Anger and Frustration - Help please

Hi

Yes your situation is crap and I am not surprised that you are angry and short tempered. My tolerance is much less than it used to be but it is not all bad. I just have a better appreciation of what is important in life and what is useless waffle and I am more confident to say no or to assert myself. You need to have an outlet for your fears and anger. I certainly know that i feel better after a good crying and wailing session. A bit scary for my husband but he just lets me sob and talk about my fears and anger at my situation. Not everyone can cope with this however and if you can't let it out with your family then perhaps you can seek out some counselling for when the covid sanctions lift. My GP's surgery are signed up to counsellors and I had a couple of phone sessions which were ok. I prefer face to face so I am going to approach my hospice when they get back to normal. 

Time is helping, you just get a bit more used to it. They say that there are five stages of grief, Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression, and Acceptance. I hope to get to the acceptance stage before I die but I don't think there are any short cuts.  Underneath I still have rage at the idea of an early death and the loss of all of my life plans, why me? fear for my family left behind, the list goes on.

My suggestions are, be kind to yourself, this is very normal and find a safe way to let some of it out that works for you

Hi ,

Welcome to the community.  I had a quick look at your profile and latest activity before replying so I see that you have been dealing with your breast cancer for some time.  When I was first diagnosed I switched between being very sad and upset and being angry and upset.  As I have lived with the disease I still tend to swing between these to ends of the spectrum but the wings are generally slower and not as extreme.  Like all emotional responses it is also affected by what I am going through or what is going on around me.  I am generally a calm person but I cannot watch question time as I scream and shout at the scream, they would never have me in the audience.  I have a friend who (in the good old days before lock down) would never go to the pub to watch football as he is a bit enthusiastic and hypercritical and he was asked to leave on more than on occasion.

I know that a lot of people are finding the restrictions and disruption to their normal activities caused by the lock down extremely frustrating.

After being told I was terminal (later corrected to incurable) I was much more likely to say what I think as whereas before I just assumed that I was immortal and my life would continue like this for as long as I could imagine and getting my diagnoses made me realised I did not have an indefinite amount of time to sort things out and I can be much more blunt now.

Being diagnosed with incurable cancer is a little bit like dying in that you start to anticipate it and begin to go through the grieving process for your own life and what you will be losing.  Strangely enough when I was at Uni my tutor was the Macmillan lecturer in palliative care and he always emphasised that the stages of grief were not linear and you would jump between them in no particular order and could return to previously experienced stages many times during this process.

A diagnosis like this is bound to change you as it completely shifts your expectations and perspective.  My son is now 15 but was much younger when I was first diagnosed and I was angry and sad believing that I would not have the opportunity to be responsible for raising and guiding him as he developed into a man.  As it has worked out I am able to guide him through his adolescence and I hope to continue to be there for him for many years yet.

I have found that I am less likely to get angry or depressed if I look forward to what I can do more than looking back at what I have lost.  This is currently made more difficult because of the lock down and it is less easy to plan any trips or holidays, parties, get togethers or nice nights out.  I am trying to focus on the smaller things at the moment, I go out every morning to see how my French beans are doing (about two foot up the climbing frame) and how soon I will be harvesting a courgette (a flower is forming but it looks like a male flower which will not produce a courgette so I need to wait a bit longer)

I am probably cooking a few too many nice meals at the moment (steak chips and salad with crispy onion rings last night) as I have put on a few pounds during lock down.  I have spent a few too many pounds as well treating myself to things from the internet and looking forward to the delivery arriving but nothing that I wont use and enjoy.

When the lock down ends It is also an opportunity to motivate you to try those things that you have always put off or even to consider things that you might not have done previously.  I went to the opera and thoroughly enjoyed it, unfortunately my wife was less keen so I need to find someone else to go with now when it restarts.  I joined a choir which continues to meet through zoom and although unfortunately I cannot currently join in I will go back to it when they can meet physically again.  We went on a holiday to Denmark where I drove from Copenhagen to the extreme north and the west of the counrty.  Last year we went to Luxembourge, Germany and France by car.  Places that you cannot get a package holiday to but places that I wanted to visit.  We still do the package holidays as well and are waiting to see if it will be possible to go as planned in August or if the restrictions will thwart us.

Your family may struggle at times to accept changes in you as they will also want things to stay as they were and I have found that it is easier for me if I explain to them what I am going through and why I might be acting differently, even if I don't fully understand it all the time.  It might encourage them to look at how they are responding and if they need to examine their own understanding of what is going on within the family.  I try to be aware of when I am letting my emotions colour my responses and although I am more likely to be blunt I am also more likely to apologise when I realise that I have gone over the top or directed my anger at the wrong person.  It is a balancing job at times.

What I would say is give yourself a lot of leeway from hitting perfection.  A diagnosis like this is bound to change you as it completely shifts your expectations and perspective.  My son is now 15 but was much younger when I was first diagnosed and I was angry and sad believing that I would not have the opportunity to be responsible for raising and guiding him as he developed into a man.  As it has worked out I am able to guide him through his adolescence and I hope to continue to be there for him for many years yet.  Cancer is a progressive disease and how you deal with it is a learning process and you will utilise different skills and abilities as you encounter new situations.  We tend to be our own hardest critics but cancer is one of the most difficult things you will have to deal with.  You should applaud yourself for having done as well as you have.  Incurable is also unremitting and not something that you can easily step off to give yourself a break but please try to do so, at least in your head it can make such a difference.  

All the best.

love and hugs,

Gragon x

Hello Nicky.  You are bang on with your reply to smokeysmudge. I think what you have said pretty well describes what a lot of us feel, its 100% me.

smokeysmudge, please look at the last sentence that Nicky wrote and try it out.

Hi Smokeysmudge.no you are not alone.I have mood swings too.I am really angry especially my lack of care from my hospital.I am feeling frustrated that I was apparently cured 2 years ago and I was still clear in January last year and then in May I had stage 4 breast cancer? So I doubt I was clear in January they obviously missed the cancer and now I have to pay for it.I am on antidepressants but they make me more often angry and more tearful.I used to be so optimistic now every other day is like a nightmare sometimes I dont want to carry on treatment because I am just so fed up.I used to do counselling but it worked until i didnt get home so I gave up that too.My husband is fed up with my crying too.

I dont know whats the answer but I am hoping my return to work help me to concentrate on other things and be with my friends.

Janet

 Hi and welcome to the group! I'm sorry I don't remember seeing you post here before and I'm sorry you didn't get a response, it's most unusual. Anyway, I read your profile page before replying here and I'm sorry you find yourself in this situation. I'm wondering if you are on your own or do you have a partner/spouse or family. To be honest with this Lockdown going on and on I think there are a lot of normally calm people who have now got to the end of their tether! So together with the diagnosis it's no wonder you are angry and frustrated, it's human nature. The thing that gets me is the sudden change in life. What was all planned out has changed forever, life as we know it has changed forever. I'm sorry we can't change that for you or ourselves but at least you now have somewhere to let off steam and everyone here understands what you are going through. 

Do your team have any treatment options for you? If no one has mentioned it, then ask. Lots of us here have gone past our sell by dates and suddenly you realise you are wasting the precious time you have left trying to change what you cannot change. It isn't easy but try to live each day as it comes and enjoy it to the full.

Hi there 

Sorry you didn't get a reply which is very unusual as the people on here are so very supportive. 

I was easy going and slow to lose my temper but now idiots and thoughtlessness make me snap.  I also snap at my partner and although he understands its not right and I try to control myself. 

Much love

Tracy x

Hi

I am sure we have had an exchange of messages. I remember your charming user name - how did you come up with smokeysmudge by the way? No matter. You’ve had lots of replies now. 

I think you’ll see that being angry and frustrated is completely normal. I know I was furious when I leaned the Cancer was back and incurable. I was also sad. So very sad. I spent a lot of time dying from cancer when I should have been learning to live with it. 

I don’t think there are any short cuts through the anger and sadness phases. To me, the idea of going through a grieving process for my old life, the one I thought I’d have, made sense. It was only by going through them that I could get to a place of acceptance. The things that helped me along the way were daily meditation, counselling and reading around the subject. I found Kathryn Manix’s book on death and the Book of Joy particularly useful. 

These days I am pretty chilled. I look for the joy in each day and I try to live well in each day as it comes. Eating healthily and taking a daily walk both help me to keep my mood up. I do have down days, of course, but for the most part I am on an even keel. 

I know it’s hard right now. You’ve come to a safe place to talk about how angry you feel. No one here will judge you or tell you to be positive. Just know that you won’t always feel this way. Change is possible. They are only feelings and feelings can’t harm you. 

With love and hugs 

xxx

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Hi smokey smudge, a cancer diagnosis has an inexplicable effect on each and every person. At first I was full of positive thoughts, everyone told me my attitude was amazing. Now less than 6 months after diagnosis I am told I have months to live. I still have fight in me but also so much rage, I'm furious with cancer for everything it is robbing me off. I break down and sob my heart out often, then wipe away the tears and pick myself back up. In my more lucid moments I am still full of fighting spirit and determined to fight as long as I can. The stages of grief mentioned previously are true and I find myself swinging between them.  Don't be hard on yourself, allow yourself to express yourself however you want to and don't apologise for it. Be kind to yourself. Xx

Nicky,

Thank you for your reply - it sounds like you have been battling this for some time but are coming out on top (I hope). 

I feel like I have skipped all the stages of 'grief' and went straight to the end on day 1, but now I am not so sure - I will look at some counselling because unfortunately my family don't cope well with me being emotional (angry or sad) because \i have always been the one that is strong and unshakable always keeping an even keel.

xxx

Hi Gragon,

Thank you so much for taking the time to write me that response, I really do appreciate it and I will try to take the time to look at some of the things you have suggested and mentioned.

I am really happy that you are getting to travel your sons journey with him, I don't have children but imagine there can be no better feeling.

Talking of travel, I was in Australia when the pandemic began (had to come home early to ensure treatment), I was visiting friends and family having lived there for 9 years. It was tough having to tell them all about my diagnosis, because I hadn't shared it with them. Being so far away it seemed like I shouldn't worry them, but it felt good to know they all cared.

It sounds to me like you have traveled quite a journey yourself to get to your current head space and to sound as positive as you do.

I think all all the responses to my message are suggesting I sit and take a look at what is going on in my head, to work out whether the emotions are caused by my diagnosis.  I am just not used to showing emotion of any description - it is difficult, but you have all given me cause to stop and think.

Thank you again, and I hope you get to travel in August. Best wishes for all your travels. xx