Not anxiety

As of yesterday, I am officially done with radiation, and I just found out yesterday that the result of my genetic testing is negative. I should be happy but this overwhelming feeling of sadness has taken over my emotions. I dont have cancer, I am not at risk for recurrence, and after exploring my feelings through this blog I don't think that I even suffer from depression or anxiety. Peeling back the onion layers from these past few months, I realize that the culprit is a very toxic case of shame.

From what I understand about shame, people who feel it do not just feel bad about something that they have done wrong, they feel as though their whole self is flawed because of what they've done wrong. This is exactly how I feel now and how I've felt for most of my life. As I've gotten older, the sense of feeling flawed as diminished, but even though I don't feel it as much as I used to, I do know that it is still there. And now I know that I wanted to have cancer because it made me feel less shameful when my friends were paying attention to me. I felt that if people were caring about me and sad about me being sick then they must really like me and there is no reason to feel shame. But now that I have a clean bill of health, my support system will no longer be validating me and my feelings of shame may return. I need to rely on myself to not let that happen.

I've said this before but it is worth repeating that I find it sad thaat people have to fight their emotional battles in isolation. People don't know how to handle emotions because feelings can't be explaind logically. Emotions don't always give people fair warning before they strike and then that dreadful feeling may pass before the sufferers can get their support team together.

I've decideed to treat my shame as a disease because it gives me direction to do so. As far as I can understand, the cure for shame is pride and the first part of my treatment is to read books by John Bradshaw.