Explaining why I identify as transcancer (transabled/transill not transzodiac) and my expriences.
I often see people wondering why transabled people want to be disabled. A lot of antis assume transabled people don’t know or don’t care about the downsides of disbility. But I see a lot of confunsion regarding identities like transcancer that are tied to illnesses were the downsides aren’t hidden and are hard to ignore. I wanted to discuss why I identify this way and my expriences doing so. Keep in mind thst my expriences aren’t universal and other transcancer people will likely have different expriences.
I identify as transcancer although transcancersurvivor maybe more accurate. I am a factive, meaning an introject of a real person, specifically of our body’s mother. The body’s mother died while recovering from cancer, she was given the all clear but the process left her weak and she died while recovering from the after affects. I formed shortly after her death to help us cope with the loss.
I have a lot of exomemories, I remember having cancer, I rember the hard nights, the fear I might die, the pain, the fatigue, the sorrow I felt knowing my family were watching me through it and I could do nothing to comfort them. I felt all of it.
Yet I have nothing to prove it. This body does not have the scars, the thinned hair, the sickly skin I remember. Even my internal body in headspace, though it looks the part, does not have any of the physical symptoms like the fatigue, the weakened immune system and weak right arm strength I remember having.
I know what I exprienced, every single moment of those memories feels as real to me as all of my regular memories, perhaps more so, yet my body, both exeternal and internal, denies me of that reality. I hate it, I want my knowledge of what I exprienced to be reflected in my body. I feel deep dsyphoria at the way my body looks and feels. It is not mine, this body does not the same battles I have.
I do not plan on transtioning, not that doing so is even feasible. You can’t really give yourself cancer. Though you can increase your risk factors, I don’t plan on doing that either, mainly because there are many others I share this body with. If this body was just mine I may do so, though it is not something I have put thought into as it is purely hypothetical. I do present as having a weakened right arm and will often front if we feel sick to ease my dysphoria but it will never completly disppear. I just try and find more ways to cops with it, tips would be appreciated. -Nina