Feeling PTSD Seven Years After Breast Cancer

I'm not as far along on this journey but find you described my reactions well. This fall, I had "C" scares for both colon and endometrial cancer. Although everything turned out all right, I find three months later, I am digging out emotionally (figuratively), at work (literally), and at home (literally). Those three months with rounds of testing and procedures, I think I sort of shut down and went through the motions of getting through each day. Sometimes I didn't sleep well and other times I slept way too much. Anything medical sends me backwards on this path. I think I can work to find ways to recognize my reactions a little sooner and not let things stack up (maybe I need to go over to the hoarders thread). I did though find things that helped me during this time - Season 1 and 2 of Downton Abbey! Got me ready for for Season 3. Oh, I also had a stress fracture my foot so I wasn't able to exercise either (of course, I thought there was a met in my foot too, there wasn't). My ususal three mile walk usually helps me tame the worries. Not being able to do that probably has made these past few months more difficult for me to handle. Hope to be able to start walking (short distances) with out my "walking boot" next week.

Heading to my onclogist today. Well prepared with my list of questions. Why does even thinking about this appointment make me anxious? PTSD or just normal for those of us with BC? Does it get better?  I'm a little more than a year and a half from diagnosis. 

Hi Tanya732

I can understand how you're feeling.  I have had a similar reaction to the word "remission".

One of the exercises I have used to help me move past this is to keep asking why to a specific question until I get to the bottom of it.  e.g Why was I scared/ uncomfortable by the word remission? - after all it was just a word.

In the end it was because of the context I had heard it used in wasn't positive.   Even the dictionary meaning is "a temporary recovery" and "lessening in seriousness".  It seemed like it was sitting in the background waiting to come back.    As I believed it was gone totally, hearing the word just made me uncomfortable and doubt that it had in fact gone.  Over time understanding this helped me to lose the negative attachment to the word and reframe what it meant to me.   In my life now it doesn't have the meaning or the power it once had. 

Also your experience of the smell of the doctors office is something one of the Oncology Nurses commented on - that when she run into former patients in the street some of them threw up just seeing her.

 I have also experienced this but in a different way.  In my case shortly after I finished chemo every time I walked into my kitchen I started dry-reaching.  One time I walked in backwards and slowly turned around and there it was.  Two very innocent bottles of sauce that just happened to be the exact same colour of my chemo drugs!

My understanding is that this happens because our mind creates mental shortcuts as filters to help us get through the day and not get bombarded with overload.  The things we experience go into little filing cabinets in our brain and when you experience something similar again it triggers the original memory.  In other words it brings back yesterday!

So in my case seeing the colour of my chemo drugs together made me feel as I did after chemo.  Strange but true!

What I do when this happens it stop and question whether it is still relevant to me now/today?

By stopping, and not reacting from old patterns, it starts to create a new memory which is not associated with chemo.  In other words now it's just two sauce bottles.....

Hope this helps you understand why this might be happening still

Also I am now 12 years past treatment

Hugs

Gai