When I was first diagnosed, there weren’t any physical support groups I could attend, because we were in a lockdown. By the time these restarted (and at the time of writing, they still haven’t all restarted), I’d been through the most intensive part of my treatment and they weren’t massively relevant. Very early on, I found an online support group purely for younger women who’d been diagnosed with breast cancer.
This group was an utter lifeline for me. The hive mind and experience in that group was incredible. They helped me feel less alone and isolated and answered any queries or worries I had without judgement. However, I did find that on my “down days” stories of recurrences and more severe diagnoses than mine, really affected me, increased my anxiety and made my mood worse. I partly created this blog and Instagram account to have the “cancer” feed separate. When I’m having my cancer bad patches, I can just not look at them.
Their story is not my story.
This was one piece of advice one of the women gave in the support group. I recite it as a bit of a mantra when I hear something emotive that I really feel myself taking on. It helps ground me and reminds whatever may happen to me, will happen to me, but my fate is not the same as someone elses.
I still visit the group now, but less frequently, I often find myself paying back some of the kindness that I received, where I can, offering support to others.
Would I recommend that others join support groups – yes, absolutely. Would I recommend that you also “mute” them or switch accounts when you’re saturated – yes, you need a break sometimes.
I’ll leave you with one of my favourite Cancer social media accounts.
Life After Cancer 