navigating life after cancer treatment
a virtual support group for adults struggling to adjust to post-treatment reality.
Active treatment has concluded, friends & family express well intended congratulations, but you feel lost. You wonder if you are missing something or doing this part “wrong”.
For many, adjusting to life post-treatment can feel more isolating and emotionally taxing than when you were in active care. People around you may start to treat your illness as something in the past… something you should be “over” now. Against the backdrop of such an expectation, you may feel distress and cannot figure out why.
What no one tells you about these feelings… your feelings… is that they are normal. Absolutely, unequivocally normal. Post-treatment reality isn’t a carbon copy of life pre-diagnosis; it is a new reality that simultaneously feels both familiar and unfamiliar. Returning to life today is going to require a bit of an adjustment.
Areas of exploration include the end of treatment; expectation vs reality, defining a new kind of isolation, grieving your old life, rebuilding your identity, the reality disconnect between you and your friends & family, navigating the fear of recurrence, and settling into a new normal.