Emotions and anxiety with a cancer diagnosis: How do you cope?

Hi! ❤️ I hear you! I go through emotional bouts almost daily for a few minutes. Mostly anxiety over not being here for my kid who is on the spectrum. I will say that to get over it I pray pray pray and put on uplifting music. It usually helps. If that does not work I call my sister or my dad to distract me and get me laughing. Fear and anxiety are normal reactions to the unknown. I did find that once the surgery was over and my first chemo session was successfully completed and I knew the process going forward that that helped with the anxiety. Our futures are never a guarantee. But cancer doesn’t mean its a death sentence. Its a chance to check where you’re at in life and reprioritize if necessary. Its a chance to take care of you in a way you never thought possible. Give yourself love and patience and understanding. Its a hard pill to swallow. But you can do it! You can! Strength comes when we need it most. My church and friends have been faithful in encouraging me and sending cards and calling. I had no idea that little would mean so much. I get so excited going to the mailbox! Let people know you need encouragement! I pray for a quick recovery for you!

Hi,

Take some deep breaths. Notice what's happening for you -- I have noticed that my own anxiety or emotions in general worsen if I try to avoid them. I just work on allowing them to be. Often, it all disappears in that process.

No one can be up 100% of the time. What you're feeling is completely "normal" and I bet as time goes on, you will learn how to manage this particular anxiety as you go through your own process.

Sometimes I just drop everything and go for a walk. That helps immensely.

Wishing you the best in your proces!

BPB

Thank you @JustinMcClanahan

Always thinking positive. I have been cancer free for 4 years and I expect it to stay that way! I have other important things to focus on that brings me joy

Hello @scs23, I see you tried to share a useful link. There is a a waiting period for being able to post links, but let me share the helpful link you were trying to post: https://www.mayoclinic.org/healthy-lifestyle/consumer-health/in-depth/mindfulness-exercises/art-20046356.

@glendafl Have you tried mindfulness exercises or deep breathing exercises? It helps clear my mind of negative thoughts and worries. And it's so relaxing after I got the hang of it. I realized too, that things I worry about are going to happen or not regardless if I worry about them, so there's no point spending my precious energy worrying about things I can't control. I know that's much easier said then done, but it takes time and practice. I wish you the best.

I'm walking and hiking. It helps a lot. I also asked for a referral to a psychiatrist and got an Ativan prescription. I use it situationally, and it also helps a lot.

Me too, wonderful, and yes, it's normal for cancer.
God bless you.

I needed that more than you will ever know! Thank you for the post!

@glendafl Just knowing that this is normal can help a great deal. It's like coming to a great boulder in your life's road, and you try, but you can't go around it, can't go above it, and you can't go underneath it . . .you have to go through it. I think, mentally and emotionally, we want to side-step the entire treatment course. . . (we, of course, would physically take another path) . . . but we cannot. Giving yourself more grace, letting yourself know its okay to be anxious (that's part of it), can sometimes take the edge off the worst of it. A person in cancer treatment often has to live moment-by-moment, because we are taking the onslaught of so much chemically, and we aren't quiet sure, even from week to week, how our body will respond to the chemo or radiation or flu, or virus, or infections. There are no check-lists that say our body will do this or that, and doctors can only share what typically happens. . . so, we often have to wait and see. And this can surely cause anxiety.

What helped me was to surround myself with a few good people, ask for help, admit I was anxious, and then let those moments PASS. Mostly, I asked God to help me let those moments pass. And He did. I remember, specifically, one night I was particularly anxious - waking up in bed in a sweat, my heart racing. It was then that the Lord reminded me of the big open Wyoming skies I had watched when I was vacationing a few years prior. I remembered how those big skies would be clear one minute, and then a storm would rage from seemingly nowhere. The sky would be covered in dark, ominous clouds, and it felt unsettling to be almost enveloped by the impending storm clouds above. But here's the good part. . . .those clouds would MOVE overhead, and then they would PASS OVER. It was in that instant of remembering that helped me in the very moment of my anxious thoughts in bed that night. I needed not fight the anxiety, but name it, realize I was anxious, and then be calm to let it pass over me. Our human nature is to fight something, give it all we got, so-to-speak - in fact, you hear that all the time when it comes to cancer - fight it! But I say, take a moment to consider this . . . that we imagine being on the other side of it, and let it pass over - like storm clouds in the sky that move and leave sunshine in its wake. The sky does not storm forever. 🙂 That imagery helped me a great deal that night, and in the months to come. It was certainly more of a spiritual experience, for I taught myself how to rest in those anxious moments, giving it more fully to God to handle, and waiting for the anxiety to pass over, leaving me breathing normally, returning me back to a state of being able to cope again.

Cancer is hard. But you can do it. I read a lot of positive Bible passages out loud, so I could hear myself say them. I filled my mind with good things, and then, in some small way, it helped to balance all the not-so-good things that go along with cancer. I didn't always "feel" positive, but it was good to hear positive things over and over again. We can't always trust our feelings in life. . . they can deceive us, take us down a path of mental exhaustion and destruction. We have to tell ourselves the truth, and that helps separate those emotions that deplete us from those emotions that wash our very soul. 🙂 Thought always precedes emotion. Getting our minds in the game and feeding ourselves healthy thoughts benefitted me greatly. And at times, when I didn't have the strength to think positively, I would ask God to give me something praiseworthy to think on - and then find another person who could "loan" me their good thoughts for a while! 🙂

I hope this helps in some small way.