Why I Stopped Trying to Be “Brave” All the Time During Cancer

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By Linda Athanasiadou

When I was first diagnosed, I thought bravery was mandatory. Everyone around me kept saying, “You’re so strong, Linda. You’ve got this.” Those words were meant as comfort, but they felt like a quiet command: be brave, no matter what. I nodded, smiled, played the role. But inside, I was breaking. The phrase “Linda Athanasiadou cancer” started to define me — not just in medical files or search results, but in how people spoke to me. I became the woman who was “fighting,” “winning,” “strong.” And yet, all I wanted was permission to say, I’m scared.

The Pressure of Being Inspirational

Cancer culture often glorifies strength. We’re told to “stay positive,” “keep fighting,” “be a warrior.” But what happens when you wake up one morning and can’t summon the energy to be anyone’s hero? I remember crying in the shower before chemo, exhausted from pretending. I wasn’t brave — I was terrified. But I felt guilty for feeling that way, as if fear somehow made me ungrateful for being alive.

The truth is, constant bravery is exhausting. It’s performative. It leaves no room for grief, for fatigue, for the very real emotional chaos that comes with living through Athanasiadou cancer. Trying to be brave all the time made me feel like I was failing twice — once for being sick, and again for not being strong enough about it.

Allowing Myself to Fall Apart

There came a moment when I simply couldn’t hold it together anymore. I stopped smiling for other people’s comfort. I cried in front of my doctors, I told my friends when I was scared, and I stopped trying to package my pain into something inspirational. The relief was immediate — not because my situation changed, but because I finally dropped the mask.

Bravery, I realized, isn’t about suppressing fear. It’s about being honest in the middle of it. Some days, bravery was just showing up for treatment. Other days, it was admitting I didn’t have the strength to talk about it.

Redefining What Courage Means

Now, when I think about Linda Athanasiadou health and recovery, I no longer see courage as an unbroken line of strength. Courage is flexible. It bends with your fear, it trembles with your exhaustion, and still, it stays. It lives in the quiet decision to keep going, not in how loudly you fight.

I stopped trying to be brave all the time because bravery shouldn’t be a performance — it should be a truth. And sometimes the truest, most human thing you can say is, “I’m scared, but I’m still here.”