Who has felt a loss of identity after being diagnosed?
CONNECT. I have felt this way from the minute I heard the words “you have breast cancer.” The shock, the feeling of hearing the words you have cancer-facing the unimaginable! My world was rocked in more ways in one! I truly redefined myself through many nights of intense tears and reflecting on how I was living my life. I still can’t believe when I look at pictures that I had a tumor growing in me for possibly five years!
Breast cancer forced me to change how I was living my life. I was not only faced with my mortality but who I had been for all those years? Did the stress in my life cause the cancer? I think so! I am very careful now on how I let things, people, situations effect me. I also felt that cancer made me slow down and be still, be in the quiet and the unknown-which was VERY difficult for me!
I am truly not the same person I was before and the connections I have made with all of you has helped me feel inspired and has encouraged me to feel better about this new person that I have evolved into over the past three years. THANK YOU!!!
I am not out of the woods yet but I continue to reshape how I think, react and live every day since I heard the words “you have breast cancer.” How have you changed your identity?