Cancer on Facebook: One woman’s decision to post about cancer online

Is your Facebook persona having a lot more fun than the real you?

While there is probably some difference in how you feel and the image you portray online, that gap was immense for 22-year-old Suleika Jaouad when she was diagnosed with an aggressive leukemia.

"Online, I was still a healthy recent college graduate, who was 'in a relationship' and liked jazz and Ryan Gosling," she writes on the New York Times health and science blog.

"But every time I logged onto my Facebook account, my profile felt more like a stranger's than my own."

While her Facebook page portrayed a smiling young woman eating tiramisu in Paris with her boyfriend, and enjoying sunset picnics with friends along the Seine, the real Jaouad was struggling through her first found of chemotherapy in a New York City hospital. She hadn't walked outside or eaten solids in weeks, and her hair was falling out.

But she didn't post those pictures online.

"To share my cancer with my 1,500 Facebook 'friends' felt way too public," she writes, "and maybe even trivializing. After all, cancer is not something you 'like' on Facebook."

She decided to deactivate her account.

[See also: Tips for managing your online reputation]

Toronto-based psychologist Donna Ferguson says that a common reaction on facing such a terrible diagnosis is denial, the first of five stages of grief, as theorized by psychiatrist Elisabeth Kübler-Ross.

"Sometimes people may withdraw from social media," says Ferguson. "They are not in the mood to deal with happy news."

And other times, people share their struggles with their social networks as a way to find support. Ferguson thinks that while some people might consider the sad news as awkward, others might appreciate it.

"People who may be having private pain and don't post it, can benefit by seeing what someone else is going through," she says. "It might lead them to reach out, or just to take that information and know that everyone's not just happy out there."

And maybe, ironically, if more people posted their misfortunes online, Facebook would be a more happier place. As a recent Atlantic cover story argues, the constant stream of other people's cheer is making many a Facebook user miserable.

After months of avoiding her online social network, Suleika Jaouad came to terms with the fact that her cancer was not going away so quickly and would be a part of her life. She reactivated her Facebook account and started posting updates about chemotherapy and baldness. And she finds that sharing her new life online has been therapeutic.

"Now, when I go to my Facebook profile," she writes, "I see myself again."

And her Facebook friends surely appreciate her candour.

Learn how to keep your kids safe online in the video below.

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