Somethings you should just never ask someone!

”Did you slit your throat” he asked.

“Hmm… pardon” I replied, appalled at what i thought I had just heard, hoping desperately that id heard wrong, and the man I was about the hand over a packet of cigarettes to on a Wednesday afternoon at my supermarket job, had not just essentially asked me in public if I had tried to take my own life. Surely no one would ever assume that such a question was fine to ask someone. But no such luck there, because he then replied quite nonchalantly, and as I was now giving him my full attention I heard this quite clearly…

“ you slit your throat didn‘t you, the scar on your neck”.

Shocked I stared at him in a mixture of fury and confusion. There was no way I was serving this man. I‘m all for customer service but sometimes it can bugger off and this was definitely one of those moments.

“Just one second please sir” I requested, holding my head up high as I turned to face the girl standing directly behind me filling in roster sheets for the next week. Sarah was a good friend who I’d known for a few years and spent many weekends with chatting and planning future trips with. She’d heard everything and was standing there mouth slightly agape as though she was trapped in a time loop the exchange reverberating around her head. Tears threatened to leap from my eyes; but keeping that cool steely mask plastered on my face im known for, I simply walked over the my friend and said,

“Serve this man will you sarah I just need a couple moments”.

“Sure lovely i’ll handle it” she replied squeezing my hand as I passed her to walk out of the cigarette kiosk.

I wasn’t about to get openly angry and I’d be damned if I let him see me cry, but as I walked away i could hear sarah. Fiercely loyal to me she slammed his packet of cigarettes down on the counter in front of him.

“ heres you cigarette sir, oh and in future I suggest you keep your curiosities to yourself, that scar is from an operation for an ongoing condition, not that its any of your business.” She informed the man, tone perfectly even the entire time, never slipping out of the optimistic bounce that us customer service people use.

As I was walking away revulsion spread through me, how could anyone just ask someone such a thing? The level of ignorance and disregard for a persons feelings it must’ve taken is truly quite impressive. I was already quite conscious of the scar on my throat, still fresh and starkly pink against my alabaster skin at that point and the condition that had caused it was never far from my mind, in fact it still isnt. For nearly five years its been just behind the forefront alway demanding attention and constantly raising its ugly head just when I think everything has finally settled down. Thyroid cancer.

I hadn’t by the way, not that, that should matter or affect whether or not it was acceptable to ask such a question. In fact I shudder to think how such a question could effect someone who had done such a thing.

This was definitely the worst thing that anyone has ever said to me in regards to my cancer experience or the scar from the surgery to remove my thyroid and while it is not the only things that someone has said to me that has made me pause in shock it is the thing that has stuck in my head for nearly five years now. As someone with Autism i have experienced people pointing out my flaws all my life and while peoples inability to see the issue with this can hurt me I am somewhat used to it, albeit a lot more adept at masking my autistic traits because of it. This however was on a whole new level. Someones Mental illness which I’m assuming he thought I had if he believed I had harmed myself, is never something to air publicly and you definitely shouldn’t ask a complete stranger something so personal and potentially harmful to their mental and emotional well being.

Honestly Its stuck with me for far longer than every time someone has said like “oh thyroid cancer well thats not to bad, its kind of like a good cancer”.

But there really is no such thing as a good cancer, yes theres types that don’t show themselves physically as much but that doesn’t mean that they don’t effect us and it also doesnt mean that they cant return worse than before, or spread, or turn fatal. I was lucky because it was caught early, but it was not a ‘good cancer’.

Hope you all… enjoyed… kind of a heavy topic but it wrote itself so naturally I couldnt help myself. It sort of does and sort of doesn’t surprise me how much this one event in my life still infuriates me. Im supposed to be writing my travel blog posts currently but I’ve been struggling a bit so I decided to post this one first. Hope you all don’t mind and i’ll hopefully be posting part 2 of the travel series sooner rather than later.

Also as Ancient history and Archaeology are my area of focus in studying (I have a Modern History degree and one year left on my double major in Ancient History and Archaeology) i’m considering writing some history posts maybe starting with interesting women from the Ancient world. Hopefully you’ll be interested in that.

Hope you’re all well

EJ