THE INEXPRESSIBLE COMFORT OF SUPPORT GROUPS
Mary Ann Evans, who lived and wrote under the name of George Eliot a century-and-a- half ago, didn’t know about the concept of support groups, as we characterize them today, yet she gave a perfect description of the effect to be had if you should join one. Long ago she wrote: “Oh, the comfort, the inexpressible comfort of feeling safe with a person, having neither to weigh thoughts nor measure words, but to pour them all out, just as they are, chaff and grain together, knowing that a faithful hand will take and sift them, keep what is worth keeping, and then, with the breath of kindness, blow the rest away.”
Eighteen years ago I was diagnosed with breast cancer, had surgery to remove it and underwent radiation treatment to prevent its recurrence. I am still here, and I give no little credit to those who supported me in my recovery. In the first weeks after surgery I reached out to the local cancer society for “just someone to talk to who understands how I am feeling.” I was given a woman’s name and phone number and called her, pouring out my fears and worries. She was kind, of course, but I felt no relief. Then I read one of Dr.Bernie Siegel’s helpful books, which one I can’t name. Dr. Siegel spoke of AIDS patients who fared better with regular psychiatric support. I had already been seeing a woman psychiatrist for three years on a weekly basis, so she became my initial support.
In the follow-up to radiation treatment, one is seen every six months by the cancer clinic for the first five years. I guess I voiced my desire in the clinic to be part of a support group if one were ever formed by “the powers that be.” April 1994, I was one of several women with breast cancer who was asked to participate in initiating a support group. We met once a week in late mornings for an hour-and-a-half. A young male psychiatrist co-facilitated with a female social worker from the cancer clinic. We could say as little or as much as we wished, or nothing at all, about the impact cancer had made in our lives. Since I am naturally loquacious, I had no difficulty getting the ball rolling and getting feelings off my chest, or to say it more accurately, voicing feelings about my lumpectomy Others followed suit, and our group was off to a good start!
Our doctor-facilitator impressed upon us from the first that support groups such as ours had proven their worth in research studies at California’s Stanford University. By the time our group was underway, Stanford researchers were replicating results of their previous research wherein women diagnosed with breast cancer who participated in support groups tended to live eighteen months longer than those women who did not go to such groups. In the three years in which I attended the weekly sessions, I witnessed this finding many times over. Some women would have been told they had but a few months and remarkably they lived two and three times the span that doctors had predicted. One elderly woman with pancreatic cancer lived years beyond her original prognosis of a few months. She was an inspiration to all of us for her grit and her grace!
What is the efficacy that defines support groups and makes them so valuable to their membership? My own sense of their supreme value is that they offer a safe space and a wondrous sense of connectedness. To be in a group where confidentiality is regarded as sacred, and one can pour one’s heart out and know the contents stay within that room, by mutual agreement and trust, creates a zone and haven of safety. For my own part, I found myself waiting eagerly to enter that safe space each week. And at the end of each session, I left feeling calm and somewhat emptied of fears and worries I might have entered with. I felt affirmed and accepted at whatever place my coping strategies had taken me to in dealing with a life-threatening illness.
Then there is that element of connectedness. Because you are sharing a disease, or the fear of its recurrence, bonding takes place very quickly. In other words, there are no social preliminaries, no “small talk,” no jockeying for pre-eminence within the group. As each one checks in, the group becomes aware who, among them, may have an overriding event to discuss – a bad prognosis, less than adequate medical attention, emotional abandonment by family members, etc. And like a loving family gathers to support one of its devastated members, so the members of the support group join forces to listen, to comfort, to console and to “be present” to those especially in need. If tears flow, then there are hands to hold, tissues are passed, and nobody offers empty platitudes or easy answers. Yet from such sadness, strangely hope enters the picture. One comes away feeling deeply, “I am loved. I am in the presence of those who care and really understand what I am going through.”
This is not to say that humor and laughter do not have their place in the support group. Funny things happen to sick people, and they enjoy telling how they out-witted somber and callous medical people. Actually, humor is very healing and medical research has documented its value. The wise elder of my particular support group established a “Humor Room” in the very hospital building in which our support group met.
The facilitators of the support group I attended gave direction or counsel only when asked but their presence was reassuring and steadying, like the ballast for a boat on rough seas.
We often asked our doctor-facilitator to guide us in a meditation at the close of a session and many found this a soothing and relaxing way to end our ninety minutes.
I moved from Canada to the desert of Eastern California in 1997, and thus had to leave the support group. Two years later on a visit when I returned for a session, we had a party/luncheon after. I often touch base by e-mail with a member who, like myself, is still around and still benefiting from the immense undergirding of a working support group. When I hear of someone diagnosed with whatever devastating illness, I always urge that person to find and attend a support group. Perhaps the scariest thing about being sick is the sinking feeling of being alone and isolated within the experience. If nothing else, to experience a support group is to know you are not alone in facing “bad news.” There are companions on that twisting journey life has sent your way. You will not walk your road alone! Being in a support group is looking death in the face, --either your own or another’s—and not flinching or running away. And what do you discover?: That human relationships are all important, that little things you never noticed before are full of meaning, and finally, that you and your fellow members have made a difference in each other’s lives.
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