Reality Much?

Another thought-provoking horoscope from Rob Brezsny inspires me to write. I received this by email about a week ago, when I was struggling with the boundaries of my compassion when spending time with people who had metastatic cancer. What I concluded was that I had been letting my empathy for them become identification with them, people with much more serious cancer than I had. I had grasped onto cancer-coping issues that we had in common and before I realized it, I had begun to feel like I was also someone who had had a recurrence and a poor prognosis. This, of course, is far from my own excellent prognosis, and I needed to find my emotional way back to my real circumstances: a cancer patient undergoing aggressive treatment for early Stage One cancer, expected to have a full cure.

So here's what got me thinking, and ultimately back on track:

ARIES (March 21-April 19): I'm a big fan of facing your problems head-on and dealing forthrightly with your pain. But what if that approach isn't always best? Renowned psychologist Richard Lazarus said he wanted to challenge the view that psychological health demands full realism. He believed that some sick people get healthy faster by refusing to admit how serious their problems are. To those in stressful situations, he recommended that they could reduce their anxiety by describing their predicament in a matter-of-fact way. "Avoiding what is painful, to a great extent, seems to serve a positive function," he concluded. Although I'm not sure this strategy is universally applicable, I do recommend it for you right now, Aries.

Reading this reminded me of my instinctual coping strategies at the beginning. I rocketed from routine mammogram to diagnosis and lumpectomy within the span of a little more than a week. During that time, there was an overwhelming load of knowledge available to me on the subject of cancer, and the lifelong learner in me felt the pull of the internet (temporal digression: I am a woman who spent several months learning, anticipating, and then articulating my wishes about every possible outcome in my first child's Birth Plan, only to have it tossed out the window when - thanks, Murphy - things did not turn out predictably). Freshly diagnosed with breast cancer, at the same time my gut instinct told me to limit myself exclusively to decisions needing to be made at the present moment. So I avoided all the forums where people who are truly suffering share and vent their miseries (I mean this compassionately, not as a put-down), and I avoided looking ahead to all the future decisions I might need to make. At this point, we didn't have a pathology report yet, so we didn't know a lot of the specifics. The course of action at this stage was clear and obvious, and it was in my best interest not to jump ahead to all the possible outcomes. I knew I could easily become overwhelmed and panicked if I researched issues that might turn out to not even apply to me. I trusted that I would be able to handle whatever came my way if I could restrict my focus to one step at a time.

This served me very well, keeping my emotions level so I could make informed, rational decisions and ask meaningful questions at critical moments. In fact, it provided me with an emotional buffer zone that allowed me to remain very relaxed. I still remember this time as one with lots of joking and laughing to defuse the fear and dread associated with the word "cancer".

Recently I somehow veered from my original coping strategy. I was caught up taking someone else's reality into my own self view, and I wasn't doing well. I know that there is a tiny chance that I could have a recurrence, but "full realism" doesn't help me heal when it means exploring the dark nooks and crannies of everything that might go wrong, just as focusing on one's plane crashing isn't psychologically helpful during travel.

I don't think I'd go so far as to, as Richard Lazarus is cited as saying, refuse to admit how serious my problems are. I need a firm footing in reality in order to stay attentive to my healing and to make decisions in the future. But I can control my attention, and I remember now to focus on positive actions that are within my capability: treatment, scans, diet, exercise, humor, and growing friendships. A couple months ago I asked my doctor if I should be more worried than I am. I need to be grounded in reality and wanted to make sure I wasn't in some sort of denial. The doctor emphatically said no, and that's good enough for me, right now, for today.

When I need a break from reality, I fire up my PC and play hero in Oblivion. And when I have saved the realm, I will get to battle Dementia and Mania in Shivering Isles.