Long story very very short:
I had breast cancer four years ago (2 years after my younger sister - she's fine) and I still struggle to even *look* at the scars.
My main issue is with my mental health which was never good to start with (diagnosed with depression at 16 and have collected other diagnoses like other people collect stamps 
) but declined after the treatment stopped, went back up and I plodded on.
Last year was a, to put it politely, nightmare of a year. I'd to put my beloved cat to sleep in mid February, 6weeks before her 16th birthday (suspected cancer but I couldn't put her through the scans etc due to her age & epilepsy), my husband and I separated (it has been a very long time coming but it was still a shock), because I'm on benefits I couldn't afford the mortgage so decided to move out but *because* I'm on benefits landlords didn't want to know, the DWP cut my PIP despite nothing changing so I had to start the process of mandatory reconsideration, my psychiatrist discharged me saying that he couldn't do anything else for me, wouldn't consider any other diagnoses, wouldn't refer me to psychology & if I needed to speak to someone, I'd to ring the Samaritans, my GP re-referred me (thank goodness), I finally managed to get somewhere to live so moved in mid October but returned to the house each day to feed my other cat as my husband didn't finish work until 5pm & my cat had to fed at 4pm (it wasn't an issue as we got on better than when we were together) but we both noticed that the cat was deteriorating markedly: he already had kidney disease, arthritis, suspected dementia and we felt he was missing his sister, for all that he bullied her, but developed head tremors. We made the heartbreaking decision to let him go & be with his sister in mid November.
I got through Christmas (no idea how!) and was doing OK until the beginning of March when my mental health plummeted & I developed some upsetting symptoms. I'd been on the medication for over 10 years so my GP & I felt I'd become used to them but in order to take new ones I'd to come off the old ones and I was on the highest dose. An absolute flipping nightmare, and friends and family have been a lifeline. I'm 3 weeks in to my new ones but because of the lapse between old ones coming out my system & new ones kicking in, my GP put me on diazepam.
Anyway, if you've got this far, thank you so much for listening to me waffle on. I wasn't even sure if I should use the site because I'm not going through cancer anymore...
️
