Sunday 9 May 2010

Coping toolset

I feel like I've discovered happiness since beginning this blog, and the process of writing it is therapeutic in some indefinably ephemeral way.

Sarah, a psychologist, talked to me about the power of narratives. People with cancer often have a restitution narrative when their disease is diagnosed, which is well understood by their friends and family. After diagnosis follows treatment - surgery, chemotherapy, radiotherapy, recovery and return to normal life. This is relatively easy for people to deal with and be supportive.

When the disease is less predictable and tractable, the victories are tempered by setbacks, then the narrative becomes more reactive - a chaos narrative. This is more difficult for people to deal with. If they ask how you are they may hear bad news - how can they respond to this without resorting to meaningless platitudes?

It deters people from engaging, and from the cancer patient's perspective it is upsetting to be endlessly the bearer of bad news.

My own narrative is chaotic, and I deal with it by quickly deflecting conversation away from the subject of my health. It leaves a lot of thoughts isolated in my head where they fester.

I believe this blog is causing me to transition towards a quest narrative, where illness leads to insight. I hadn’t anticipated this, but looking back over my posts I do see a bunch labelled “insight”, and the upswing in my mood and outlook is tangible.

I've seen a number of counsellors over the last ten years, when faced with cancer, death and abandonment. I've yet to encounter the magic bullet I’m seeking which would leave me mentally sorted, but each person has contributed something to my coping toolset, although perhaps not something they thought particularly significant.

Sarah's nugget was introducing me to the concept of a narrative, though I suspect the main thrust of her efforts were to persuade me to be more forgiving of my own emotional state. "That's understandable" was her frequent mantra.

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