How to Deal With Anxiety

By: Gina Lawson

Before my breast cancer diagnosis, I was diagnosed with OCD in 2009. You can imagine how that would affect a person's mind during a time of serious illness, like cancer. Your imagination can run wild. Even for a person without an anxiety disorder, cancer can put a serious mental strain on your life (let alone physical). OCD is a disorder that does not deal well with uncertainty and uncertainty and cancer often times go hand in hand.

In OCD (contrary to what some may believe), constant  reassurance is not helpful and can feed the disorder. In the same regard, toxic positivity might not be completely helpful either in a cancer diagnosis. In these cases, or any life scenarios, I learned that the best way to deal with the anxiety of uncertainty of outcomes, is to tell yourself that I don't know what will happen or if everything will turn out completely okay, but whatever happens, we'll figure it out. That idea has helped me a lot in many occasions to not feel so completely helpless but also be realistic and to feel confident at the same time. It's helped me most of the time to let go of worry and rumination. 

Mental strength and flexibility is very important during a cancer diagnosis. It's very much mind over matter. Of course there is the obvious physical aspects to cancer but a person's outlook, attitude, and mentality 

are critical. I really believe that mind body spirit is real and everything is connected. If your mind is not well, your body will follow and there are studies that show stress and poor mental health can affect a person's immunity and overall health. I hope this information can help relieve some anxiety and uncertainty in your life.