Counseling for cancer patients with depression

This is my personal story of cancer and mental health and why counseling for cancer patients with depression saved me. Over the last three years, I’ve been pregnant, the mother of a newborn, or dealing with cancer. Sometimes I’ve been more than one of those things at the same time. People have tended not to tell me about their problems because of this. I guess that’s probably fair, but as I’m making my way back to Life-As-I-Knew-It, something is becoming more and more apparent. A lot of the people I care about are Not Okay, and I had no idea.

I now need more than my two hands to count the number of friends who have been diagnosed recently with clinical depression, are waiting to see a doctor because they think they are drowning in depression, or are just seriously in need of some mental help. Some friends are struggling with painful break-ups, some are finding it hard to cope with the monumental changes of parenthood, some are swamped at work and drowning in self-doubt, overwhelmed with financial strains, crying at work in the loos, and just generally having a shit time.

And if you’re my ‘real-life’ friend and you think I’m writing about you here and you’re upset that I’ve broken confidence, trust me, I promise, I’m not. There are lots of Yous in my life. I’m a You, too.

As I’ve reconnected with old friends, good friends, and intermittent friends, a few have said to me in hushed tones, “I think I had depression.” Actually, it’s usually, “I think I had a bit of depression.” 

A bit of depression! It seems like people feel the need to diminish their pain and brush it away. You don’t say you have a bit of a broken leg, do you? Or a bit of malaria? You’re ill. Something is stopping you function as normal, so you get help. You get a cast, a tablet, or a cream that stops it from burning when you pee… Why are we afraid to say we need counseling? So here’s my confession: I’ve had mental health therapy for cancer.

To the best of my knowledge, I don’t have (and never have had depression), but I have felt so overwhelmed that I’ve cried on the bathroom floor while my daughter ate her breakfast in the next room. I have tried to say, “I’m fine,” genuinely believing it, and wept instead. I have struggled to find the energy to reply to text messages from friends asking me how I am. At times, I have been that person crying quietly on the tube. I recently had to hang up on the phone to the bank because the instructions to reset my banking passwords were too overwhelming (sorry Gary, from First Direct. It’s not you, it’s really me).

I am lucky to have been offered some free counseling for cancer patients by a local cancer charity. But it’s taken me over a year to do anything about it. I didn’t have time. Or so I said. Between doctors and oncologists and allergists and nurseries and radiotherapy and work, I just didn’t see how I could justify more hours devoted to myself that wasn’t feeding and clothing myself and my daughter and spending time with my husband. Because I was mostly, totally fine. Absolutely fine. Until you find yourself crying at a TV movie about robots (and not Wall-E, the crap one with Ewan McGregor). I used to find that writing helped. But then people started reading and liking my writing online, and I had to stop for a while. I convinced myself I wasn’t very good, and people would soon realize. I still feel like that most days.

I’m not an expert in cancer and mental health. Not by far. I had a set of eight sessions over six or so months. But I did find the whole experience incredibly helpful. I found each session useful, but I also found just knowing that I had therapy to look forward to was comforting and helped me compartmentalize things. If I was upset by something or struggling to cope with a particular event, I could put it to one side, knowing that I’d be able to go over it with S, my counselor, in a week or two.

With all this positivity about counseling for cancer patients with depression, there is a flipside. I always felt really guilty about going. Each week I would seriously consider not going. I felt like I should be able to sort my shit out on my own. That going to therapy was a slap in the face to the people who love me, and they wouldn’t understand why I needed to talk to a stranger. I felt like going to a counselor said, “There’s something wrong with me,” and I didn’t really have an answer for what that was. Or if there was. I just knew I needed to talk to someone.

I felt ashamed about therapy in ways that make me ashamed (what a circular argument that is) because I would never want anyone else to be ashamed to go to a therapist. I’m embarrassed (which is not the same as ashamed) and while I’ll tell people when I’m off to see my doctor, or surgeon, or oncologist, I would never tell someone I’d just got back from a mental health therapy session (although they might be able to tell from the state of my tear-streaked face behind my serene expression).

Read more: How to tell someone they have cancer

Of course, I addressed some of these issues about therapy and appearance with my therapist. I’m hoping it wasn’t just her deep desire to keep paying her mortgage that allowed her to completely convince me it was okay to want to see her. Even if I didn’t need to. Because, I suppose, the idea is to see someone before you need to. Before you are curled up in a ball on a regular basis.

It can be really hard to justify the cost of therapy to yourself (or so I’ve found, at least). The cost in money and the cost in time. The cost in sheer emotions and effort. And when you’re just about holding it together, you think “Do I really want to pull at that thread?”

It’s not very British to talk to a complete stranger about your problems, and it’s not very Italian to not loudly and dramatically broadcast your entire life and woes to the world. So maybe I’m stuck in the middle, and I’m not sure what I’m supposed to do. 

Therapy  (counseling, whatever you call it) wasn’t just a place to cry (although I’ve shed more than a few tears), and it wasn’t just a place to get advice (although there can be some of that). I don’t really know what it was. But for me, it was essential. Don’t tell anyone, will you?