Episode 022: Mastering Your Emotions During Cancer
Jun 22, 2018•35 min•Transcript available on Metacast Episode description
Maybe you’ve just been diagnosed, or maybe you’re going through treatment, or maybe it’s someone you love and you’re trying to get through it together. Whatever the case may be, you’re on this crazy roller coaster of emotions and feelings that are hard to put into words. That’s what Jill and I are talking about today, practical ways to take charge of your life and your emotions as you tackle cancer on every level. Here is what we cover:
Overcoming guilt
How putting a name to your feelings helps you deal with them
Dealing with depression during cancer
Carer's mirror of emotions
How to tackle fear of the unknown
and much, much more!
Links
Episode 015: When Your Loved One Has Cancer
Episode 007: How To Use Your Inner Resources To Better Deal With Cancer
Episode 018: Finding The Light Amidst The Darkness
Full Transcript
Joe: Hi Jill, I’m really excited for us to be doing this again.
Jill: Thanks, Joe, I’m pleased to be here.
Joe: That’s fantastic. Jill, I thought we could talk about a couple of things today and maybe we can start to talk about some of the phases that you go through emotionally, when you transition across the cancer continuum, when you go from your diagnosis and treatment and survivorship. How do you go through these emotions, the whole range of it? How do we deal with them? Should we start looking at our diagram here?
Jill: Yes. A diagram that I quite often refer to is called the Valley of Despair. There’s been a lot of research by well-regarded people and it’s the process of transition of your emotions starting off. It becomes like a rollercoaster ride, anxiety, happiness, fear, threat, guilt, depression, hostility, gradual acceptance, and then moving forward. More importantly, how does that then relate back your cancer continuum?
When you’re just prior to your first session and your diagnosis, you’ve got anxiety, you know something’s not quite right, you’re worried about the future, so anxiety builds with the fear of the unknown. It’s like, what’s going to happen to me? How do I deal with this? What if? The way to deal with your anxiety is bring yourself back to the moment, the present time. Don’t dwell on what’s happened in the past, because that’s what we base our experiences on, what’s happened in the past.
We know what’s happening at the present time and none of us can dictate what’s happening in the future. That’s where anxiety lives, it’s around that future state. The anxiety and the worry that you have, oh my goodness, I’m going to my oncologist, what are they going to tell me? I’ve just had tests, I know something’s wrong, what if? It’s going through that stressful time before you actually have your initial diagnosis.
Then you get to the point where, okay, I’ve been to the oncologist, I have been diagnosed with cancer, but you know, you’ve got a definite thing that you can associate with. It’s like, yes, I have cancer. In a way, you’re sad that you’ve got cancer, but you’re happy that you’ve got a diagnosis. That fear of the unknown now has a name to it. That’s coming through your diagnosis, as well.
Joe: I’ll just swiftly jump in there, Jill. I think also the happiness can be associated with maybe an initial treatment, like in my case, I know I had an operation for testicular cancer, to remove a testicle. I was told the cancer is gone. I thought, I’m on top of the world, fantastic, I can move on with my life. Little did I know that three months later, it actually turned out that the cancer had spread and so yes, it was like you said, like a rollercoaster.
Jill: Yes. That’s what the whole process is, it’s never just a straight continuum, like you’re faced with different experiences along the way. That’s where you need to tune into what’s actually happening, be aware of how you’re feeling. It’s okay to say,
