I See Live People
When a diagnosis separates you from the living.
My Story
Being freshly diagnosed with cancer was one slap.
Being told it was terminal was the knockout.
I went from a man who identified as fit, strong, and unstoppable —
to a man sitting in a doctor’s office whispering:
“No. That can’t be right.”
I felt like a cancer imposter — until the pain, the treatments,
and the needle pricks legitimised my diagnosis.
And then — on my birthday, of all days:
“There’s nothing more we can do.”
I walked out of that hospital a different man than the one who walked in.
I wasn’t alive… but I wasn’t dead.
I was stuck in the no-man’s-land between worlds.
The walking dead — but still paying for parking.
At the airport, waiting for my now-wife,
I watched crowds reunite — laughing, hugging, alive.
And I wasn’t one of them anymore.
They had quality problems. Deadlines. Delays.
Running late for life.
I had existential eviction papers in my pocket.
People looked past me, as if I wasn’t fully there.
Because I wasn’t.
I had slipped into a parallel dimension —
one where nothing makes sense anymore.
My only tether left was her —
walking toward me, knowing her future had just been erased
by a surgeon’s scan.
We collapsed into each other —
the crying couple surrounded by the happy invisible.
Terminal cancer isn’t just a medical event.
It’s a spiritual relocation.
One day you live in the world.
The next… the world lives without you.
The Lesson
When you’re handed a dire prognosis, you become:
Too alive to perceive death.
Too close to death to truly live.
It’s the loneliest experience on Earth.
Doctors can’t prepare you for that.
Your loved ones can’t reach you there — not yet.
Isolation after diagnosis is common and dangerous.
The nervous system shifts into hyper-vigilance, scanning for threat.
Stress chemistry rises. Healing shuts down.
🧠 When the brain predicts death… the body starts preparing for it.
But here’s the twist:
When everything unnecessary falls away…
the things that truly matter start to glow.
Love. Presence. Connection. Time —
not measured in clocks, but in moments that change you.
The story isn’t over.
It’s just no longer being written by fear, but by courage.
A Reframe for Anyone Feeling This
If you feel like you’re in a different universe than everyone else…
You’re not delusional.
You’re awake.
Your world has changed in a moment.
Everyone else’s hasn’t — yet.
Your loneliness isn’t a flaw.
It’s a threshold.
A rite of passage into a deeper relationship with life
than most humans ever receive.
Teaching
Here’s the devastating truth:
The moment a prognosis arrives —
the world stops seeing you as one of the living.
You become a:
• medical file
• “poor thing”
• person to pity
• person to avoid
• reminder of their own mortality
But the turn is this:
You are still here.
Still breathing.
Still capable of awe.
Cancer doesn’t remove you from the world.
Disconnection does.
The work is not to cling to life —
but to re-create it.
One moment at a time.
One courage-choice at a time.
Belonging isn’t granted.
It’s built from the inside.
Reflective Questions
Softly inquire, without judgment:
• Who really sees me right now?
• What actually matters today?
• What love do I feel, even through this fear?
• What part of me chooses to thrive?
These answers aren’t small.
They are reasons.
And reasons keep us here.
⚡️ Science-Supported Spark
Trauma — including a terminal diagnosis —
can shift the body into freeze:
a biological state of not here, not gone.
But connection with self, the Divine, or even one safe person begins to thaw the freeze —
signaling the body:
“Life is still happening —
and I’m still an expression of it.”
Connection isn’t sentimental.
It’s biochemistry.
It can ignite healing —
or suffocate it.
❤️ A Gentle Practice
Next time you feel invisible in public:
Notice one thing that proves life is still beautiful —
A bird whistling. A child laughing.
Sunlight through glass.
People smiling at each other.
Then whisper inside:
“I’m still here.”
Say it again —
meaning it a little more each time.
You belong.
Right now.
Right here.
Next Step
You are not alone — you never were.
Let’s walk from isolation into participation.
