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Expressing their feelings about cancer and treatment
- Updating friends and family about treatment plans and progress
- Sharing challenges and opportunities that seem important to help others to have a better understanding of the experience
A space for sharing
We hear from women of all ages, from all walks of life, each with their
own unique experience and viewpoint. So often the stories that our friends
and family hear about breast cancer in the media reduce the experience of women
living with breast cancer to a ‘single story’ - make no mistake, these are
stories that are important to tell, but the reality is that breast cancer is a
complex disease which affects women in many ways. We all know what it means to
hear the words ‘You have breast cancer.’ We have all experienced being on this
lonely road, even when friends and family gather round us. Whatever our circumstances,
we are all going forwards with our lives, hoping and coping in the best way we
can. Being able to reach out to one another to hold hands by sharing our
experiences can be an enormous source of comfort and
strength.
By listening to the experiences of others, we can learn new ways of
thinking and being. We can also discover more about our own perspective - for
instance, we might come across a view or feeling that is quite different to our
own, but this is no less valuable because we still gain new understandings of
ourselves.
We all have a story to tell. It is our hope that our blog will become a
space to share our emotions and our thoughts; our challenges and our strengths
as women living with and beyond a diagnosis of breast cancer; a collection of
stories which reflects the rich diversity of our experiences, a place to
celebrate our pain as well as our joy.
A space for healing
But, writing doesn’t come easily to everyone and many of us might feel
nervous or worried about putting our thoughts and feelings down on paper and
sharing them. For Tamsin, writing was not something that came naturally to her
at first:
When I was going through the process of diagnosis and treatment
for breast cancer, I was not in a place where I could have written about what
was happening to me because all my energy was focused on decisions and the next
step in front of me. Events moved so fast that there was no time to stop and
think. If anything, when I look back, it was as if I became frozen - like a rabbit
trapped in the head-lights of a car. I began writing when I stumbled across the
Young Women’s Breast Cancer Blog UK and decided to write about my family
history for Breast Cancer Awareness Month http://youngwomensbreastcancerblog.blogspot.co.uk/2015/10/breast-cancer-awareness-month-finding.html
This was the first time I was able to put my
experiences in some kind of order and make sense of them.
Tamsin’s experience is a good example of how writing allowed her
to make sense of her complicated and emotional experiences. When dealing with
an emotional upheaval like cancer, it can be enormously helpful to be able to
stand back and pause for breath. Evidence is beginning to emerge that people
appear to benefit from being able to create a story or narrative about what has
happened to them. Dr James Pennebaker (www.utexas.edu\features/2005/wrting) explains that our minds are designed to make
sense of the things that happen to us. When we experience an emotional
upheaval, our mind works over-time to try and process events and thoughts about
what has happened and this can lead to distraction and interrupted sleep.
Pennebaker argues that the act of writing and what he calls, ‘translating
experiences’ into words, helps us to take more control of what has happened.
This process can bring about improvements in our well-being, for instance we
might be able to sleep better and our relationships can improve as we become
better able to communicate with others.
A space to celebrate
It will come as no surprise to hear how interested we are in
resilience here at the Centre for Psychological Resilience in Breast Cancer
(the clue is in the name!) When we talk about ‘resilience,’ in this context, we
are describing the process of adapting well in the face of the many challenges
that accompany a breast cancer-diagnosis. Resilient people are flexible, can
regulate their emotions and embrace their feelings and thoughts without
fighting them, after all emotions tell us what is important and are part of
what makes us human, dynamic and insightful.
We are constantly moved and inspired by the resilience of women living
with and beyond a diagnosis of breast cancer. It is our hope that the blog
offers a space which allows women to celebrate these achievements in all their
different ways.
Posts can be submitted by email to bcresilience15@gmail.com
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