Cancer 8

Sometimes it is overwhelming. It is difficult to describe in words. It can reach a point where I feel I cannot cope, I cannot cope with my cancer, my sister’s cancer (she is in the final stage of life) and my heart failure, let alone the everyday stressors of life; yet I have to cope, There really is no alternative. Breaking down is not an option. Fortunately these feelings do not usually last long. Within hours I generally restore that unmoving lip.

Human resilience is incredible. Both the psychology profession and society general tend to focus on the negative: so many people have mental health problems, how we all need counselling or psychotherapy when something horrid or stressful happens, how we can’t cope with death and serious illness, how watching something on the TV can be traumatic (!). The reality is that most of us cope very well. I have spoken in a previous blog about social support, but I think we as individuals are – usually – incredibly strong and able to deal with most of what is thrown at us in life.

I realise that many people have genuine problems, and that some are unable to cope and do need professional help, but I am focussing on that large majority of us who usually deal with things pretty well.

In society we seem to have a problem with negative feelings and emotions. We want to be happy at all times. If we are a little sad we call it depression, label it as a mental health problem, and swallow pills or talk to psychologists and counsellors. Instead, much of the time, we should just realise that life is not just about happiness, it is about the whole range of emotions. We all experience death. We all experience illness. We all experience very stressful times in life. It may sound old-fashioned but I often want to say get a grip. You can cope. These things are normal. If someone dies we are sad, often very sad, but we eventually get over it and start living normally again. We grow to remember the dead person with fondness (or not!), and get on with life. We reflect back, remember, get sad, have a few tears, but these are moments. They should not take over our lives.

One area of my research is post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). I became interested when I was working with World War Two veterans. I found that there were some who had very serious problems relating to their war experience, and could suitably be classified as having PTSD. They experienced traumatic events, and they had difficulty dealing with those events. Memories would emerge at various points in life and cause serious problems that sometimes needed professional help. The problem now is that the word trauma is overused. Everything negative is traumatic. My dog died, how traumatic. I saw something upsetting on TV. How traumatic. I had an argument with my wife. How traumatic.

None of these things are traumatic. They can be genuinely upsetting but they do not constitute a mental health problem.

We have a large and growing language about the negative aspects of life. We should spend more time talking about the positive aspects of life. Some psychologists do discuss the positive aspects of life, but they are relatively rare. Most of us, and I am guilty of this, focus on the negative, while trying to make things a little better. It is laudable, particularly when someone has a serious problem that really does need the help of a psychologist, but it is often the case that people need to recognise that there are bad bits in life and deal with them.

It is often about the way we appraise our situation. Shit happens. Right, how are we going to deal with this? Deal with it and get over it. Having moments of feeling unable to cope does not mean I have a mental health problem.