October 2017 Breast Cancer Awareness Month project #pathways2resilience

"Bouncing Forward with Resilience"

I'm thrilled and delighted to share our October project, #pathways2resilience which highlights and celebrates the different ways women practice resilience in their daily lives.
Every day, we will be sharing some of the many faces of resilience of women with primary and secondary breast cancer, who will be describing in ten words or less, what resilience means to them, with grit, courage, tears, hope and love.

As a Professor of Experimental Psychopathology and cognitive neuroscientist, specialising in the neurocognitive mechanisms behind anxiety, depressive vulnerability and resilience at Birkbeck University of London, when I was diagnosed with breast cancer myself, I became determined to use my experience to help women overcome the psychological impact of breast cancer.

Recent research describes resilience in terms of elasticity, and flexibility, the ability by which we can adapt in the face of hardship. Neuroscience has discovered that the brain is plastic and so it can be trained to become resilient. It can learn to become resilient. Neural connections can be strengthened and new pathways can be formed to place us firmly on the road to resilience. Importantly resilience is a dynamic process so its precise measurement should involve the trajectory of time.

I founded the The BRiC Centre less than two years ago with this mission in mind: To build building blocks of resilience in women with breast cancer. Women who are mothers, wives, partners, and sisters. Women who are teachers, doctors, and hold many responsible posts in society. Women who are left highly vulnerable after diagnosis, a vulnerability that impairs emotional and cognitive health increasing anxiety and depression as well as PTSD for years post diagnosis. Women whose fear of recurrence constitutes a major vulnerability interfering with daily life, reducing cognitive efficiency. These women are keen to improve their well-being and to live meaningful lives.

We have more than 3000 followers so far and our private educational support group has more than 1060 UK members. I'm so proud of my two deputies Vicky and Tamsin as well as our amazing ambassadors, Anita, Caroline, Jan and Jenny. Importantly, the stories of these women show how resilience is helping them bounce forward in life.

Follow our October project: #pathways2resilience to hear them.

Naz x

                        

 

   

 

"Making every day a good day, living for the moment."

As #BreastCancerAwarenessMonth comes to an end, we are reflecting back on the extraordinarily rich and varied ways that the 64 women who featured in our #pathways2resilience project practice their resilience. These incredible women, living with primary and secondary breast cancer, are the 1 in 8 women who hear at some point in their lives that they have breast cancer.

We are the real women behind the statistics. We are not 'patients,' we are mothers, daughters, sisters, partners and friends. We are all women everywhere.

We leave the final words for Rachel, an icon of resilience. #pathways2resilience #BreastCancerAwarenessMonth

Weekly Discussion Summary ~ Anger 2

Summary of our weekly group discussion ~

ANGER 2

Can we talk about anger?

The eyes widen and the cheeks flush. The lips quiver, muscles swell and we are suddenly filled with a violent urge to destroy something..........

This is not Bruce Banner transforming into the Incredible Hulk but a description of anger written by the Roman philosopher Seneca, still as vivid today, here in the twenty-first century.* Anger, we learned in our weekly discussion, is one of six basic universal emotions experienced similarly across cultures, although the way we express anger is influenced by our upbringing and culture. Anger is a natural response to feeling attacked, deceived or being treated unfairly. Naz told us that we commonly experience anger when our goals are threatened and as one of the most basic human goals is to live and to survive, it's hardly surprising that some of us experience high levels of anger when we are diagnosed with a life-threatening disease.

But how many of us with a diagnosis of primary or secondary breast cancer feel able to express our anger?

For many of us, social expectations and our gratitude at being given 'a second chance' can get in the way of us feeling that we can admit to having or sharing our feelings of anger. Instead, we are more inclined to focus on our gratitude, like feeling blessed that our treatment is finished or is continuing to work. We instinctively feel that our families and friends (already burdened enough) do not want to hear that we might be angry we got cancer, that we experience insomnia, hot-flushes or weight gain - all of which might turn even the stoical Seneca into a raging Hulk! Add in the occasional lack of empathy and understanding of a friend, a rude colleague, unrealistic expectations or insensitivity and it's not really surprising that we become irritable or our temper is frayed.

Anger is an unruly emotion, it can be unpredictable, frightening and makes us feel dangerously close to being 'out of control'. Anger, often described as a 'negative' emotion, poses a threat both to the person experiencing it, and the person who is confronted by it. Not surprisingly, it can be an emotion we prefer to avoid expressing.

Attitudes to anger are complex, for example, some might argue that anger is a socially unacceptable emotion (think about ‘anger management courses’ targeted at those who have ‘difficulty’ controlling their rages). Additionally, in our society there is a commonly-held view that it is more acceptable for men to show anger than women. Yet some of us in the group shared how we channelled our great anger into a force for good, for example about the lack of support or inequalities in treatment, into campaigning for change.

Some of us directed our anger inwardly, at ourselves. For others anger was directed outwards at those around us, sometimes explosively, perhaps warning us that we were at the limit of what we could manage, that we are still in a process of adjusting; are coming to terms with losses and face ongoing challenges. While anger is considered a short-lived emotion (unlike grief for example), it can lead to sadness and frustration, or even depression, if it is avoided at large costs.

Here is a link to a recent news story that is a good read: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-40900811?SThisFB

*Taken from The Book of Human Emotions, Tiffany Watt Smith

If you are a woman living in the UK with a diagnosis of breast cancer and you would like to join our private group, please contact is by facebook message https://www.facebook.com/resilienceinbreastcancer/

#ResilienceDiscussion

Weekly Discussion Summary ~ Body Image

Reflections via the mirror

Our Sunday discussion this week focused on body image, and particularly weight gain.

Breast cancer robs us of our womanhood. Treatment gives us a changed body, and a troubled mind. That mind may have problems accepting the new body, where has our femininity gone? We may have artificial breasts, a flat chest, uneven breasts, deformed breasts. Hormone treatments remove the substances that our body needs for libido to function. What chance do we have of a normal sex life if we feel let down by our bodies, somehow less of a woman, physically unattractive and mentally scarred.  Many women report being unhappy with their looks and dissatisfied with their intimate lives.

Weight gain is common due to the drug regime used to treat cancer and often continues for many years post active treatment.The inactivity enforced during treatment and recovery also contributes. When we are able to exercise again our bodies are storing fat, and we struggle to shed the pounds even with very careful healthy eating. 

For those who lose their hair during treatment there is another blow to womanhood, and for many it doesn't grow back afterwards like it was before. Menopausal symptoms such as hot flushes add to feeling unfit and unglamorous. 

Our members have both primary and secondary diagnoses, and our medical teams may tell us that reaching and maintaining a healthy weight may be beneficial in keeping the disease at bay and in preventing progression in secondaries. This means we become more unhappy and perhaps fearful if we are overweight.

We find ourselves envious of women who show off their cleavage. We mourn the loss of the woman we were before breast cancer so cruelly changed us. This takes a huge toll on our wellbeing and self-confidence.

We are strong proud women, and every day we cope, and very often excel, in the face of these and many other challenges. We shower and show up, some of us wear make-up, we find clothes that flatter as well as being comfortable. We find new ways to be in our relationships, sometimes we move on to someone new, sometimes we find solace in a long standing partner who helps us to get through it. Even though many of us confess to hating our bodies, we are living our lives as best we can. 

What we see in the mirror may not please us, how we feel may not please us. However, we keep on, we don't give up or give in.