There is no reliable ratio between events and how they affect us – all you can do is reflect on how they’ve changed you
In the past few months I have been diagnosed with, treated for and ultimately recovered from breast cancer. At all stages the kindness and professionalism of everyone I was in contact with was impeccable, my partner was emotionally and practically supportive at every step and my recovery has been smooth and relatively swift. However, I cannot help but feel I am now in a sort of limbo, having had a serious disease come and go but not having suffered enough for it to “count”. What can I do to accept and truly own what has happened to me without locking myself in a permanent loop of being a cancer victim as opposed to a cancer survivor?
I once knew a reporter who’d filed from Chechnya, Afghanistan, Iraq and Beirut. He felt lucky, as far as things go in these places; nobody he knew died, he never saw an explosion. But long after he came home, he still startled easily, slept badly, felt unstuck from ordinary life. Still, he wouldn’t permit himself to use the label “traumatised”. He had a picture of what trauma looked like and it didn’t match what had happened to him.
Continue reading...from The Guardian https://ift.tt/2RCkyAJ
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