How Coping With Cancer Teaches Us to Cope With Trauma

Once you have experienced cancer, you can take those learnings and help others when trauma hits in their lives.

BY Dana Stewart

PUBLISHED May 25, 2018

Dana Stewart was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2010 at the age of 32. She is the co-founder of a cancer survivorship organization called The Dragonfly Angel Society. She volunteers as an advocate and mentor, focusing on young adults surviving cancer. She enjoys writing about life as a cancer survivor, as well as connecting survivors to the resources, inspirations and stories that have helped her continue to live her best life, available at www.dragonflyangelsociety.com.

I think we can all agree that when you or a loved one goes through cancer, you have to learn as you go. There are no rule books, no direction as to how to handle your emotions and no way to know how to make the decisions that change everything. For me, my diagnosis of breast cancer was the most traumatic thing to happen in my life. Over the years, I have been working on processing the emotions that still tag along long after my diagnosis and treatment have moved well into the past tense of my life. I have found that as I navigate the post-treatment world, I can use what I have learned in other instances. It's taken a lot of training, if you will (therapy, actually) to learn to deal with how I feel, understand how other's feel and navigate those emotional waters that I flow through daily. So, when new challenges are presented, I find that I can handle them pretty well.

So, what happens when the trauma happens to someone else? How do you deal with it? And more importantly, how do you help them? I'll put it in prospective. A couple weeks ago, family members of mine had significant damage happen to their home. It was unexpected and very traumatic. The same emotions they felt, I felt. It was quite overwhelming for them and even though the home is not mine, I felt that pain and fear as well. What was initially odd to me was how much it felt similar to hearing the words spoken to me all those years ago that I had cancer. It may seem as if I am comparing apples and oranges, but am I really?

Read More: How Coping With Cancer Teaches Us