Forum Discussion
Recovery Emotions
After a good couple of weeks I had a bad day yesterday. On what should have been a good one. One bad thing happened, I cried, and the rest of the day was cactus.
I was starting the very first session of the ExMed Cancer exercise programme. I parked, walked fast (running a couple of minutes late) the 20m to the ticket machine, got the ticket and headed back to the car. I saw a man and a woman standing next to my car, gesturing at it, talking and taking pictures of it. My first thought was don't tell me someone's backed into it in the minute my back had been turned. So when I got there, the woman walking away by now, I politely asked the man "what's going on with my car?"
I won't go into the whole conversation but it turns out he was a parking inspector, which was impossible to tell unless you were really close to him and took time to look at the tiny logo on his non-descript zip up hoodie/jumper thing. He was smug, aggressive, didn't identify himself until I asked him who he was. He was unhelpful, bordering on rude and smirked as I put the ticket on my dashboard. Loathesome.
Then I had to wait ages to get into the gym as they haven't organised passes yet, and when I got upstairs the meet n greet had finished, I didn't know where to put my stuff (cos you need a pass to use the lockers) and I couldn't see the exercise physiologist. When he did see me and come over, he asked how I was and I burst into tears.
This reaction is completely unlike me! Normally an encounter like that would get my dander up and I'd be lodging formal complaints!
Today I feel a tad better but absurdly brittle.
Why are my emotions so close to the surface now?? I feel like the slightest thing will have me weeping and beating a hasty retreat to my cave. I've travelled the world on my own ffs! I've given birth with no drugs, stood up to bullies and talk to strangers without blinking an eye. Will this ever go away or is this the new me? I don't like it, I don't like it at all.
I know I feel more vulnerable now, and I'm trying to embrace that and allow it to bring more empathy and softness to how I interact with the world, but I really need my skin to be a bit thicker...
I was starting the very first session of the ExMed Cancer exercise programme. I parked, walked fast (running a couple of minutes late) the 20m to the ticket machine, got the ticket and headed back to the car. I saw a man and a woman standing next to my car, gesturing at it, talking and taking pictures of it. My first thought was don't tell me someone's backed into it in the minute my back had been turned. So when I got there, the woman walking away by now, I politely asked the man "what's going on with my car?"
I won't go into the whole conversation but it turns out he was a parking inspector, which was impossible to tell unless you were really close to him and took time to look at the tiny logo on his non-descript zip up hoodie/jumper thing. He was smug, aggressive, didn't identify himself until I asked him who he was. He was unhelpful, bordering on rude and smirked as I put the ticket on my dashboard. Loathesome.
Then I had to wait ages to get into the gym as they haven't organised passes yet, and when I got upstairs the meet n greet had finished, I didn't know where to put my stuff (cos you need a pass to use the lockers) and I couldn't see the exercise physiologist. When he did see me and come over, he asked how I was and I burst into tears.
This reaction is completely unlike me! Normally an encounter like that would get my dander up and I'd be lodging formal complaints!
Today I feel a tad better but absurdly brittle.
Why are my emotions so close to the surface now?? I feel like the slightest thing will have me weeping and beating a hasty retreat to my cave. I've travelled the world on my own ffs! I've given birth with no drugs, stood up to bullies and talk to strangers without blinking an eye. Will this ever go away or is this the new me? I don't like it, I don't like it at all.
I know I feel more vulnerable now, and I'm trying to embrace that and allow it to bring more empathy and softness to how I interact with the world, but I really need my skin to be a bit thicker...
88 Replies
- I’m sitting here six months into this thing and I don’t think I’m EVER going to get over the fear of another change/lump in my breast I can’t imagine a time when I’m going to believe I’ve licked this. Maybe it’s the circumstances of my diagnosis maybe this is what everyone else feels I don’t know the only thing I do know is that it messes with my head big time
A friend has just posted this in her facebook feed. it's UK but it demonstrates this is not an issue isolated to breast cancer or Australia.
https://metro.co.uk/2017/11/21/why-the-trauma-of-cancer-doesnt-end-after-treatment-7094279/
I'm with you @sister as far as being pissed off is concerned.
I think most humans have an intrinsic longing for safety; those that don't care can cut a vicious swath through otherwise moderate communities. I try to tamp down my anger at my access to safe haven being denied by rationalizing that my disease is nothing personal and that I'm living in (probably) the best place in the world if I have to endure it and want to survive it. That little mantra keeps me tracking along until some incident/episode/event derails me, then I will literally bite the hand offering me food.
That response is driven by my temperament. Nature? Nurture? I consider that to be irrelevant; the issue is my factory settings may as well have been installed at date of manufacture. I can try to moderate them, but I'm not always successful. Sounds like an argument put forward by any number of criminals trying to escape justice, hey?
My point is rational people have points past which we can not go without overturning our hopes and aspirations, modest or extravagant as those may be. The trigger may be war, disease, accidents, suicides... the list of potential physical and psychological traumas is pretty much endless. The effect is someone who no longer feels safe has to learn to deal with their new reality.
While I'm on it, the misuse of the word 'safe' is really starting to get me aerated. It's a concept that varies from person to person but I'm over 'unsafe' being used in exchange for the word 'unpleasant.' They are two entirely different things. Sometimes to avoid things that are unsafe (dying for example) we have to do things that are unpleasant--such as lopping our tits off, getting poisoned, irradiated and destroying our lifestyles. Not at all in the same category as not liking the fact your university invites a speaker you disagree with. Learning to deal with the unpleasant is character building. Or so I keep telling myself.
- Basically the emotional impact of breast cancer never really leaves us!
We naturally evolve as life goes on however BC seems to accelerate that change.
You may long for the old you but she is evolving and hopefully you will see the new you as a better than ever as she has survived this ride.
Take care - @"Beryl C." That's exactly it. I didn't find this website until I was having chemotherapy, I couldn't bear to read the My Journey kit, I'd just watched my sister die from BC the year before. I just knew having it myself was going to change me, change everything. I was furious and then furious and upset. My BS was the first person who actually said it to me, when he was trying to console me after my re-excision. I was bawling about how I didn't want to change. He said what he could to comfort me but then said that yes, it would change me. He confirmed my fears and we were both right.
- Hello @Harvey1903
Thanks for the question. To edit your comments/posts- click on the 'wheel' icon in the top right hand corner of your post next to the square
- you will have the option to edit or delete your post.
- my understanding is that you only have 10 - 15 minutes to make the changes
- Please let me know if you have any posts that you would like me to edit on your behalf
- This discussion seems to 'hit' on something very real for those diagnosed with BC and reminds me of something I read during the first few weeks after diagnosis, 'you will never be the same person you were before diagnosis'. That has been so true for me. I have this mental image of a book entitled, 'Breast Cancer: Goodbye You ....... Hello Me!' The contents would be the posts from this discussion. No, I don't want to write a book but I like the idea.
- @Giovanna_BCNA - @Harvey1903 looking for assistance in editing comments
- @kmakm - sorry taken so long to reply - just had second chemo, so not doing too much. Lunch sounds lovely, maybe one day I'll get there. Hubby usually takes me and it there and back! no if's or buts. Lol. Though next time is just a check up and he may just take a pass. J. ps how do you edit a comment, have tried but no success.
- Different strokes, hey? I feel generally pissed off with the world...and fed up with myself.
