When we can’t find the words to describe how we feel…
The complexity of feelings after breast cancer can be difficult for us to articulate. If we can name something, label it, that something can seem less threatening, more controllable. If we can describe our feelings, which may include numbness, fear, anger, bewilderment, anxiety, guilt, depression, we can understand ourselves better. Some schools of thought suggest that there are only a small number of basic emotions: joy, fear, sadness, disgust and anger and that other emotions are a variant of these.
We may shut down in the face of trauma, and our emotional systems become hyper-vigilant as self-preservation. We are encouraged to be overwhelmingly positive and grateful, but we often don’t feel that way, and this means we find it difficult to make sense of how we feel. Common media language for those of us with cancer includes the battle of the warrior, our fight against the enemy disease. For many of us, this isn’t how it feels, and we dislike the idea that losing the fight implies failure for those who lose their lives to it. Many of us are also uncomfortable with the term survivor, feeling it to be a jinx term. We don’t feel brave in facing our treatment, we have no choice.
For those of us with secondary breast cancer, the plethora of emotions is complex, but for some, a sense of acceptance can lead to a feeling of calm. Fear is, of course never far away, but faced with a limited future, the priority becomes spending time doing what we want and with people we want to be with.
While feelings of numbness can dominate at times it is worrying as buried emotion can lead to physical issues. On the other hand, some of us have found that our cancer diagnosis has led to a deeper intensity of feeling love and joy, even though we may feel angry and fearful at the same time. Still others find that distancing ourselves from our feelings, as if the cancer is happening to someone else, helps.
Describing how we feel to others, particularly our loved ones, may also be difficult. How do we help them understand what it feels like, when they haven’t experienced it themselves? It can be very hurtful when others are dismissive of our feelings, and although this may not be intentional, it’s common for others to misunderstand us and for us to feel inadequate as we try to explain. Many of us have stopped talking about our cancer for this reason.
One of our members took the opportunity to name the feelings in the accompanying graphic: perhaps you would like to have a go?
‘I could name them all....feeling small & scared (little one), angry (dark at the bottom),
confused & churned up (yellow),
In turmoil (pinky swirl), enveloped in love (white fluffy) & resigned (blue).’
Another member gave us a link to uncommonly used complex emotions, which you may find interesting:
https://www.facebook.com/
Being able to share our feelings with others who understand was seen as very helpful for all of us, and our private group, which is open to all women living in the UK with a breast cancer diagnosis, is a place where we share the light and the dark. When we don’t know how to describe how we feel we can reach out for help, use whatever words we can find, and know that others will be there with a hug and a kind understanding word. We also know that we are not alone.
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