Connecting BC to our emotional issues

Not a believer either.  Illness, accidents, etc. are a fact of life.  Sure I have emotional issues, but so do ALL of the women I know who have not had breast cancer.  I try to deal with my issues to be a happier more functional person, not because I believer it will prevent or cure cancer or any other illness.  So PAP, don't beat yourself up!

PAP, I do believe our emotions affect our health in some ways such as weight gain, stress related illness, etc., but cancer is outside that box.  The proof is looking at these threads and seeing the most physically fit women right alongside the most unphysically fit, fighting this beast.  Take care of yourself because you want to have quality in your life.

  I was SO angry when I found out I had BC, as I have always taken good care of myself and checked myself routinely because of my family history.  I have had to wrap my mind around it and move on to fight it and get rid of it.  My faith has led me through it and so have the friends I have met here on BCO.

Give yourself a break, it's alright!

Deen

If we want to consider stress and potential illness because of it, I would like to know then how BC wasn't at epidemic propertions all over London post world war 2, after constant bombing, constant threat of invasion and all the misery of 6 years of a European war?  I can't think of anything more stressful than that. Well, here's the news, it wasn't.

Cancer is a disease, period.  It isn't magic, it isn't some sort of disgusting test from some sort of god/God and it isn't sentient. 

The Egyptians, the ancient Greeks and may other very old cultures knew this disease.  They relied, with a little bit of success, on surgery.

To help us deal with cancer, it is very good if we can maintain general good health by decent food etc etc etc.

It certainly helps us all to share thoughts, ideas, fears, jokes, mania, sadness, joy and knowledge on this Board.  There is much to inspire.

 Great artists, poets, scientists and all sorts of other geniuses didn't make marvellous things by living in a little protective bubble - life is all about triumphs and disasters.

 It is flawed and puzzling, but it is what we are as humans.

 It is how we learn to deal with change, challenge and our fears that enables us to be "well" in a variety of ways, I think.    Last night I saw the Mr and Mrs Patrick Swayze documentary, and was inspired by both of their bravery, and also by what they had given back to the world (amongst which a wonderful forest they have grown over 15 years.)

I guess all I have learned over again recently is - find more ways to give back.

There, ramble over ladies!!!

much love -

Well, something is responsible for giving us this disease, or probably a combination of "somethings". Maybe some of them I could have controlled.  I refuse to believe that getting bc is just "a fact of life" that I can't control.  I want to make sure that I never get it again, and that my daughter never gets it. So I'm open to investigating the possibility that emotional health can affect tissue.  I've already realized that I should have been eating better, exercising more, stressing less, so now have made those positive changes in my lifestyle.  Why wasn't I doing those things before?  Probably because I was so damn busy nurturing every one else in my family and neglecting myself.  So I do see your point about nurturing, PAP.   

Well, I fully admit I am not a nurturer at all except for my cat.  I let my husband cook for me about 90% of meals.  I didn't have kids because I wasn't interested in nurturing; maybe that is what some call selfish.

I don't think I have what you would call emotional issues.  Just a few character faults.

Personally, I look to causes such as pesticides and other chemicals as more likely to have caused my bc.  Did I ever mention that I was a chemist?  LOL  A pesticide chemist for a while there.   That $hit'll kill ya.

If it gives anyone comfort to think they have mind control over the universe, then that doesn't hurt me but may disappoint them.

As a woman of a more open minded generation that explored all sorts of alternative ideas, philosophies and ways of living, I think it is absolutely great if more people are contremplating these different viewpoints.

 If this has lead to eating more healthily, exercising a bit, getting into meditation or whatever relaxes you - be it a sport or passtime or what have you, great!

And I just spent 40 year doing all of that, eating organic food, cooking really decent food and generally living a terrific life, which I am still doing right now.

 And I still got F***ing cancer.

 One thing I am surprising myself with - I am really not so bothered about what I cannot control in my life any more.  And that is not just about being ill.  I am a very career driven achievent junky.

I may never get back my top end career.  That is a huge blow.  IT kills my financial future.  So it is scary.

 But - what I am absolutely clear about, that is not my fault.  It happened.  I am still a great person with loving friends and relationships that sustain me.

   Sometimes what I read on this Board sounds remarkably like people feeling like they have original sin.    Some of it also sounds like women punishing themselves because they aren't perfect.  For a long time I have had major issues with the Self Help industry.  People make a lot of money by teaching people how to blame themselve for stuff.  I don't see that helps people - I think it plays on their insecurities.

Hey everyone - we are just little human beings doing our best.  Lets all of us read and contemplate all sorts of things to help us find our own sense of who and what and why we are - and lets all talk nicely to eachother about it.  This seems a lovely thread to me and very comforting, so thank you all.

Abbadoodles - your husband doesn't do ironing does he?  Got a great job going round at my apartment ......!

xxxxxxx

I did not give myself cancer, or a bad back, or a lot of things.

I also hate loosing control---and bc really made that happen.  I Have found that I don't need as much control and am willing to go with the flow a lot more, and have determined I was never meant to be perfect---nor is anyone else.

I've seen too many women who did ALL the right things then be dx'd and who began all the right things after dx, and still get it again. 

I do understand you wanting to do everything possible to HELP prevent recurrance or bc in your daughter, but truly, I hope no one beats themselves up about it.  NO ONE knows what causes cancer, not yet anyway.  So until ":they" prove to me the cause, I'll just go with the lottery of life and what comes with that.

I've come to think that that whole approach, bundled with the, "if you eat this and don't eat that you won't get cancer, diabetes, heart disease, autoimmune diseases, blah, blah, blah" is all about a wish for control. As if, if we are "perfect" people we'll never get sick. I don't think any of us know any good evidence that someone would never die. I think it's a way for people to feel immune, for people to feel superior.

I certainly believe that there are things we do that hasten our demise or risk of illness, I certainly believe that stress has negative effects on our bodies. But I don't believe that we cause our illnesses (and, remember, I work in diabetes!) or that we can prevent all illness.

I do believe, though, that the way we think can help us to get through illnesses, to cope with chronic diseases, to have the strength and courage to get through chemotherapy/surgery/radiation, to do what we need to do to treat our bodies as best we can. 

I think that the authors that write about these things have a lot of good to offer. But putting blame on people for getting an illness is not one of them. (I once heard a woman - plastic surgeon specializing in breast reconstruction which tells you something right there - talk about how she does all these things to keep herself from getting BC like her mother did and she sells books and her own branded vitamins and other stuff to help other women from getting BC like her mother did and on and on. It's the only time I felt like wishing a disease on someone. She was speaking to a group of survivors - many of us still in our scarves and wigs - and others who care for and work with people with cancer, put on by our local oncology center [who apologized profusely after the talk]. Nervy.]

Well I guess in the years to come we will find the answer to "why do we get breast cancer".  My sister and I (both have BC) had a traumatic childhood filled with loss and sadness followed by many years of self doubt, lack of self esteem and abuse to our system from various toxins and yoyo dieting.  Is it our DNA or is it our environment and our self-abuse or is it a mixture of both of them?   I like to think it is random and that none of us have done anything to deserve this or could have done anything to avoid it. 

But like Jorf said both my sister and I have the strength and courage to deal with it and deal with our futures - that is where we have to focus.

big hugs

Helena

I think there is a mind/body connection.  Not from a blame point of view but that our mind affects our body.  If it was all physical no one that ate organic and lived a healthy life style would get BC.  Lets face it not all is known about this disease, if it were then a "cure" would exist.  Any way you look at it BC sucks, and NO ONE should blame themselves for getting this hideous disease!  My two cents!

Take care ladies!

I am familiar with Louise hay and her meditation tapes. I used to rely on her and a lot of others for guidance, self help, and psychotherapy to recover from an abusive childhood.

I have since come to learn there are things we have control over and things we do not. It's the old nature/nurture argument. Putting the right stuff under the right column, sorting through it all becomes clearer the more we study the humn genome.

I think blaming ourselves for cancer is dangerous. It only hurts us.