Today is World Mental Health Day 2016 #WMHD2016 and I started it with a tweet... And honestly that is the truth about my cancer diagnosis and treatment. Physically I managed well, I managed quite easily. I experienced pain, nausea, tiredness all the normal things but after 10 years as a soldier I had learnt to deal with them and other discomforts a long time ago. Mental strength was also something I thought I had in abundance, that was until I started to compare myself to others, until I started to feel weak because I wasn't as positive as others were, until I started to feel a failure for not coping with it mentally, until I started feeling guilty for surviving and being happy about it whilst others were struggling. I thought I had it and then in those times I felt like I actually didn't, I felt like I wasn't strong at all, I had been lying to myself all my life. This feeling of failure, of lying to myself was the reason I couldn't and wouldn't talk about it, I couldn't deal with it, I had never been here before, I was an alpha male who had grown up and survived in the men's world of military service and construction, I had always been the strong one for others so for me to show weakness, fear and failure was not an option...
The day I broke, the day I crumbled completely, the day I gave up will stay with me forever. I have discussed it previously in this blog, it is there in all its "glory", it was the day I knew that I couldn't go on like this anymore. I was afraid of dying to the point I had become afraid of living too. I walked into my GP surgery a beaten man, I walked into the room petrified because I was about to say I had failed, I hadn't been able to cope, I was weak and that made me feel like I was worthless. She talked to me with logic and with feeling, she told me that I had carried so much for so long that this was always going to be inevitable but until I had either opened up or this happened then no one would of been able to help me. I was referred to the local mental health service and with the help of CBT I started to fight back against my fears, I started to understand my survivors guilt, my fear of recurrence and death and my need to check myself for lumps almost continuously. This was my first step and was a hard one to take. My next step was 4 months later and being backed into a corner and having to speak publicly about my experiences, I could of backed out I could of said no but I was starting to feel like I wanted to make my first steps into the Sarcoma community, just baby ones but steps none the less and telling my story was the first part. After I made that step, again its all in this blog somewhere I fell head first into the community, I talked to people, I met people, I heard their stories, they told me how they had felt and then it made more sense. I wasn't a failure, I wasn't unusual, I wasn't the only one who couldn't be positive all the time, all of the feelings I punished myself for were "normal", they were quite common among others within the community and I had made myself feel like a failure for no reason. Meeting, talking and sharing with the community gave me the strength to want to help others, to share my experiences with others, to stop others feeling like a failure, to encourage them to talk so they didn't have to crumble like I did before they realised they were like others. I wasn't and I'm not an expert, I'm not on a crusade either but if I could help just one person not go through what I did then I will be a happy man. I wish I had joined the community earlier, I really do, the people I have met have been an inspiration, their strength, their humility, their wisdom and at times their humour have helped me more than they will ever know and I will remain forever grateful to them. The strength they gave me enabled me to start to write this blog, those first words... I'm sorry young man its malignant.. Those words were my third step and I have said just how cathartic I have found this experience, I have been able to look back at it all, to feel those feelings again but to look at what caused them, to look at how I tried to deal with them and how I might have done it differently, I can't say better because my journey was my journey and has bought me to this point and made me who and what I am at the minute. Is that a better man than I was? Is it a better man than I would of been? Who knows, I will never know, what I do know is that I understand myself better now, I understand where I have been and in a way where I'm going. This blog has I'm told also helped a couple of people feel like they weren't alone, like their feelings were OK, like we all feel scared no matter what people expect from us. That I am proud of, immensely proud of and thank you to the people who have told me that. As time went one on from treatment and being declared NED another issue started to become apparent, that was the fear of recurrence and dealing with pains and illness and not immediately thinking its cancer. Life and thoughts for me, for others I'm told, has changed infinitely and permanently, we have a new normal now. We don't and will not ever see things the same way again because our experience has changed us and that change can't be undone. In fact I have been speaking to someone about this very thing tonight, sometimes we want to go back to how we were, we want to not be afraid, we want to be normal. The problem comes from when we can't or we feel like we are not dealing with it or being "normal" quickly enough so we punish ourselves again. We feel that feeling of failure again and we should not. A cancer diagnosis is a life changer, regardless of type, stage and outcome. A cancer journey is a personal journey, an intimately personal journey because whilst we have people to support us we do face this journey alone, no one can change that you got it, no one can guarantee where it will take you, no one can be in your brain and hear your thoughts at 3am, they can help but they can't take them away. For that reason we have to be kind to ourselves, to learn to accept our new normal no matter how long it takes. That doesn't mean we shouldn't talk because we should, then our loved ones and others may understand better this journey we are on and be able to do the thing they want to do the most for us... To love us, to help us, to stop us feeling lonely, to comfort us and to celebrate when we can because after all they will be the ones we turn to when we want, no, when we need someone to understand and to be there. I guess what I'm saying is one of the other hashtags within that tweet. I couldn't and wouldn't talk about how I felt and as such I could and did deal with the physical side of cancer easily but the mental side, yes it broke me because I didn't realise one very important thing... #itsgoodtotalk
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Darren EvansOn Feb 11th 2013 my life changed forever when I was diagnosed with a myxoid liposarcoma of the right thigh. This is my version of my life since then. Archives
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