Anyone awake?

Life after a breast cancer diagnosis Living with breast cancer
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@sbee It is very common to experience what you’re going through. I am dealing with cancer for the second time. My first time was DCIS in 2022. Once I’d finished radiotherapy I thought it would be a time of euphoria. It wasn’t. I was frightened, lost, suffering from panic attacks and I felt invisible.

All through treatment you are the centre of attention. You get great care and you are part of a structure. People you choose to tell are supportive (usually). Then - nothing.

I felt spat out of the system, rudderless. Friends see that you are physically better and expect us just to bounce back, but we know this is when the real work needs to be done. No-one can see inside our heads. I had some counselling. I attended workshops to deal with life after cancer. Nothing worked.

I have no easy answers. My personal coping strategy is to talking to others in the same boat. It helps me to feel that I am not alone with my feelings. I am normal, I have just experienced a trauma that no-one but a fellow survivor can relate to. It helps me to feel connected and human.

You say you don’t know what to do with yourself. I get that. I don’t have answers, but there is something for me about denying ourselves the right to feel. It’s about sense-making after a life-changing experience.

I think we have to appreciate that this takes time. The treatment we endure has a huge impact. We bear scars, not just on our bodies, but in our heads and hearts too.

I hope talking on here is helping you to start the healing process. Hearing stories from others give me hope that we will find our way out of this. Our commitment is maybe to be kind to ourselves, find a way of feeling supported that works for us, and to appreciate that it will take time. But we’re not alone. We’re never alone. x

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Your body has just been through the most awful trauma. And if you are like me, my thoughts and feelings are completely influenced by how I feel physically.
For me personally when all the treatment is done I will try to concentrate on healing my body. Gentle exercises, lots of really nice walks that dont have to be miles. Breathing exercises, mindfulness, journaling. I’m going to make myself the healthiest and most nutritious meals I can. And just rest whenever possible. Great plan hey haha Lets hope I can manage it.
Your body needs to heal. And maybe the more you heal, the focus in your mind might shift a bit.
What could you do for your body today? As a body thats been stripped bare. If your body was a car, what would it need after a really crap 6 months out in a storm?
Everything you do for yourself matters, the smallest of things matter :heart:

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@Jaygo @shee and all. I was also awake. Sad reading ur post @shee sometimes this forum makes me worse everyone is so positive and I’m like. Wtf why me. What did I do. I have great friends and family but I say nothing. I act like there is nothing wrong and they follow. I was diagnosed x mas week ( Xmas ruined ). I was not expecting it at all. The shock. Everything done on recall. 2 biopsy’s. Mammogram. Ultra sound and was literally told str8 out. Surgery 4 days later The torturous wait for results Over xmas. Was originally told. Just radium. Results changed all that It was TNBC. GRADE 3. Stage 1 ( C+R ). Cancelled my holidays. Treatment plan 9 am in the morning Tomorrow is the day I feel like my life is over. I had great life. Social life. Holidays. The best. Friends fsmily. I had it all. Now what have I to look forward to. I come on here and everyone is wonderful. Positive and I feel worse My daughter getting married in June. What ll I b like for that. I don’t even wanna go. I’m gonna ruin her wedding Mayb tomorrow bring something good but with my luck I don’t know. Take. All all x

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@mai3 I’m so sorry to read your news and understand the utter devastation for you.

With you on the fact that we sanitise it to protect others. In some ways this is important…they may go through this, or have someone in their life go through this. Up to now I have felt this way, but am questioning it. Why not be open about the fact that it is a sh!t show? I’m thinking I might be more honest about it.

Have you been offered counselling from your breast care nurse? If not, maybe consider this to help you sense-make.

As for looking ahead? I found just doing one small step at a time the most I could handle. to look at the whole was overwhelming for me. Bite it off in chunks you can handle.

Yes life does feel like it is over, but a new one will emerge in time. It just takes time for your head to process. I’m not there yet…far from it, but if I lose faith in that, then I lose faith in everything.

Oh and it’s ok not to feel positive about it. If you were to read my journal, you would feel my utter RAGE. What is important though is not to internalise it.

Here to support you, we all care, we all know how this feels. We can’t know how it feels for you, but we have common ground.

Sending love. xxx

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Hello,

@mai3 - I get it, I really do. I started 2025 with a new job & wonderful new relationship. Ended it with neither and a missing breast. Friends all celebrating their 40ths. How did it go for you today? Xx

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Anyone here?

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Hi, yes I am here, can’t sleep?

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Nope - head is full. You too?

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Yes I am googling lots of stuff, so brain is wired. Not sure it helps though. How are you doing?

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Similar. Never know what is best to do. Spoke to a friend on instagram. She is moaning about her cough keeping her up. . . Thought best I come here!

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Yep. Wide awake. Didn’t go to sleep until 2.30am and was hoping to sleep longer. I did day one of my steroids yesterday as I have round 4 of chemo today. Probably not helping.

Hopefully I will have a few zzzz’s in the chair later.

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9:30 am today :scream::scream:

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@mai3 oh well done you!

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@sbee I’m feeling similar about someone who has started the weight loss jabs. Horses for courses, if people want to do this, it is their choice. However, I’m not really digging her need to put up daily posts about it. I’m biting my tongue hard and resisting the urge to scream ‘TRY FN CHEMO’. But I know that is childish, so I won’t.

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@sbee ‘Like I am sitting in the ashes of an explosion I have no memory of’. I could have never said it better myself, it pinpoints so precisely what I’m feeling right now! May I steal it please?

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Of course x

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I just discovered this thread and I am in love with all off you. :slight_smile: I started by writing a short reply, but then it became an essay that has no place to go.. Well I’mm posting it anyway, maybe someone will feel less lonely because of it.. I don’t know.

I was so motivated at the begining, was super positive and felt mostly well through the Chemo, friends were cheering me on.

Now almost a year on, I’ve just started the hormone therapy, feel the shitiest in my life and the sidelines are silent. There are still quite a few people who still ask me how I am, but I’m normally given a classic one minute to respond..… so I just say, it’s a bit tough… They don’t normally ask any follow up questions. Or worse so, they start telling me to eat vitamins and supplements so I just shut down and get angry inside. Cause you know it’s just ‘a pill now’ it’s not chemo..

I’m looking at the mirror everyday, my hair is about an inch long now.. my skin looks older, my eyes are dry, my joints ache, I feel a bit of nausea and a headache lingering in a background.. every day. Nothing is falling apart, the pain is aching, I still can function. The condition for functioning though seems to be more anger at the unthoughtful people. And tbh a lot of things and words seem unthoughtful to me these days… I don’t do anything about it, I don’t lash out, I don’t give lectures, I just feel how it eats smth away inside me and I continue getting on about my day.

I doo look stilyish with this short haircut. I put on a piece of jewelry to take the attention away from somewhat grey looking skin. And put a bit of concealer on my nose that has become red due to bad circulation caused by all the treatments. I go through about 5, maybe more outfits untill I find the one that looks intentional for the hairstyle and doesn’t make me feel like an aunty from 2000s. I find the look that looks good and is creative.

People tell me I look pretty, and I guess I do, but I am just starting to realise that it’s not about looking pretty. It’s about looking in the mirror and seeing yourself: someone you chose to be; the look you picked, because you HAD A CHOICE and you made it. I’m looking in the mirror, and I see a pretty person, but it’s just a constant reminder that so many choices in life have been taken away from me. This aches too.

My world didn’t collapse as per say. Some choices that were taken away, were not the things I would have gone for anyway (like having children for example). But the idea of having a choice was giving me a sense of freedom. I don’t have it anymore.. I’m scared of what the next 10 years on meds will do to me.

I go about my day and interact with people ‘as normal’. I try to focus on smth that catches my interest. I find that actually some days, maybe even most of them are pretty good and I have good moments to remember. I still have ‘comtrol’. But somehow, there is this lingering feeling of something very fundamental being broken inside me.. I just hope it will eventually get repaired.

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@sim2 I just wanted to respond to help you feel heard. I absolutely get this. People want to package us up into the ‘all better now’ box, because it makes them feel all better.

For us, once the drama is over, is when the REAL work is being done and the real help is needed.

A friend talked to me about the liminal space that we exist in with cancer. I didn’t get it at first, but I think this is where we are. We are suspended. Our old self has gone (to a lesser or greater extent) and we haven’t worked out the new us yet. I’m forcing myself to sit with it to see where the road takes me. I’ve no idea where it will go, but it feels less knackering to sit back on the ride rather than force it. Maybe the choices will materialise, maybe they won’t, but being open to them is key for me.

Anyway, not much help I realise, but know that we all get you here. Always. We can’t begin to know how it is for you, but we have a damn sight more idea than any of them lot on the outside, and here’s hoping they never get to find out first hand.

Sending a healing hug. x

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Ah thank you. I like this attitude. Being more laid back is definitely the intention :slight_smile:

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I feel every word of this too & for now am unable to take any hormone blockers. X