have to ask … i am sure i am not the only person to feel soooooooooooo angry at all this … but when you do explode or snap … there is completely no understanding or consideration of why you are angry or feel sooo alone especially as i do feel very low at the moment … its as if you should be the happy go lucky person you were before this nightmare happened.
.
HI dmkayp
First of all you dont have to be anything except YOU.
Express how you feel on here, most of us will understand.
If i was to write down my emotions and feelings since me DX and treatment over the past 3 yrs I think someone would question my mental health and stability.
One thing i used to long for was a punch bag just to punch the hell out of it.
As i am ‘well’ i think my emotions are one of thankfulness, however so many friends have secondaries and their lives are ‘crap’ and guess what i want that punch bag again.
Our emotions are US.
Rx
Hi
I feel angry a lot of the time and I can sympathise with the not understanding part. I keep getting asked why I am so angry, well I just am. Sometimes I don,t feel so bad but I have been feeling really angry over the last few weeks. Don’t think you are on your own, you are not
hi dmkayp
sorry your feeling so low
i used to think it was just me that felt sooooo! angry all the time . my husband is always sayin what is the matter with you your so moody all the time. but it is just there and you cant explain it. some days i feel good when i get up and it will take something small to make me snap. not sure why. so it looks like its all part an parcel of the stuff we all go through. try to think of the good things. i try to concentrate on my children!! not that this always works. but my family have always given me the boost to just get on. hope you start to feel better soon x x
poppet39
me too !!!
Thank u… i now don’t feel like i am going mad … if i am honest the only thing that has kept me going is my son … (he was 3 months when i was dx and i was 31)
On the good day …they are good but the bad i just beat myself up …i feel like i have let him down for the 1st year of his life …and haven’t really been there for him i.e. when i had chemo, not beng able to take him to toddler groups with the risk of becoming ill etc …i have just had reconstruction and haven’t been able to pick him up bath him for 6 weeks it has been a tearfull time …
sorry to drown on ha ha ha xxx
hi dmkayp
how you feeling? try not to be so hard on yourself it isnt anyones fault for the way things have been for us all. not sure how it feels to have recon as im not allowed one as of yet. but do know how it feels not being able to pick ur little one.
i have two little ones of 3 an 4 and i feel i have lost valuable time with them and been very stressed with them too. i just had a hysterectomy 3wks ago and cant pick them up or bath them. it does make you feel bad but its no fault of your own. just keep your chin up and enjoy the times you can share with your son as they grow up so fast. hope your feeling better after your opp
poppet39 xxx
I have never got my confidence back since BC back in 2005. Still feel like a piece of shit on someone’s shoe! However, we just have to keep on keeping on. Maybe that’s just me.
hi suebee
know what u mean i havent felt the same since. but we do just keep going. feel like shit most days. dont want to get up! hate looking at myself when i get dressed! some days just cant b asked. but we do as life goes on. think we all must get the same feelings? so what i wonder sometimes causes this??? is it due to the drugs we had? the this we have had taken away? or just what the cancer has done to us as people? i would love to know the reason. but in the mean time hope your well
poppet39
Hi Poppet and all on this thread,
I think they way we feel is a combination of lots of things - the cutting, poisoning and burning, the shock of diagnosis and the aftermath of diagnosis and treatment which I am convinced causes us post traumatic stress disorder. I’ve had psychotherapy (which helped) and anti depressants (unsure if they help!) but I think we just have to work through all this ourselves. I am very lucky that I don’t have to work. Honestly don’t know if I could cope with life if I had to, as I can’t deal with any sort of stress and even have trouble being with other people (apart from hubbie) and after a few hours am desperate to get away from them! I have quite a solitary life generally
However, we are all different and must just cope as best we can with what this rotten disease does to us. At least it gets people’s attention when you say you’ve had cancer and I think generally more allowances are made! And poor you having a hysterectomy as well on top of everything else.
I wish us all as good a Christmas as we can deal with.
Sue
Anger!?!?! Don’t you feel the earth quaking? - that’s me causing that - angry, and I do know why - and it could be important to know why, so counselling can help.
I had 9 sessions with Cancer Counselling Trust in London, very productive, would’ve like to discuss all my other issues post-bc too, but couldn’t because of the ANGER, had to deal with that, because it rose to such a high where it plateau’d for about a year that I didn’t want it in my head any more; since talking to CCT, then going back to my surgeon to tell him (far too politely) how I felt and why, and talking to my GP who also supported my talking to my surgeon (a professional and kind decent youngish individual who in spite of being youngish I have concluded must have followed his father into the James Robertson Justice School of Paternalistic Medical Practice) - since then it has really begun to subside: not that my view has changed, I still feel wronged, but I am getting a better perspective on it now, and am more - forgiving? Maybe. There is of course anger with God or Fate about getting bc, but I don’t blame the surgeon for that, and it is useful to sort those two different things out - so I would recommend counselling for angry people, is what I’m really trying to say!
I know it is post traumatic shock because like you SueBee I now can’t seem to deal with small things - I had a totally disproportionate panic reaction recently when I nearly got stuck in my car in the garage (won’t bore you with the details) and went straight into a panic; that is a new development, has completely unnerved me because I used to pride myself on being calm and thinking things through and working things out rationally, everybody has always said I am a calm person, and how well I took it all, etc. and yet that is just one example of me overreacting bonkers lately. So I think what I’m saying dmkayp is - anger seems to be normal in this situation, but it could actually be constructive to work out the reasons and counselling certainly helped me do that and specifically re. anger, but not other issues, I feel better.
SueB - can you tell me about your experience of psychotherapy - how is it different from counselling, and is it helpful for post traumatic shock, because I am still reeling in the aftermath 4 years on, and time I wasn’t but although the anger is subsiding I still have issues, so I would be interested in anything you can tell me about that, and how you find a psychotherapist.
love to all, s
Snowwhite, my GP referred me to a (private) psychotherapist and I really think you need to be lucky in finding one you like and get on with, as I did. In my opinion counselling and psychotherapy are the same really. If you can afford a private therapist it’s worth it as mine told me of the constraints that NHS therapists operate under, and also they have horrific waiting lists.
I felt I could tell mine anything and I knew I was improving when I stopped breaking into tears every time I saw her! I saw her about 10 times in all. It definitely helps, as she put things into a different perspective, something close friends/relatives and GP’s don’t have the time or experience or training to do.
Good luck
Sue
Hi
I saw my Gp yesterday because I too feel very angry with everything and don’t know how to get rid of it. I am 10 months post diagnosis had lumpectomy and radiotherapy. Couldn’t get on with tamoxifen so have just started on the old Zoladex injections.
I thought it was just me feeling like this but she reckons its part of dealing with it!!!
I always feel better when I have had a good cry but even that hasn’t happened for ages until yesterday and when it did I couldn’t stop!!
I also wrote down what little things may help!! sounds a bit crazy now!!! Just a thought and tomorrow is another day
Best wishes all
Kay xx
Thankyou SueBee for that info - I’ll try my GP as first start for a referral, and ask him if he knows any private ones, although it will be hard to afford at the mo. I am sure you’re right about it having to be the right person - I have had 3 bouts of counselling (oh you’ll all think I am basket case, well my secret is out then) and the first was awful, the second quite good and the third very good - CCT that I mentioned.
dmk - I think we can all relate to your feelings about your son - don’t blame yourself, it is not like you asked to have this, no wonder you feel angry at what has been taken from both you and him, but it is not you taking it. Even though you have not been able to do those things, what you do do is the important bit, and it sounds as though having had the recon you are coming out of the end of treatment, and that is often the time when the emotions start working again, so no wonder things look dark sometimes. But at least you are on the road to physical recovery, and will be strong enough to play with your lovely son when he starts running around…and can deal with the emotions in your own time so to speak (and no rush).
snowwhite
Snowwhite,
Re your comment about the difficulty of affording private psychotherapy/counselling.
In my area we are extremely fortunate to have Ayrshire Cancer Support (a Charity) which offers free Counselling, by professional Counsellors, for as long as you need it - and I do!! I told my Breast Nurse that the GP had given me anti-depressants and she told me she could organise Counselling and I would see someone within a week. Do you have anything like that where you are? Have you asked your Breast Nurse?
Further I phoned the Breastcancercare helpline (phone no on the Home page) about another issue but happened to mention that Counselling was being arranged. The person I spoke to said that if I had any problems seeing anyone I was to phone back as they have people throughout the country to refer you to and the impression I got was that this would be free too.
Good luck with all of this. I resisted Counselling and it was offered at the very beginning and at various hurdles along the way. It is wonderful to be able to rant, as I sometimes do, to someone who understands and that you don’t have to worry about upsetting!
Hi All I can honestly relate to all you have said anger, deppresion , anxiety, the whole gambit and I am one year post surgery,finished rads after chemo end of July. I feel so low at the moment and friend has just been diagnosed as terminal. I have posted this topic elsewhere. At present I want to look forward to xmas but try as I might it just seems another hurdle to contend with. I am trying to switch off the gloom , I feel so guilty, also feel very scared of everything somedays I do not now how I keep going . OH is shouting at me ," heads always in the clouds.“… " do’nt be so b mise rable”. I am on a high dose of antidepressants have been for years, which in itself scares me because surely I should not feel like this on them. Wo’nt go on any more,.
Love to you all
Bobbiex