I woke up this morning not knowing what I would post about today. I’ve already posted about gratitude this month. Even though it is Thanksgiving week gratitude would be a redundant post. I wondered what I could write about. Then as I sat in a support group something came up for me that I haven’t explored in writing. So, I thought I would start that exploration in today’s post.
“What if?” That’s a question that consumes my thoughts frequently. There are “what ifs” in my cancer battle and “what ifs” in my mental health journey. Sometimes these thoughts are scary, and I try to force them to the back of my mind. The thoughts bring tears to my eyes as they echo in my mind. I’m not sure that I am coping with them in the most productive way. It is hard to discuss these thoughts. I can express them to my mental health team at times, but even then, sometimes I don’t know how to verbalize these thoughts.
Every time I feel a pain my mind jumps to “what if it is more cancer?” As I write this, I am experiencing pain in my leg that my mind tells me is cancer. My last pet scan was good, but my mind tells me it didn’t scan my whole femur, and that the cancer wasn’t caught. A ridiculous thought, but a thought that scares me. After I complained about the pain to my primary, care provider, she ordered an x-ray. It has been a week since the x-ray, and I haven’t heard the results. So, of course my mind assumes the worse. I don’t see my primary for another week. That means the “what ifs” are going to live in my brain until then.
The “what ifs” pop up every time I have blood drawn or have a pet scan. Is this my life now? Are “what ifs” just a part of my life? Cancer has changed a lot about my life. What if I don’t get better? What if the next pet scan shows new tumors? What if the next blood draw shows a high tumor marker? These are questions I continually ask. Unfortunately, most of the time I ask these questions in my mind and don’t hear a response that puts me at ease.
The “what ifs” exist with my mental health as well. I often feel like the depression is just waiting to darken my world. When I am doing well, I wonder how long I can remain in a positive state. Surely, the darkness is lurking around the corner. What if the suicidal thoughts start again? These thoughts pop up whenever they want. They don’t care if I am working to overcome them. They don’t care if I have fought cancer so I could live these past 15 months. The suicidal thoughts creep in when they want. Treatment helps, but it is not foolproof. My mind has worked this way for decades. I sometimes wonder if the suicidal thoughts will ever completely go away. I find myself asking, “what if I could live without these thoughts?”
Fighting cancer, depression, and anxiety at the same time has allowed the “what ifs” to take up residency in my brain. How can two words create such pain? I wish I knew how to make the “what ifs” go away. Sometimes I want to reach out to a friend or someone in my family, but then I feel like I am burdening them. I have my mental health team, but I wonder if they tire of me having the same thoughts. Sometimes distraction works, but I am not good at finding distractions.
Maybe the “what ifs” are just a part of my life. Honestly, I hate the “what ifs”. I wish I could silence their questioning. Who knows? One day I might figure it out. Although that seems unlikely. I need to figure out how to respond to the “what ifs”. I would like to tell them to shut up. Instead, I probably need to work on responding to them with positive thoughts. If not positive thoughts, I need to at least respond with rationale thoughts. This is probably a conversation I should have in therapy. I can’t keep avoiding the “what ifs.” They are hurting me and impacting the way I cope with cancer and mental illness. I guess writing about them here is a start to dealing with them constructively. Has anyone reading this dealt with the “what ifs” in some aspect of your life? If so, what advice can you share?
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