Please don’t use this post as advice. I’m gonna talk about personal experience, this is not professional advice. Medication is not necessary for everyone.

 

I want to be completely open about this, so I’m going to put it out there that I am on antidepressants and have been for over a year now. Shortly after Tom’s diagnosis I was at the doctors for my prescriptions. She wrote down the situation on my notes and I asked if I could be prescribed some propranolol just in case I needed it. I take one every morning and extra if I need. I hadn’t taken propranolol (a beta blocker) for over a year until then. I initially had it prescribed in year 11, so age 16. And that’s my anxiety history!

So I was asked how I’ve dealt with any anxious feelings during all of this. I think the most anxiety will probably hit later in life. Being so close to someone with cancer is so consuming, I feel as though my “okay, so what next?” attitude, that I have mentioned before, didn’t allow much time for anxiety. What I mean is that things were happening too quickly and unexpectedly to be able to be anxious about them.

The future does scare me, but I’m more clueless than anxious. When I close my eyes, I can’t picture the future anymore. This is such a mental journey that I know anxiety has no place. Being anxious about it wont help anyone. It’s just an added layer of distress that I really don’t need.

I think it’s safe to say that my baseline levels of anxiety have probably risen. I’m proud of how well I feel I’ve come to terms with things. I feel like I’ve taken it on the chin pretty well. I think a lot of this has to do with my beliefs in fate. I can’t really change the outcome of anything, but I can make now as bearable as possible. When Tom was initially diagnosed (which feels like so long ago now), he told his friend that this was a ‘learning curve’. With Tom leading the way for all of us, he’s shown us how to approach this with grace and set an example for us all with his strength and smile.

Evie