Feeling sad and stressed

christinecarl

It is coming up on the 1 year anniversary of my diagnosis. It is hard to not relive it in my head. Did anyone else experience this? I made my first ever appointment with a therapist. My Onc. had given my her card, I guess she deals with a lot of cancer patients. When I talked to her on the phone she did say that most people seek help after the chemo, not during it. So it made me feel like I am not so weird after all. Anyway thank you for reading this.

-Christine

Julie 44

I know what you mean
Dear Christine,
I know what you are feeling it is very weird..You would think that you would need the help when you are going through the treatments and adjustments in life..But for me it is needed more now...I am 6 months out of treatment now and have alot of sadness,guilt,anger,confusion...I am having a very diffucult time with dealing with that every ache and pain is not a reoccurance..Why did I have to get cancer???Which gives me alot of anger for getting it and guilt for surviving it when alot of other people don't...Sadness for my "old" life....
I guess these feelings are all part of the package (so I am told)
Let me know how your visit goes cause I was thinking of going to see someone too....Good luck Remember you are not alone.....JULIE

just4Brooks

Cancer will always be with me
I'm with you. I was told that I'm a stage 3 last August 2009. It changed my life as I once knew it. I think that once you have had cancer it's always in the back of your mind. It never truly goes away. You may be NED but I think that fear is always with you. So , NO you're not so weird.


Life is funny sometimes
Brooks

christinecarl

Julie 44 said:

I know what you mean
Dear Christine,
I know what you are feeling it is very weird..You would think that you would need the help when you are going through the treatments and adjustments in life..But for me it is needed more now...I am 6 months out of treatment now and have alot of sadness,guilt,anger,confusion...I am having a very diffucult time with dealing with that every ache and pain is not a reoccurance..Why did I have to get cancer???Which gives me alot of anger for getting it and guilt for surviving it when alot of other people don't...Sadness for my "old" life....
I guess these feelings are all part of the package (so I am told)
Let me know how your visit goes cause I was thinking of going to see someone too....Good luck Remember you are not alone.....JULIE

It is hard to not over think
It is hard to not over think every little pain I get, I am always so sure it must be the cancer coming back or that it never went away. I will definitely post about my experience with the therapist. She seemed very nice on the phone but her hours are very limited, I am concerned about being able to make time for it, I have already missed enough work this year going to my chemo.

robinvan

You are not alone!
As Julie said... this is a very common experience.

After I completed my first round of surgery and treatment in 2004/05 I was blindsided by a flood of emotions and worries. This was after I was through chemo and found NED! I guess I had been repressing a lot of emotions as I focused on the work at hand.

This experience is so common that it was coined as "the emotional aftermath" by Susan Nessim in her book "CanSurvive: Reclaiming Your Life After Cancer". I really think she named it well. "Emotional aftermath"... it is kind of like a "post-traumatic stress" reaction. I wrote a short piece on it a couple of years ago and posted it if you are interested. There is also a reference to Susan's book and a link.

http://rob-pollock.blogspot.com/2007/08/emotional-aftermath.html

Do something life-giving and fun to mark this anniversary! I just marked my 5th anniversary on August 23rd. I thought things were going good and then had a recurrence diagnosed a week later! What can I say... Cancer Sucks!

Hope you can work through it Christine.

All the very best... Rob; in Vancouver