Undiagnosed Introductions

[intothelight]

@MelissaKH68 Welcome to the forum!

Cancer can cause PTSD and it can also exacerbate symptoms if a person already has PTSD. I have cancer and PTSD and my focus is to what I can to heal from both. Personally, I believe that the body and the mind are very interconnected and the goal is optimal health physically, mentally, spiritually and emotionally. Unfortunately, I have found the medical community uses a piece meal approach and have had to cobble together my own integrated approach.

I would encourage you to see a mental health professional as it is important to have a proper diagnosis in order to develop the treatment plan that will work best for you. I also understand there is a huge reluctance to add more debt on top of debt as having cancer is financially devastating. The local Cancer Support Community here does offer free counseling by a licensed therapist and you may want to check to see if your local chapter has something like this available.

Some of the things that I have found most helpful are Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT), mindfulness, and yoga. I hope you find the information here helpful and beneficial to your overall healing.

 

[MelissaKH68]

Thank you, I will be checking all of this out.

 

[Frogs88]

My friend has recently been dealing with cancer and I recommended therapy for her because I could see PTSD in her, not because of the cancer but before this and it was only because of the cancer that she started receiving help for past traumas. As for not knowing what you should be doing for yourself there is no right or wrong way of dealing with this but I think that the steps of recovery are acknowledging the issues, finding therapy, reaching out for support and thinking about what you feel you can be doing to best look after yourself and your partner. You've already acknowledged that you might have PTSD and have through this forum reached out for help so I'd say you're already doing really well.

 

[MelissaKH68]

It would be nice when everyone dealing with Cancer was told about all this and tested for it. I mean there are millions of people out there with Cancer.

 

[intothelight]

@MelissaKH68 No one tells you much of anything other than the nuts and bolts of a person's particular disease, the treatment options and their recommendations. I know there are hospitals that in the past few years have started to treat the whole person, including the psychological impact of cancer; but unless you are treating in one of those centers, most oncologist are focusing on getting you into remission and not much beyond that.

Integrative oncology is fairly new and most of the time you have to piece together your own system. The thing that I have found is what is best for cancer recovery is also good for recovering from PTSD. I can't say that would be true for everyone, but I found some of the changes I made helped me in all areas personally. There is a book that I would recommend called "Radical Remission" and it has a lot of information and a variety of ideas, some I clicked with and others I didn't, but I loved the action steps at the end of each chapter as it gave me a guide as I made some of the changes.

Look for support everywhere that you can, because the stress of even thinking there is a re-occurrence can really make PTSD symptoms spike. The "what if" just sucks.

 

[MelissaKH68]

Thank you, I am going to look for this book. Thank you, I will take any and all information. You are right though about your Oncologist, they are pretty much just wanting you in remission and then they move on to helping others. I guess that is their job.

 

[joeylittle]

Welcome to the forum, @MelissaKH68 - I've learned so much being here, and I hope the same happens for you!

 

[MelissaKH68]

Joeylittle, Thank you for the reply. I am learning a lot. I went to the doctor today and was able to ask about the PTSD issues. Sounds like I am getting into a class to help me with it. They specialize in people with PTSD from Cancer. I am actually pretty excited to get to have some tools to use and to hopefully help me out. I am also hoping that what I learn I can help my boyfriend out by being more aware of his issues with PTSD.