“Trust yourself. You have survived a lot and you will survive whatever comes. "~ Robert Tew
“I have bad news. I'm so sorry. You have cancer. "
Sitting in the cold, clinical doctor's office in Chicago on a snowy, cloudy January day, I was with my daughter six months after the birth and felt like I woke up in a nightmare.
My husband had gone to work the day after the laparoscopic operation I was supposed to have my sutures removed to remove a large cyst, so I was alone with my daughter.
When Dr. Foley walked into the room, I took one look at his face and knew something was wrong.
"Are you sure" I asked? My daughter was chewing on her Sophie Giraffe in her stroller next to me.
"Yes, I'm sure. I am so sorry. "
I started crying. The first thing I said was, "I knew I didn't deserve a good life."
"What did you say?"
"Nothing, it doesn't matter now."
He told me it was stage 1 ovarian cancer. That I would be fine. He told me I might need chemotherapy and have my ovaries removed and I might not have any more children. He then referred me to a gynecological specialist. I waited for her for three weeks.
My mother flown out to help me. My husband accompanied me to my appointment with the gynecological oncologist. The office was bleak. The women in the living room showed me my future.
When it was my turn, the nurse came in with the doctor. They were pleasant and conversational. I couldn't tolerate their lightheartedness for long as long as they asked me about my daughter and were a new parent. Finally I said, "Can you please tell me about my cancer ?!"
They looked at me in amazement and said, "You don't have cancer! Didn't Doctor Foley tell you? He called us and said," I have a disaster here! "We told him it was not a disaster. What You have is a mucinous border cyst that occurs frequently in women of your age. "
I don't think I've ever experienced more relief or gratitude than I did then, not even after my children were born. What could go deeper than feeling like you've been handed a death sentence and then given a card to get you out of jail for free?
I went home and felt like I had a second chance in life. I opened the windows, I cleaned the house, I smiled again. However, that sweetness lasted only a short time before I started thinking and worrying again.
The relief never lasted because there was always a catastrophe around the corner.
In the following years I stayed hard working. I've seen cancer everywhere. I felt lumps, I felt bumps, I saw strange looking spots on my body, rashes, twitches that made me panic. I avoided school trips because I thought a mother had cancer (it turns out she has alopecia!). To this day, I still have high blood pressure in the doctor's office, even when I am having a splinter removed.
I lived the reality of a traumatized person. I functioned on the surface, but underneath I was full of pain and fatigue. This diagnosis was another trauma that is now based on a lifetime of traumatic experiences.
Before getting pregnant I made two visits to the emergency room because I thought I was having a heart attack. I routinely felt unable to swallow and choked even when nothing was in my mouth. I often felt like I couldn't breathe or couldn't get enough air.
I had many visits to the doctor's office, cardiac ultrasound, tests for asthma, blood tests, etc. They told me it was fear, but I couldn't believe my mind was causing such strong symptoms.
I recently spent some time doing some form of EMDR on myself and got caught up in the feeling of terror that I feel with health anxiety. It brought back an old memory of driving with my father when I was about ten years old.
He was drunk when he was driving on the autobahn with my sister and me.
I remember yelling at him, "Dad, if you don't stop driving like this, I'll drive!" I remember that moment like it was yesterday. I remembered feeling completely helpless and uncontrolled.
"Aha", I thought to myself. That was the first time I felt this feeling. "
Of course it makes sense that I have health fear and obsession and try to avoid or control it.
We have all formulated parts of ourselves that once served an important purpose – to protect us. My Protector identity understands how overwhelmed I was and has worked my entire life to keep that feeling at bay. Health anxiety can be a manifestation of trauma.
Healing took time and intention. It didn't happen in a therapy chair either, but in a dance studio. It was in this room that I slowed down for the first time and felt safe in my body.
I started dancing salsa and just warming up for one dancer. Moving each body part consciously with intent and curiosity helped me learn about the unique inner sensations of my body so that they felt more familiar and less scary.
I also tend to have a more obsessive brain, and finding a way to channel my anxiety into healthy challenges that I can control in order to be less reactive to health fears was crucial. That means dancing more and starting a business.
My brain needs things to cling to, and both of them give me what health fear gave me (a place to channel general fear) but in a way that feels healthier and is under my control.
After all, it was incredibly beneficial to work on my nervous system and get into a parasympathetic state. When you're trained to be hypervigilant, relaxing feels scary! I have found that practices like restoration or yin yoga help me feel deeper in my body within my tolerance window.
Slowly, with time and persistence, my life and my prospects for my future began to change. The change was so profound that people saw me and asked what I was doing differently. I began to fully examine the power of the body to affect the mind. When I was thirty-six, I began to have joy for the first time that I could remember.
I recently saw a friend from high school on Facebook whose wife, young and beautiful with two young children, died of colon cancer. I was so sad and angry about the injustice. I felt compassion. I see it as a growth that I haven't started researching statistics or getting caught in a spiral of health anxiety.
Five years ago I asked my sister how she felt when she heard the tragic news and she told me she felt compassion.
I said to her: "Is this how normal people feel?" I saw every tragedy as a warning to become more vigilant, tougher in my body and mind, and as a chance to numb myself so as not to feel the range of human emotions.
Some days I am afraid of the uncertainty of the world, and health anxiety can still crop up for me. Part of the healing process is changing the way we relate to something we can't change and finding healthy tools to help us cope.
If, like me, you struggle with health anxiety – obsessed with any pain, ache, or even minor ailment, worrying about the potential for a serious diagnosis that could irreparably change your life – it could affect your ability to function day in and day out .
You may spend hours Googling your symptoms and self-diagnosing yourself, regularly going to the doctor's office to hear that you are fine – which is likely to be short-lived. On the other hand, your health anxiety can prevent you from taking good care of yourself if you skip necessary medical appointments so as not to confirm your worst fears.
The irony is that you may be creating a self-fulfilling prophecy. Excessive worry can lead to physical symptoms such as: These include changes in heart rate and blood pressure, chest tension, and difficulty breathing that can further convince you that you have a terrible illness – and possibly cause health problems later.
Perhaps you have experienced a trauma where like me you felt helpless and that is why you fear the unknown and have gotten out of control. Perhaps you have lost someone you love to a serious illness and you are afraid that if you are not diligent, it could happen to you, too. Or maybe you have a health condition and are afraid that it will turn into something even more dangerous. Whatever the cause, healing is possible.
The first step is to realize the stories that you are writing in your head and how worry affects your ability to enjoy the people and things you love.
The next step is to accept that you need help – and then find the courage to look for it.
Perhaps you like me will find it beneficial to test EMDR to help you manage old trauma. and you may want to use a practice that will calm your nervous system and get you out of your head and into your body, like yoga or tai chi.
Or you need the guidance of a therapist who can help you question your fear-based thoughts and beliefs, reduce coping behaviors that only increase your fear, and sit with the discomfort of insecurity when it arises, instead of creating even more fear.
Ultimately it comes down to: learning to accept that “bad” things can happen in life, but we cannot prevent them by remaining hypervigilant and avoiding all activities that could potentially endanger us. We may feel more secure doing these things, but we really are only half alive in our attempts to protect our lives.
I do not know the outcome of a large part of life. What will happen to me, my children, the people I love, the world? In moments of joy I often feel a touch of sadness. I can now hold both at the same time. I understand sadness and grief in a new way, not something that I'm afraid of, that I have to numb or push away, but simply a feeling of letting myself move through me so that I can fully and can fully experience.
About Brenna Mavis Anderson
Brenna Mavis Anderson is a trauma-informed embodiment trainer. She was trained by the Tantric Institute for Integrated Sexuality. Her real training, however, was in life and in her deep hunger to heal disempowerment in herself and transform it into a voice to help others. She uses a unique combination of guided visualizations, self-exam, exercise, nervous system, and fascia work to help clients process, heal, and grow.
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