Have been on anastrozole for 3 months prior to which 12 months on arimedex. I have now completed my other treatments an was and am so pleased for that. But gradually I have felt so low - mentally that is.I really dont want to see family and find it quite a trial to pretend all is fine and although my nearest has questioned me as to my mood I have just said I feel tired.I do go to work and that seems easier to deal with as work colleagues dont ask ‘whats the matter’ I dont know what the matter is. What would I like to do? Lock the door and see no-one. Yeah and Christmas is coming and my birthday all of which should be celebration for such and also for being where I am since diagonosis.is the change from arimedex to blame?Or is this a normal ‘come down’ from all the hospital sessions and cycles of chemo.
Help anyone…
I would like to know that answer to,lol. You could have been writing about me, I am blaming Tamoxifen , but it seems thats unlikely according to the known side effects. I still have rads to go , and feel so down at times . I feel like people think i am BETTER as i have had the mx and chemo , so i should be pleased as its almost over. If i do say how i feel thet cant handle it so Im fine rolls of my tongue. I am not good at asking for help so cant bring myself to go to GP , or call my BC nurse . It sounds trivial when i voice it ? Its like people think we should be sooo grateful to be alive that we shoul go around skipping and singing kum ba yah…
I probably have in no way helped u , it is maybe normal to feel like this , WE HOPE…lol/
I read, while waiting for the results of my first biopsy, that around 25% of people diagnosed with breast cancer also end up being treated for depression. So in answer to your post’s title, you could easily be both.
There is no shame in asking for some help when you’re feeling down, but I know from personal experience that often that’s the least likely time you will ask for help, for fear of being a nuisance or a pest or a burden. So I suggest you put those views to one side and let the person you speak to decide whether you ARE being a pest or a nuisance or a burden. And you know what? I reckon the answer will come back that you’re not.
There are several things that can help with post-BC blues (or however you want to describe the mood where the joy has gone out of everything). Without doubt counselling can be really useful, though you do need to get on well with your counsellor. In addition, some medical intervention can also help. If taking Tamoxifen or AIs, the sleepless nights caused by hot flushes at night can really grind you down, and several of the anti-d’s that are safe for us to take also reduce hot flushes, so help with the lack of sleep that in itself can be so draining.
So if you CAN manage to talk to someone about it, either your GP or your BCN, please do so. It’s not any kind of failure, you won’t be bothering them unnecessarily, and getting some help with low mood is well worth getting.
(And if either of you strike up with choruses of Kum Ba Yah, do I have permission to shoot you, to put the rest of us out of our misery?)
Techo, sometimes I wonder if depressed is the new normal! I say this because I think that since chemo I have never actually felt happy, and think it may be a long term side effect. Ive tried explaining it to people, even medical people and therapists, and just got blank looks, but before treatment I had genuine moments of joy, but ever since, my emotions are just a monotone. Just as chemo surpressed how my body worked,(fatigue,etc) it also seemed to dampen down my emotions. Its not at all like feeling sorry for myself, and I dont think other people notice that Im anything less than myself. I just find those odd moments when I feel "on top of the world" just dont happen any more, and I miss them. I think we are the guineapigs in this treatment, and although Im really grateful for it if its saved my life, its probably up to us to let doctors know of the side effects. The emotional effects get sidelined I think. Ive got every reason to be happy, loving husband and family, but still have that nagging feeling Im on the edge of tears a lot.
I`ve even got a psychotherapist (living in America, its practically compulsory) but he is flummoxed that drug therapy could have led to this.
My only other theory is it could be post traumatic stress because of the huge changes in a short space of time. Any of this ring true with anybody else?
Mimsy
I found this thread whilst debating starting one of my own which was going to be entitled “Lost my Mo-Jo”!!
I had my lumpectomy a year ago and had chemo & radiotherapy which ended in May. Initially I was elated that the treatment was over and was determined to ‘be positive’, ‘stay strong’ and ‘celebrate that it was all over’ and went back to full time work within a couple of weeks of finishing my treatment. I’ve now been on Tamoxifen for 6 months and I’m struggling - exhausted, worn out and about as low as I have ever been.
My Macmillan counsellor is fabulous and I wish I had listened to her at the beginning when she warned me to slow down. I was coping(ish)until I had my one year check up recently and since then I’m not sleeping, feel anxious, and as my work colleagues put it - I’ve lost my Mo-Jo, so its really reassuring to read that I am not alone!
I don’t know whether its the Tamoxifen, whether I’m depressed or whether I just need to give myself a huge kick up the derriere and move on??! Mimsy - I think your theory of post traumatic stress reaction could be closer to the truth than we realise. Its a HUGE event we have been through and I think whilst we ‘fight the good fight’ through the treatment etc, there comes a point where out brains and our bodies say ‘enough’??
My counsellor has told me to make some ‘me’ time for myself every day. To actually put rest time into my diary - not easy when you work fulltime and have a busy household to run but I’m doing it very slowly and am consciously trying to slow down a bit.
If anyone has a magic answer, please share! I think this is simply going to take time to recover from and my expectations (and don’t even start me on the expectations of family & work colleagues!) need to be adjusted accordingly.
Big :hug: for any of you who are struggling. We WILL get there!
Mythos x
Hi all,
I don’t really know if I can help but I think I have to go with the post traumatic stress. I had MX 5 years ago followed by chemo, Tamoxifen and am now on Arimidex which I finish in January.
At first I was just as all of you have discribed amd found it so hard when everyone assumed I was now ok. Twice I rang the McMillan nurses and they were brilliant, especially the last time, last year when my grandson, who’s in the RAF was in Afghanistan.
All I can say is that it does get better, the “bad” days become fewer and further between. Unfortunately I do still get days when I wake, sit up in bed and tears start to pour down my face for no particular reason. It wouldn’t matter if I found I’d won the lottery!!
I foster kittens for Cats Protection and knowing that I have to care for them, and watching their antics helped me more than I can say.
All I can advise is keep your chins up, take each day as it comes and we’ll all get through it in the end.
Sending you all hugs,
Laraine xx
Hope this works
just read an excellent article that someone on another string posted about the misery after treatment ends but when I try to get the url on here it doesn’t work - agh.
This is the website cancercounselling.org.uk
Go for - resources - useful articles - Peter Harvey
I found the article relevent to how I feel even now, post surgery but mid chemo
I think this second phase is, in many ways, harder than the first. The diagnosis/surgery/treatment is gruelling, but, you know, we’re girls. We get on with it. Sometimes it’s harder than others, but, somehow, we cope. Then, when it’s all over, ‘coping’ is not the right strategy any more! I am convinced that what we need to do once treatment’s over is learn to be gentle with ourselves… to accept our human frailty in a positive way… to make time for the exercises or just to sit each day, and know that it’s OK. to go back to work slowly… to say when we’re tired and need to stop. To be ourselves; be true to ourselves and not cover up for the sake of others… and you know what? Us girlies don’t know how to do this very well!!! Say we have a need? Pah! Ask for support? No way… BUT… BUT… this is the challenge for us, and in it lies our healing - whole healing, not just body healing.
I read a book recently about the 2nd half of life… He uses the story of Odyseus who went on a really difficult journey, overcame all the odds and battles to get home. Then he goes on a 2nd journey, which is hardly described, but it’s THIS 2nd journey that allows him to end his days in peace (at the right time). I think it’s the same with the cancer journey. First half (treatment etc) is well documented, fairly well supported, talked about etc… and the 2nd half (now) is hidden, not talked about, not supported so well, not documented and absolutely VITAL.
Sorry if all that’s a bit deep and meaningful! Jane
The initial worry and eventual diagnosis scares the sh! out of you then they cut half your chest off and you have to rethink your entire wardrobe, for many of us this is followed by the public humilation of losing our crowning glory, so that even if your chest covers up ok, the over all effect is still a dead giveaway and everyone tells you so. Along with how worried they have been, like that helps you at all. For lots of us the side effects mean we might lose our jobs, with all that implies. And a surprising number of significant others seem to respond by running away and dropping us in it just when we needed them most.
You’d be crazy not to be depressed!
Then there’s the extra stuff like Afghanistan, unrelated bereavements, civil disorder, motorway accidents, burst pipes and school closures, none of which gives you a free pass just because you had cancer. If you got money you pay tax, if you’re still alive random sh! still happens.
Then some fool of a “friend” expects you to keep up appearances for Christmas, for goodness sake. Jollies you along and demands you should smile. Well-meaning Idiot. Of Course I want to go home and hibernate, and that’s exactly where I will be.
One suggestion: think what you can control: Start with your diary. Cancel any optional extra demands like Christmas till later in the year when you feel like it. Put “fifteen consecutive duvet days” on your Dear Santa list, and take the phone off the hook.
Ooo-er, Jane, that is deep and meaningful. In my case, the journey was already there since wed just moved to America when I was diagnosed, and I had all my treatment here.It was supposed to be a temporary move (with hubbys job) and then he decided he wanted to stay here. That was the most difficult part of my life.I put my foot down and said “No way!” So we are coming back to the UK next year.
Its been hard enough coping with BC without the support of friends and family, homesickness doesnt help, plus not having someone to confide in when faced with the possibility of having to spend the foreseeable future in another country. Im amazed Im still sane! The strain of everything also got to our son who ended up joining us here rather than worrying himself silly miles away Hymil, Ive got to say, any excuse for a new wardrobe is ok with me, but Ive spent the last two years distinctly lopsided, until a nurse told me to go off and get a prosthesis/chicken fillet. I came over quite emotional when I saw myself looking "balanced". Losing my hair was very hard, psychologically. So many associations with that I dont even want to go into, best left in a dark place. By a year after treatment I had got rid of all wigs, scarves etc because whenever I came across them the memories would come back!Just recently Ive been back at hospital for lymphoedema treatment, and had it impressed on me how seriously we have to take the whole thing of looking after ourselves now.
I completely agree that we girls are good at looking after others but not so good at looking after ourselves. In the last few days I`ve thought about and written a list of what I think would make me happy in the next year, so I can look at it and see if all those things happen. It might help!
Some really good stuff on this thread. Thank you everyone.
In my case, I’m perfectly normal most of the time but now and again I find myself unexpectedly freaking out at something that recalls what I went through because of BC.
Like others who have posted, I feel this could be a mixture of post-traumatic stress and the hormonal imbalances caused by anastrozole/Arimidex.
I don’t think I would ever take antidepressants though - that’s only adding another unknown quantity to the mix.
Like this thread…some good stuff here
You are all right about there being tons of support whilst going through the obvious…and for me sometimes that was a bit overwhelming…i wanted them all to back off and leave me alone. I have always been an independant 25 things on the go sort with 10 other things on the back burner…I love that sort of life! BC has totally floored me…I look ok now even if my straight light brown hair has been replaced with dark brown wavy hair…which reminds me of the whole episode…and means I avoid mirrors.
I used to have soooo much energy and get up n go let alone mojo prior to this confounded disease. I felt fantastic…and now all the treatment has left me feeling a bit lost…and confused…and apt to suddenly burst into tears…like I did in the middle of the local shop…totally not like me!
I don’t think I’m depressed as often quite happy but I resonate with the PTSD…Sometimes I feel like a person whose house has been hit by a bomb, who is sitting in the rubble with blackened face and tattered clothes, with all they had broken around them whilst a cheerful soul walks past and says cheerily, ‘Oh dear poor you…but look on the bright side and count yourself lucky that you survived’…whilst walking on…
I for one feel a bit shell shocked, confuddled, not quite sure where to start to sort out the mess.
As a result of this crap I have had to give up my successful business…and as a result of that I had to sell my tiny weeny but wonderful little house in France as I couldn’t afford to keep it anymore…and use the proceeds to pay off any debts I had as I am no longer working…with a little left over to try and start again…
So what I’m rambling on at is there is no wonder that any of us are not jumping for joy…we have just been in a war zone of our own…
I am a few weeks post treatment, not seen the ONC yet but to all respects done apart from Tamoxifen.
What I feel is not depression. I have had clinical depression once in the past due to environmental factors and know what that feels like. I was on anti depressants for 6 months. Please do not feel any shame if you need to take them. I know someone posted that they would never take them. I would have said that six years ago but they helped me short term to get over a rough patch and I would not hesitate to take them again. Please do not let some stigma over mental health stop you from taking them if your GP suggests them.
If something throws things out of balance chemically then the right AD can work wonders, just enough to take the edge off things and let you function!
Anyway, I feel ‘flat’ no real highs or lows any more. Struggle to have a conversation with my mum etc. Everything is a bit of an effort. The only place you wouldn’t notice is at work because I adopt my ‘work persona’ as usual. Food doesn’t taste good. I am fatigued and didn’t even go through chemo! I am harbouring resentments about the way one or two people ‘supported me’ throughout things but haven’t the heart to have it out with them! Could this negativity be affecting me?
Have had the “flat” feeling, was generally a happy person before diagnosis definitely glass half full, always looked for the best in people and gave people the benefit of the doubt, and to my detriment too trusting.
I too have an issue with two family members who hurt me more than I can say, their behaviour was disgusting, for the first time in my life I have refused to take their calls I usually face things head on, but I just couldn’t do it. I was so upset and stressed because of them that I decided I did not want to talk to them until I felt stronger. The last thing I want is to be upset at the moment. It is now almost 3 months since the incident occurred, still am not strong enough mentally to deal with them, will I forgive them?? I can honestly say never, am I more relaxed in my life without them YES, do I really need them NO.
I am lucky as I see a pain psychologist (unrelated to bc) who has helped me greatly. I still feel a little guilty but why should I? They did it to me, they didn’t care even though they pretended to, they have done it to others but to basically hurt someone when they are so vulnerable is truly disgusting. I will face them one day but on my terms.
Crabbit, it does effect you the negativity, but when you look at the bigger picture which is difficult because of the vulnerability you have to say to yourself is your life better without them? Hope this helps a little.
Recently, I do feel the happy coming back so that makes me feel so much more positive for the future, I missed the “funny” me xx
I am happy to take anti-ds if I need them and this year I have needed them. They have the added bonus of reducing the flushed but I’ve swapped from citalopram to venlafaxine as I was still not sleeping and anxious about everything. Still early days but I’m hoping they do the trick. Had depression several years ago and really don’t want to go back there again.
"…there is no wonder that any of us are not jumping for joy…we have just been in a war zone of our own… "
LostInFrance, that is such a good summary, thankyou. So much that we hear now is “Oh yeah, loads of ppl get BC but hey we can [cure] it, well most of you will live another x years anyway” that rather belittles the war-zone we have been through, both to us and to others, and ppl then think it really isn’t much but it actually was and it is. Anti-scaremongering - normalisiing the whole BC experience - may get ppl to come for screening, but it makes it sound like our recent health journeys were a picninc and we should be out there partying; well sorry, no, they weren’t and we have a lot to mourn for before finding a new life again.
I crossed swords with the mental health system many years ago and will go a long way to avoid re-involvement if I can. It was hormone related, and they said then, You may have a relapse when you get to menopause… well, so when I had to try Tamoxifen… let’s just say I think I’d rather BC than go that route again.
Finally got to contacting ppl about that little voluntary role, after nine months off work; who would have thought two short emails could be so hard? But feeling very good that I finally got round to it. We do need to be a good deal kinder to ourselves and hold on to the little positives and pat ourselves on the back very regularly. Sitting in that warzone surrounded by the wreckage, we can still pick up ten things and put then away (maybe five on a bad day) but then stop for a group hug and a hot chocolate together… I’ll just go put t’kettle on
Many many brave girls here. Brave is not the absence of fear and trouble but living in spite of it.
Hi
I have had depression and anorexia ever since the BC 6 years ago. I’m on anti-d’s and under psychiatric liasion, I see a psych nurse twice a week for CBT and it is really helping. I’m scared of getting my life back in case the cancer takes it away again. so if I stay as I am then nothing to lose. I too foster kittens fo a local cat rescue and at the mo have 25 cats at home as well as 5 hens and 2 dogs. These along with my husband keep me going with out them life would not be worth living
love Louise
Happycat - I’m still at the beginning of my journey (dx march this year with primary IDC and secondary lung mets), I have asked the Dr’s for anti-d’s not only to help with my moods but to also help with the hot flushes caused by being thrown into early menopause with the chemo and tamoxifen, my mood swings are really bad and christmas is not helping being stressful not having enough money for any presents this year, I find it all so depressing. On a brighter note 25 cats thats a handful, I have 2 cats and adore them I feel the same as you without my OH and my cats life would not be worth living they keep me going and bring sunshine into my life. Can I ask what’s CBT twice a week??? I was thinking of going to counselling or some sort of psych to try and help me get out of a the black hole I find myself in sometimes.
