Emotional Effects of Cancer
Read about how the cancer experience may affect your emotions and mental well-being. These topics include steps you can take, resources that are available to help you and detailed information about:
Emotions and Cancer
Body Image
Many survivors experience physical changes in their bodies as a result of cancer or its treatment. The way they feel and think about their bodies may also change. Understanding how cancer can affect your body image can help you feel confident as you experience and manage changes in your body.
Emotional Effects of Cancer
You may experience many different emotions after treatment is finished. You may be surprised or confused about what you feel. Understanding these emotions and why they surface can help you manage them and feel confident about survivorship.
Fear of Recurrence
Fear of recurrence, the concern that cancer will come back after treatment, is common among survivors. Although having some concerns about recurrence is natural, too much worrying can affect your quality of life. Understanding how to manage fear of recurrence can help you feel more confident and secure about survivorship.
Finding Meaning
Some survivors want to find a deeper meaning in their cancer experience. You may be trying to understand the greater purpose or reason behind your illness and what it means for your life now. Exploring your feelings about cancer and your reactions to it can help you find meaning in survivorship.
Grief and Loss
Grief is a strong feeling of sadness in response to a loss. Grief and loss are difficult but natural parts of life, and they are often a part of cancer survivorship in some way. Understanding feelings of grief and loss, and finding the support you need, can help you manage the changes you are experiencing and feel more confident about your survivorship.
Hope
Hope, the belief that a positive outcome lies ahead, can be difficult to hold onto in the face of cancer. Knowing why hope is important, and how to create a sense of hope in your life, can help you approach survivorship with strength and confidence.
Living With Uncertainty
Many survivors feel uncertain about their future after completing cancer treatment. Understanding the reasons why you are feeling this way, and knowing where to look for support, can help you feel more confident in your survivorship.
Sadness and Depression
Survivors may experience sadness or depression at some point during their cancer experience. Talking with people you trust, such as family members or health care professionals, can help you understand these emotions and find ways to manage them.
Setting Priorities
Priorities, the things in your life that you think are important, can change over time, especially when you face a serious illness such as cancer. Understanding why priorities change and how you can communicate your priorities to others can help you feel more confident in your survivorship.
Stress
Stress is a feeling of constant worry or tension. Stress affects many survivors at one time or another during survivorship, and each survivor will respond to stress in his or her own way. There are things that you can do to reduce stress and improve your quality of life.
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Relationships
Communicating With Your Partner
Communicating with your partner about how cancer has affected you can be difficult. Even strong relationships can become strained under the pressure of managing a complex illness. Taking steps to improve your communication skills can help you to feel more supported and understood.
Dating and New Relationships
Survivors sometimes find that dating after cancer is different than dating before cancer. You may feel physically and emotionally changed by your experience, and this may affect how you approach dating. Understanding some common reactions to dating after cancer and why they happen can help you manage your own reactions and have greater confidence in establishing new relationships.
Telling Others You are a Survivor
Telling others that you are a survivor can be difficult. Survivors often struggle with who to tell, and when to introduce the subject. Understanding why talking about this subject is sometimes difficult can help you work through your feelings and feel more confident about your survivorship.
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Support
Emotional Support
The need for emotional support doesn't stop when treatment ends. There are many ways to receive emotional support that can improve your quality of life and help you manage the challenges you face at any stage of survivorship.
Finding a Counselor
Survivors often face many different emotions and life changes during their cancer experience. Working through these challenges is sometimes easier with the help of a professional counselor. A counselor will listen to you and help you understand your cancer experience and the emotions you are feeling.
Meeting Other Survivors
Talking with other survivors can help you learn how others manage the physical, emotional and practical challenges cancer brings. There are many ways to meet other survivors who want to talk about their experiences and share information.
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You can view the Glossary should you need definitions of terms commonly used in the topics.
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