Hi every one of you lovely, kind people.
My first post rather than a ‘reaction’.
So here’s a weird one. So lucky to be here & coming out the other side, so to speak. Done the ‘one year after diagnosis’ anniversary (a little surprised that a day that changed so much about me proved to only be remembered by me - healthy bit of self pity, there), starting to feel physically a bit better on most days & truly appreciative that I’ve been lucky enough to have had great treatment by some great people & have a life to embrace.
So why don’t I love doing the stuff I used to love doing? For example, was excited as lucky to have had a holiday doing what I love. Turns out I don’t really love doing it anymore. Happy stuff happens…& I am happy about it but if I’m honest find it hard to really let go & enjoy the happiness.
I’ve always been the sort of person who feels things passionately - so love a laugh with my boys about something ridiculously silly, cry at soppy films, love the little things in life etc. So I’m really not sure why I feel a bit ‘flat line’ & disengaged about so much now. Feels like things have changed so much over the past year & at times I’m just an observer looking on. Bit of a disconnect, emotionally. It’s probably a bit of self preservation in case I have to face the thought of ‘leaving’ again. I never really felt scared during my treatment, just immensely sad & very lonely for so long.
Probably normal for this stage in the journey, & I sort of understand what’s going on with my emotions; all cried out etc. Just wondered if anyone else relates & if you managed to learn to have passion for the things you loved before or found new things to enjoy.
Probably just having a moment…thanks for listening guys xx
Good morning BB3 having ‘a moment’ actually you are going to have a good few ‘moments’ as times goes on. This is ok….. it’s totally normal…. You are navigating an unwanted journey so the moments are part of how your body and mind is building understand, trust and the knowledge to live forward.
At times, living the post cancer journey is like living in a parallel universe - you can see your old life but regardless what you do you can not get back on that same path.
Following my many years of treatment and now 7+ years into my post treatment life, a situation I was unwillingly put into. It did actually make me review life and everything that we once thought important.
So some things from my old life are still in our lives but various aspects of our old life that were once seen as important were put in the bin and we don’t miss them.
I kept note books during all my years and the back pages were our Hopes and Dreams pages. It was where not only me but my wife and 2 girls put down the stuff we wanted to do once we could….. I look back at these pages and I see some big ticks and some of the notes were carried over through the note books and are yet to be achieved.
As you know my cancer is incurable and may well come back but our focus is to define the way live and enjoy life and not let my cancer or the what if’s? define us….. the future is sitting in front of you - we think about being in a car. The big windscreen shows the future, the past is in the little mirrors and is getting smaller and more fuzzy as we move forward.....if you concentrate on the past you crash.
One thing I did have to deal with was survivors guilt as I lost some very good friends to different cancers over my years and "why did I survive and they did not".......... but I got some great help through our local Maggie's Centre especially their Where Now? Course and One on One support.
((hugs))
