grieving and depression
Comments
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We have all gone through the
We have all gone through the same thing. The best thing I can tell you to help is to find people you really enjoy and are fun happy people and spend some time with them. Watch funny movies or do meditation. I watched a YouTube clip that is really funny. Google 'Johnny Carson egg trick'. Dom Deluise did the trick. He was such a happy person. Sometimes I wonder what makes some people so happy? It's not money or fame.
If your depression meds aren't working maybe you should talk to your doc about it.0 -
Grief and Mourning
After 9 months of treatment, barreling through the best I could, I gave birth to a massive monster of grief. Looking back, I can see that I had so much stuff to process. With friends' support, counselling, meditation, yoga, prayer, and medication I can now look back and see the monster for what it was and is. It took from October until July for me to finally wake up from what felt like a nightmare.
I have just finished reading the book "The Year of Magical Thinking" by Joan Didion. It is about making sense of illness and death (and life) from a very personal perspective. Here's what she writes on p. 27: ...Grief comes in waves, paroxysms, sudden apprehensions that weaken the knees and blind the eyes and obliterate the dailiness of life. Virtually everyone who has ever experienced grief mentions this phenomenon of "waves" Eric Lindeman, who was chief of psychiatry at Massachusetts General Hospital in the 1940's and interviewed many family members of those killed in the 1942 Cocoanut Grove fire, defined the phenomenon with absolute specificity in a famous 1944 study: " sensations of somatic distress occurring in waves lasting from twenty minutes to an hour at a time, a feeling of tightness in the throat, choking with shortness of breath, need for sighing, and an empty feeling in the abdomen, lack of muscular power, and an intense subjective distress described as tension or mental pain.""
Didion quotes Gerald Manley Hopkins...
"I wake and feel the fell of dark, not day." Been there.
Whew!
I am a slow learner, so it took me a long while to see the help I needed and to process what needed to be processed. This is what I've learned: Seek help. What you are experiencing is NOT uncommon and not to be minimized. You will feel better. You do not need to apologize for how you feel.
Please always come here and share with us and we will help in whatever way we can.
xoxoxoxoxo Lynn0 -
I'm so sorry you feel thislynn1950 said:Grief and Mourning
After 9 months of treatment, barreling through the best I could, I gave birth to a massive monster of grief. Looking back, I can see that I had so much stuff to process. With friends' support, counselling, meditation, yoga, prayer, and medication I can now look back and see the monster for what it was and is. It took from October until July for me to finally wake up from what felt like a nightmare.
I have just finished reading the book "The Year of Magical Thinking" by Joan Didion. It is about making sense of illness and death (and life) from a very personal perspective. Here's what she writes on p. 27: ...Grief comes in waves, paroxysms, sudden apprehensions that weaken the knees and blind the eyes and obliterate the dailiness of life. Virtually everyone who has ever experienced grief mentions this phenomenon of "waves" Eric Lindeman, who was chief of psychiatry at Massachusetts General Hospital in the 1940's and interviewed many family members of those killed in the 1942 Cocoanut Grove fire, defined the phenomenon with absolute specificity in a famous 1944 study: " sensations of somatic distress occurring in waves lasting from twenty minutes to an hour at a time, a feeling of tightness in the throat, choking with shortness of breath, need for sighing, and an empty feeling in the abdomen, lack of muscular power, and an intense subjective distress described as tension or mental pain.""
Didion quotes Gerald Manley Hopkins...
"I wake and feel the fell of dark, not day." Been there.
Whew!
I am a slow learner, so it took me a long while to see the help I needed and to process what needed to be processed. This is what I've learned: Seek help. What you are experiencing is NOT uncommon and not to be minimized. You will feel better. You do not need to apologize for how you feel.
Please always come here and share with us and we will help in whatever way we can.
xoxoxoxoxo Lynn
I'm so sorry you feel this way. I am not yet where you are. I am pretty much at the beginning of treatment. I have no clue where this will take me. I think that it much like a death. Your so busy with everyone around you that when its over for them and everyone goes home, people forget that its not over for you. I hope you feel better soon. Will keep you in my prayers for better days ahead. Take Care0 -
tightness in the throatlynn1950 said:Grief and Mourning
After 9 months of treatment, barreling through the best I could, I gave birth to a massive monster of grief. Looking back, I can see that I had so much stuff to process. With friends' support, counselling, meditation, yoga, prayer, and medication I can now look back and see the monster for what it was and is. It took from October until July for me to finally wake up from what felt like a nightmare.
I have just finished reading the book "The Year of Magical Thinking" by Joan Didion. It is about making sense of illness and death (and life) from a very personal perspective. Here's what she writes on p. 27: ...Grief comes in waves, paroxysms, sudden apprehensions that weaken the knees and blind the eyes and obliterate the dailiness of life. Virtually everyone who has ever experienced grief mentions this phenomenon of "waves" Eric Lindeman, who was chief of psychiatry at Massachusetts General Hospital in the 1940's and interviewed many family members of those killed in the 1942 Cocoanut Grove fire, defined the phenomenon with absolute specificity in a famous 1944 study: " sensations of somatic distress occurring in waves lasting from twenty minutes to an hour at a time, a feeling of tightness in the throat, choking with shortness of breath, need for sighing, and an empty feeling in the abdomen, lack of muscular power, and an intense subjective distress described as tension or mental pain.""
Didion quotes Gerald Manley Hopkins...
"I wake and feel the fell of dark, not day." Been there.
Whew!
I am a slow learner, so it took me a long while to see the help I needed and to process what needed to be processed. This is what I've learned: Seek help. What you are experiencing is NOT uncommon and not to be minimized. You will feel better. You do not need to apologize for how you feel.
Please always come here and share with us and we will help in whatever way we can.
xoxoxoxoxo Lynn
Dear Lynn,
Thank you so much for that. The information you provided from that book describes almost exactly how I feel, especially the tightness in the throat...like someone is choking the life out of me. We have all been through so much and when you are walking through it, you are in survival mode. I thought I was having a meltdown for a few days until I finally started to realize that I hurt like all get out and I didn't have energy for anything. It is easy to wake up each morning, but grueling to go through the day. I am so appreciated of support groups like this about real people who have been there! I'm trying to do things I enjoy doing...I told my husband to just not expect very much from me right now. He needs to help being "Mommy" right now so I can process through these waves of grief. Thankfully, he is helping me as I have asked him to do.
With love, Elizabeth0 -
depression
I will tell you my experience: I had a chemically induced depression which my oncologist agreed was from the Femara. I also looked it up on their official website and they list depression as a side effect of Femara. I also have a pre-disposition to depression (I had two blood relatives who committed suicide, although not in my immediate family), but I was never like THIS: I woke up every day crying and cried at work. I took Lexapro and within a few weeks the crying stopped. I would say that the Lexapro helped with the depression, but not the anxiety. I take a very low dose of Ativan when I need it, but I was thinking of asking the doctor to up the dosage of the Ativan.
Before all this happened to me, I never knew that medications themselves could actually cause depression. I wish my doctor had told me this when I first started taking Femara: I still would have taken it, but at least I would have known what to expect.
Write again if you need to.
Ohilly0 -
Your post really struck a
Your post really struck a chord with me. What you are feeling is understandable and I think many of us have been there. I am more than three years out from diagnosis and recently started seeing a psychologist and taking an anti-depressant due to feelings similar to what you described.
I can say that with time things do seem to get a bit better. Being around friends and loved ones helps and doing things you enjoy even if you have to push yourself can help.
Cancer is very traumatizing. I suspect the whole experience changes us and with time we must try to readjust our perspective. I often wish I could go back and be the me I was before breast cancer. Hang in there, we are there with you.0 -
the stress of it allEil4186 said:Your post really struck a
Your post really struck a chord with me. What you are feeling is understandable and I think many of us have been there. I am more than three years out from diagnosis and recently started seeing a psychologist and taking an anti-depressant due to feelings similar to what you described.
I can say that with time things do seem to get a bit better. Being around friends and loved ones helps and doing things you enjoy even if you have to push yourself can help.
Cancer is very traumatizing. I suspect the whole experience changes us and with time we must try to readjust our perspective. I often wish I could go back and be the me I was before breast cancer. Hang in there, we are there with you.
I really appreciate all of you responding to me. I am presently counseling with my pastor, a pychologist(sp), and a pysch for my meds. I have been on Lexapro for years and xanax, but the waves of anxiety and the knot of pain are just pounding within me. It feels so overwhelming and I just don't get it why it took 4 months to hit me this hard. It is like I just want to curl up in a ball and cry but the tears won't come. I'm afraid I will break if I let loose. My husband is trying to understand. I don't think my friends get it at all. This is a scary place to be after going thru all that junk and now my emotional health is in need of healing. I find if I just keep talking about it, it helps me cope and realize that I'm not alone.0 -
ElizabethElizabethK said:the stress of it all
I really appreciate all of you responding to me. I am presently counseling with my pastor, a pychologist(sp), and a pysch for my meds. I have been on Lexapro for years and xanax, but the waves of anxiety and the knot of pain are just pounding within me. It feels so overwhelming and I just don't get it why it took 4 months to hit me this hard. It is like I just want to curl up in a ball and cry but the tears won't come. I'm afraid I will break if I let loose. My husband is trying to understand. I don't think my friends get it at all. This is a scary place to be after going thru all that junk and now my emotional health is in need of healing. I find if I just keep talking about it, it helps me cope and realize that I'm not alone.
A lot of women on here have or are suffering from depression-I am sorry that you are yet another one of them.
Can you get hooked up into a cancer support group where you live or close?You said you had a support group,but everyone has since left the picture-that is so true for many of us! I still have friends at church who ask how I am -and really want to know(and there are also some cancer survivors from there who face some of the same things that I do),but there's nothing like getting together with a group of people who have been there and understand! If you can't find one,call the ACS office in your area and ask and they should be able to lead you in the right direction!
Let us know how things go! We are also here for you any time of the day or night.0 -
TearsElizabethK said:the stress of it all
I really appreciate all of you responding to me. I am presently counseling with my pastor, a pychologist(sp), and a pysch for my meds. I have been on Lexapro for years and xanax, but the waves of anxiety and the knot of pain are just pounding within me. It feels so overwhelming and I just don't get it why it took 4 months to hit me this hard. It is like I just want to curl up in a ball and cry but the tears won't come. I'm afraid I will break if I let loose. My husband is trying to understand. I don't think my friends get it at all. This is a scary place to be after going thru all that junk and now my emotional health is in need of healing. I find if I just keep talking about it, it helps me cope and realize that I'm not alone.
What you write resonates with me. I was unable to cry for the longest time. With the help of my therapist, the tears came during therapy sessions - big racking sobs. I am sorry that I didn't think to write about crying in my earlier post. In the beginning of therapy, when I was feeling "strangulatingly" anxious, and the tears would not come, I played music that helped me to release the tears and tame the anxiety. Jackson Brown helped save me!
Hang in there, Elizabeth. xoxoxoxoxo Lynn0 -
going thru the processoutdoorgirl said:Elizabeth
A lot of women on here have or are suffering from depression-I am sorry that you are yet another one of them.
Can you get hooked up into a cancer support group where you live or close?You said you had a support group,but everyone has since left the picture-that is so true for many of us! I still have friends at church who ask how I am -and really want to know(and there are also some cancer survivors from there who face some of the same things that I do),but there's nothing like getting together with a group of people who have been there and understand! If you can't find one,call the ACS office in your area and ask and they should be able to lead you in the right direction!
Let us know how things go! We are also here for you any time of the day or night.
Each stage of this cancer has been different. I am praying that I can get through this phase. I have called my pysch to evaluate my meds, reallying trying to motivate myself to walk again, and try not to get this down. I just know that I am really really tired. I did call my the ACS office here and got the info for the next support group. Thank you. Elizabeth0
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