself lead to mental health problems – shouldn’t we be encouraging resilience, to get up and get on with it, to stiffen that lip and pull oneself together?

If I spent all my time moping then I wouldn’t be living this part of my life in what is a generally happy way. I would sit in my chair, cry about it, and give up.

(I know, I express my emotions through writing. What a hypocrite. That is the joy of unedited blogs.)

Let’s instead focus on resilience, strength and the good old British stiff upper lip. Crying is weakness. We all have our weaknesses but we should put it in context, ie keep quiet about it, instead of proclaiming to the world that we are weak.

Wipe up that shit and move on.