How would you feel if someone close to you didn't tell you that they had a serious illness?

sad

Devastated and Angry.

i would be angry… but also very sad. :(

My guy friend I have known for 3 years never told me he had cancer , it hurt me I didn’t know.

I would be really hurt…because when you are close to someone, you expect them to share something like that with you…so you can be there for them as a friend for moral support.

Real friends are always supposed to be there for one another in good times & in bad. That is what true friends are for.

In my opinion it what keeps you motivated in a crisis…by turning a frown upside down…or chasing that tear away by making them giggle!

hope this helped.

unimportant and uneeded.

i dont think you should feel mad or something like that cause its a personal thing, and they might want to tell you, but is embarresed or something like that. it is kind of like when i didn’t tell my friends i had started my period for the first time. i had been best friends with them for 6 years, but starting my period is personal and embarrasing. they got really mad at me, but i said it was stupid that they thru away a big friendship because they just had to know that i was on my period. they understood and now we are still bestfriends

Dont take it personal. Try some empathy. They may have good reason. Be there if they want you too. :)

I would be very devastated but I would tell them not to stop fighting because once they’re gone, not only will I miss them but so will a bunch of other loved ones of that person. If it was someone I was very close to, I would die without them, my life wouldn’t be the same without, it would be many many years until I come out of depression.

I’d probably be shocked, hurt, and scared. Shocked because of what’s happening, hurt for not being told, and scared because the person close to me is seriously sick. I can’t say I’d be angry for long, though. I know that if someone was keeping it from me, that I’d try to understand why more. I can’t imagine having to go through something like that, let alone telling people I care about. I’d probably want to protect them from it as long as I could.

Angry, shocked, hurt, confused, scared, …. so many different emotions all at once. And then after I calmed down, I would be supportive and understand why the didn’t tell me in the first place. They have good intentions. They’re scared, they don’t want to scare you.. they don’t want you to feel sorry for them… they want to wait for the right time to tell you. There are so many reasons. Of course they wouldn’t keep it from you because they felt you didn’t deserve to know, they’d keep it from you because they love you. :)

I had that happen with my father, I was unbelieveably Mad. My dad in his life had 9 heart attacks and 3 strokes and the only way I found out about those was cause I got the hospital bills and confronted him. It’s almost a feeling of betrayal in a sense.

I would feel sad that they were so ill…..When a person has a terminal illness they have a lot of emotions of their OWN to go through…. telling someone, even a close friend or relative, changes things….I think the fear that they will be perceived differently is always there, too. I would never feel angry that they didn’t tell…..for something THIS big, I’d feel it was their decision of who and when to talk about it.

are you sleeping with them?

At first, I figured I might as well be angry, because they didn’t tell me and I’d have to wonder, don’t they trust me enough to tell me something like this?

I guess we tend to act on impulse a lot instead of actually putting thought, if I thought about it, the first thing that comes to mind is, they wouldn’t want to hurt me, even though they eventually will. And well, as phrannie said, they have their own emotions to go through.

They mean good by not wanting to tell you, and honestly, I’d be hurt to realize it, seeing as they care more for how I feel than the condition they are in. I guess that’s the big thing that actually tears me apart. In the end though, I’d support them and try to be with them as much as I can. They need a supporter to help them fight, and well, I’d be honored to take that spot.

It depends on the person and how close we are and what their reasons are for not initially telling me. If it is my boyfriend I would feel very angry and dissapointed that he couldn’t speak to me or trust me, however I don’t think that I would be angry for long. Anyone else I think I would be mainly sad. I can’t begin to imagine how it would feel telling someone that you are dying so I shouldn’t be the one to judge them or hate them for keeping it a secret.

To end the speculating, my father had cancer many years ago, and I didnt find out till he had ended treatment. A movie I was watching had a similar situation, and I was just wondering how people would feel in that situation.

I would hug them till they die :’(

I’ve learned the hard way in my short life that by being honest about these things, is the surest way to end up friendless. People who are for most respects normal or healthy really have a problem being around someone who is not over a length of time. They cannot accept that you will never get better and that you are slowly slipping away from them, day by day, week to week, month for month and this quickly becomes a year, a year becomes a few. Most do not last over half a month being a friend to someone slowly dying. Let alone even being a friend long term to someone with just lets say major chronic pain problems.

The more problems a person has, the easier a time they seem to have with their own friends having problems.

I’ve been told so many times that “such and such should have killed me, or I have several times a lethal amount of digestive enzymes in my blood, etc, etc and been told several times “how long I had to live”…and in the last year and 6 months I have been being hammered with new heart problems and everything is really going down hill.

I lie blatantly now to keep most of the friends I have. They know I have asthma, back and knee problems and like the fact that I have no depth perception. But I don’t tell them about the pancris failure going on, my overactive liver which is doing aboit 2.5-3 times the function it should (without a heavy load on it) my immune system which is destroying my heart and blood vessles, strokes, tremors in my hands and forearms, my bedwetting, my PTSD, my past abuse history, etc, etc.

I HIGHLY doubt I will see my next birthday and I am trying to live the rest of my life to its fullest. But if my friends knew about all of my problems, well it would sure make me seem less lazy, but they also wouldn’t invite me to do anything because they would know the risks I take to be alive.

Normal people simply cannot cope with this. I wish they could. I have never met one, ever, ever.

I don’t even have any faith in humanity anymore. Everyone I have ever been totally open with, has left me after a few months of them feeling bad for me…Which I don’t want them to do. But for some reason they get hung up on it.

I have had a few admit that it is very frustrating to be around me because I don’t get better (magically). Like after a point, they get it in their head, weather they want to or not, that somehow I should be able to willpower myself better.

So anyone close to me, would make the mistake I once did, and they would tell me if they were in medical trouble. They always do. Luckally I am one of the few people who can stay by the walking injured/dead. If someone didn’t tell me, I would have to assume it all happened so fast they didn’t get a chance to tell me.