Counselling and cancer

Receiving a cancer diagnosis can feel like an overwhelming shock. It can feel like you barely have time to come to terms with being a patient before treatment begins. Just when you get your head around what’s going on, things can change again.

In the middle of treatment, whether new or ongoing, it might feel like you have to protect everyone else around you. Masking how scary it all really is everyday, keeping a brave face on for everyone else.

When treatment ends, sometimes it can feel even scarier. Like being cast adrift. Shifting from close and structured care to being left alone to get on with it. Every twinge leads to a google search. The reality of what you’ve just lived through hits home and you might start to experience anxious feelings or low mood. You might also be asking, “what caused it?" and “why me?”

Cancer can leave its mark in many ways. Scars, pain, side effects from ongoing treatment, such as tamoxifen for breast cancer. You have a different body, different mind, different perspective. People around you might not understand how you feel.

Counselling can provide you a space to slow down and catch up with what just happened. To share your fears and worry. To receive caring compassion. To carry on the conversation when it feels like people just want you to move forward with living. Time just for you, all about you, where you don’t have to worry about burdening somebody else.