I Soft Launced My Cancer Disclosure & Here’s What Happened…

I soft-launched my cancer diagnosis.

Not with a pink ribbon. Not with a crying selfie or a GoFundMe link. I did it quietly. I wrote a piece. A vulnerable, raw account of what it felt like to find out I had cancer—just a few years after losing my mother to suicide and the same year I lost my father to dementia. And then, I sent it. Out into the world. To the people who I thought were “my people.”

Some responded with the standard: “OMG, so sorry—let me know if you need anything.” Then silence. Not even a follow-up emoji. Not even a like on a future post. The conversation dropped as fast as I did when I got the diagnosis. Some responded to the piece but commented in such a way it was painfully clear… they hadn’t actually read it. It’s one thing to be ghosted. It’s another thing to be skimmed.

Others told me they couldn’t read it. That it was “too triggering.” As if it wasn’t triggering for me to live it. As if my suffering should be edited for their consumption. I wanted to say: Imagine what it feels like to be dying and told your pain is a vibe killer.

Some didn’t respond at all. Didn’t open the message. Didn’t acknowledge the words. They saw the word “cancer” and disappeared like I was contagious. People I once worked with. Mentors I trusted. Clients I over-delivered for. Colleagues who must’ve joined the Witness Protection Program the moment my diagnosis became inconvenient.

I hadn’t felt a connection to Phoenix or Arizona for some time. Maybe dating all the way back to the pandemic. I’ve struggled to build a reliable community there after I uprooted my life the year after I lost my mother and moved across the country to the desert for a change in scenery. But ever since the pandemic, I’ve felt the culture there shift. It’s very much felt like the wild wild west. Every man for themselves. Everyone is so busy with their own lives and it feels like we’re all just two passing ships in the night making plans six weeks out—only to reschedule those plans day of.

I soft-launched cancer because I’ve done this before. I’ve been the conversation killer after my mom’s suicide. The uncomfortable truth-teller after my dad's slow erasure from dementia. I’ve been the reminder that life isn’t filtered. That grief smells like antiseptic and regret. That suffering isn’t seasonal or Instagrammable. Losing both parents in my thirties in vastly traumatic and different ways, the first lesson grief taught me is that all the friends I thought I was “in the trenches with” just… vanished.

These were people I had shown up to their hospital rooms post-surgery. Their weddings. Their grand openings. Their gallery reveals. I had dropped everything to support them. But when it was my turn? They just didn’t.

These wounds of abandonment have been reopened—no, excavated—by cancer. When I asked a good friend why they hadn’t made an effort in the months that followed after my dad died, they said, “We all go through shit. You’re not the only one suffering. Sorry if no one around you has told you that.” And just like that, another thread unraveled.

This was someone I drove four hours for, spare of the moment, so they could attend a healing retreat. Someone I supported financially, emotionally, and professionally. And yet, when I asked for a text back, a phone call, the effort was too much. I realized: some people are only around when they’re the ones needing help. The minute the dynamic flips, they evaporate.

I debated whether to even share the news of my cancer diagnosis publicly. I kept asking myself why it felt so terrifying to say it out loud—and the truth is: I was afraid of sharing it into the void. Of being met with that same silence. That same ache. That same echo from the people I’ve poured so much into in Arizona.

And still, I tried.

I wrote. I spoke. I reached out. I made space for people to show up. But many didn’t. Not because they were bad people. But because this world has gotten really good at looking away from pain. The pandemic desensitized us to watching people suffer in isolation. We learned how to grieve through screens and mute suffering when it got too loud.

And maybe I’ve been complicit, too.

Part of complex trauma is fearing the repetition of pain so much that you stop asking for help altogether. I’ve bitten my tongue and buried my needs because I didn’t want to burden people. Because I didn’t feel like I’d earned enough friendship “credits” to withdraw. Because I was terrified that if I did ask for help, it would be met with silence again—and I wasn’t sure I could survive another silence.

Sometimes, it’s easier to stay surface-level with people. To exist in relationships with minimal expectations because it reduces the risk of rejection. But it also reduces the chance of being truly seen.

Still…There were a few. A few souls who cracked open their hearts and sat in the darkness with me. Who didn’t scroll past or look away. Who didn’t ask for the edited version of my grief. They stayed. Not because they had to—but because they could. And in a world that teaches us to abandon anything that hurts, that kind of presence is its own kind of miracle.

For every one person who ghosts you because your grief is “too much,” there’s someone quietly showing up with soup, or a playlist, or just their whole-hearted attention. The good ones aren’t always the ones you expected. Sometimes they’re CrossFit acquaintances, old clients, someone from that crazy MLM group you barely remember joining.

Cherish them.

And if you’re struggling right now, here’s what I’ll say: Drop the ones who can’t show up for you. But don’t close yourself off from going deeper with the people who can. Continue to lead by example. Continue to check in on the ones you love. And don’t stop believing you’ll find someone who matches the same energy you put in. Because while cancer taught me who disappeared...It also showed me who remained.

And sometimes, that’s enough to keep going.

A blog post by Rachel Smak on grief, loss, and lessons from stage 3C rectal cancer