So this arrived on my doormat the other day. Is it any wonder I’m struggling with seeing cancer as a living, breathing thing?! Cancer doesn’t care if you put this in the bin. A doom laden statement emblazoned across an envelope in my house, on a Monday morning, just as I’m about to leave for work. Cancer Research UK I salute you, but come on, this kind of thing is far from helpful.
Obviously I’m on a mailing list. I do the Race for Life twice annually, over the years I’ve raised several thousands of pounds for the cause. They know they’re on to a good thing with me because they know that I care. I’ve spoken at Race for Life rallies, I’ve been featured in articles illustrating the benefits of CRUK and even class one of their lovely press officers as a friend. I do expect to get stuff through the post but this one wasn’t addressed to me, it was just speculative junk mail; speculative junk mail that stopped me in my tracks and made me late for work. Cancer doesn’t care…
Do I have a right to complain, though? Am I being uber sensitive? I think I probably am, but at the same time I think there has to be room for improvement. It’s not just me that gets junk mail through the door. I live on a street with lots of other people, some of those people will also have had cancer, some of those people have cancer at the moment, some of those people will die from cancer. Certainly, everyone on the street knows someone who has been affected by cancer, it’s not something the people on my street are unfamiliar with. But just because we’re familiar with cancer, that we know it – if you like – does it mean it’s okay to use these shock tactics on us?
As previously blogged (below) one of my main mental health issues is being unable to determine that cancer doesn’t exist as a living form in the human sense. That it isn’t actually a vindictive, vile thing lying in wait for its unwitting victims; but slogans like this only serve to terrify me more. Cancer is out to get me. CRUK says so.
I’m sure I’m not the only person who feels like this but I’m also sure it’s nigh on impossible to do anything to stop it. Should we give a list of all the people who get cancer to the cancer charities so they don’t share this stuff with those affected? Where would it stop, though? What about people with other illnesses getting insensitive stuff through their doors too? And besides, this is unaddressed junk mail indiscriminately put through one’s door. I’m fairly sure there’s no stopping it.
Therefore, I wonder, do the benefits outweigh the disadvantages? How many people can CRUK get away with upsetting when balanced with money raised? Ten? Twenty? More? Do CRUK care? I suspect not, for that isn’t the point. They’re about raising cash so that cancer has a lower mortality rate and fewer people are affected by it in the future. There’s nothing to be done to stop us getting junk mail through our doors that we might find offensive, upsetting or downright disturbing, and that, frankly, is pants.
And I haven’t even opened the envelope yet! Here goes…
Obviously I’m on a mailing list. I do the Race for Life twice annually, over the years I’ve raised several thousands of pounds for the cause. They know they’re on to a good thing with me because they know that I care. I’ve spoken at Race for Life rallies, I’ve been featured in articles illustrating the benefits of CRUK and even class one of their lovely press officers as a friend. I do expect to get stuff through the post but this one wasn’t addressed to me, it was just speculative junk mail; speculative junk mail that stopped me in my tracks and made me late for work. Cancer doesn’t care…
Do I have a right to complain, though? Am I being uber sensitive? I think I probably am, but at the same time I think there has to be room for improvement. It’s not just me that gets junk mail through the door. I live on a street with lots of other people, some of those people will also have had cancer, some of those people have cancer at the moment, some of those people will die from cancer. Certainly, everyone on the street knows someone who has been affected by cancer, it’s not something the people on my street are unfamiliar with. But just because we’re familiar with cancer, that we know it – if you like – does it mean it’s okay to use these shock tactics on us?
As previously blogged (below) one of my main mental health issues is being unable to determine that cancer doesn’t exist as a living form in the human sense. That it isn’t actually a vindictive, vile thing lying in wait for its unwitting victims; but slogans like this only serve to terrify me more. Cancer is out to get me. CRUK says so.
I’m sure I’m not the only person who feels like this but I’m also sure it’s nigh on impossible to do anything to stop it. Should we give a list of all the people who get cancer to the cancer charities so they don’t share this stuff with those affected? Where would it stop, though? What about people with other illnesses getting insensitive stuff through their doors too? And besides, this is unaddressed junk mail indiscriminately put through one’s door. I’m fairly sure there’s no stopping it.
Therefore, I wonder, do the benefits outweigh the disadvantages? How many people can CRUK get away with upsetting when balanced with money raised? Ten? Twenty? More? Do CRUK care? I suspect not, for that isn’t the point. They’re about raising cash so that cancer has a lower mortality rate and fewer people are affected by it in the future. There’s nothing to be done to stop us getting junk mail through our doors that we might find offensive, upsetting or downright disturbing, and that, frankly, is pants.
And I haven’t even opened the envelope yet! Here goes…
Can you hear me banging my head against the wall?!
I know they’ve got to raise funds; I know they can’t be specific about mail shot targeting (this is actually mentioned at the end of the letter) but for goodness sake; I was the woman whose son needed his shoelaces doing up every morning. I’m not just an anecdote, I’m an actual person with an actual family who will never be the same again. And no, cancer doesn’t give a monkeys, don’t you think I know that?
What this mailing does, for me at least, is to reiterate what I’ve thought since the moment I was diagnosed – that cancer is out to get me – and for a person with dubious (though improving) mental health that’s really not ideal. I’d love to be able to grab cancer by the short and curlies and make it jog on, I’d love to believe that CRUK will one day make the breakthrough so no one is affected by it anymore. And what I’d really, really love would be to never have had cancer, so that next time I hear the post come through the letterbox I won’t have to brace myself for what’s on the mat.
But cancer doesn’t care about that either.