(A Bit Of) Attention Is All You Need (To Give)
The author talks about his experiences confiding—both the good and weird.
cw: disease/death
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Well, here we go. In 2023, I was diagnosed with cancer. I’m good for now (yay!)
Today, we’re talking about my immediate first reactions. Did I have some grand epiphany? Nope. Embarrassingly, my first priority was figuring out who to tell and how to tell them. See, I tend to over-analyze social relationships. I worried about what could happen if I told X, and it leaked to Y, and spread throughout the whole network. Would people feel bad if I didn't tell them directly? How would I manage all that? I had no idea.
Fast-forward to 2024—a wild time for multiple other reasons, including, but not limited to, a cancer radiology appointment. I was off campus for a while, so I had plenty of alone time to formulate a cancer-update-sharing strategy. So, I did what seemed natural at the time: made an exact list of whom to tell. Even now, if I scroll too far back on my Notes app, I’ll rediscover this artifact of paranoia gathering dust, complete with checkmarks and Xs.
Phase 1: The Warm-Up
All this thinking coalesced into a pretty clear game plan: first, I’d just text group chats of non-MIT people. Easy, right? All I need to do is just:
Draft a text
Panic
Edit said text
Copy paste it into group chat
Press send
Panic again
Silence the group chat for next 3-4 hours
Needless to say, this phase of the plan went OK, especially since Step 7) ensured that I didn’t get overwhelmed. Phase 1 was a success.
Phase 2: The Practice Run
Next: texting (a subset of) MIT friends individually, who I’d see on campus in spring. This was kind of scary, but it went as well as it could’ve. Honestly, I think I’m lucky to have friends who are active listeners. They were conscientious, but not insincerely positive in their responses. They expressed concern while also asking the scary questions about medical leave and S^3 appointments and a bunch of other things. It was refreshing to be engaged with on a peer level, intellectually and emotionally.
Notably, some of these friends hadn’t necessarily gone through something like this—which speaks highly of their empath skills. I also attribute the success of Phase 2 to the good ol’ practice of writing stuff down: simply put, when people text, they’re forced to think more critically about what they say.
Phase 3: The Real Thing
Fast forward again to February, and I’m on campus. This is the hard part: telling people in person. There’s no “send” button here to force people to think twice, no barrier protecting me from the “ums” and confused stares. This is the real thing.
I remember the first 2 friends I told. We went to a dorm stairwell—arguably a very unprivate place, I know—and told them. Me being me, I talked in circles around the entire cancer situation and explained it horribly. My explanation was so bad and awkward, it was hilarious. After I explained everything, giggles and roasts echoed through the entire stairwell. After this incident, I learned to be a lot more direct.
The next few interactions were definitely more awkward, but not awkward-funny, like the whole stairwell incident. Just awkward-awkward. It was unfortunate because I tried setting myself up for success. For example, I waited when the time was right—I didn’t blurt it out randomly at a party, for example. I was conscious of who was around. I was aware of the state of mind that everyone was in. I thought I did everything right.
For example, one time in early February, a friend and I were out by the Stud late at midnight and they asked how I was. I thought the circumstances aligned, so I was honest. I got “hmms” and “oh no!” and the typical friendly wishes. It felt good. Not great, but good. I know I’m bad at immediately processing big pieces of news, so I can’t blame other people for short, generic responses. I told a few more people, with similar reactions.
The thing is, I thought things would get better afterward. Maybe when we bumped into each other in person, they’d ask how I’m handling things. Or just a quick DM at some point. But, no, a lot of the time, it didn’t happen.
I’m not sure what I expected. I don’t blame people for forgetting—my life is just mine, not theirs—but I was kind of confused. I tried to forget about it, about this bubble around me that seemed to keep friends an arms-length away. Was it my fault?
Suddenly, in late March, an MIT alum (who I was vaguely in contact with) messaged me out of the blue:
“___! i’ve been meaning to message you but i saw ___ ___about remission. how are you doing? i’m so sorry to hear but also glad that you’re holding up and doing better. i’m also super sorry if this is intrusive and you don’t want to talk about it! but always here for u hehe”
After seeing this, my gears started turning. After weeks of ignoring this weird bubble around me, I couldn’t anymore. Obviously the bubble had to exist…it’s just that some people (like the alum above) weren’t afraid to pop it! With each pop, I tasted the fresh air of unexpected kindness and sympathy.
To this end, I realized that there were people I had lived with, asked for help from, vented to, pranked, and so on that not only:
1) cared about me, even if we didn’t talk that often, but
2) weren’t afraid to reach out (and break the bubble).
Now I understood why some people reached out while others didn’t. Simply put: different people just weighed the pros and cons differently. To some people, popping my bubble and connecting wasn’t worth the risk of, well, popping my bubble. And while I wish that wasn’t their thought process, I don’t blame them for it.
This was kind of an obvious thing to realize…but I’m glad I finally did. To be clear, my community here at MIT has fostered many, many more wholesome moments that crossed the bubble barrier. Here’s a few:
1) Person 1, who thought I was talking about zodiac sign cancer, and not the disease. Notably, I’m an Aquarius. This was extremely fun, even though everyone else witnessing this interaction was simply in a state of shock. Dark humor always wins for me.
2) Person 2, who noticed a cancer-themed shirt I randomly wore once. I told him about the list I made, and he hugged me after he learned he was on it.
3) Person 3, who walked along with me randomly across Stata and got it into my head to stop caring so much about how people would react. Also, they sent a really cool card!
Each of the above interactions reinforced one main thing for me: the importance of reaching out to friends who received big, bad news. Obviously, there are exceptions. But I think a safe default mindset is to reach out, through the bubble, just once. Maybe you’ll feel bad being left to read. But that means your message was well, read, processed, and hopefully appreciated. Worst case, forgotten about.
On another note, I never did get through my list of people to tell, even in Phase 3. Some important people were left out, and I doubt they know, even now. That’s OK, since there are still a decent number of people in my support network—both the ones described above, and some others. Bit by bit, my bubble is finally breaking.
Now, onto Phase 4: Just Living Life.