My Fear

I've been avoiding my blog and this post for about 3 weeks. I didn't want to write it, because that would make it real. And I would have to acknowledge some pretty scary stuff that I've not been dealing with for quite some time. But, I think I need to get it out. It's not fertility related at all, and really this post is mostly for me, so it's ok to not comment or not read all the way through.

I am terrified of death. Not just your regular old fear of dying, like most humans have. I'm talking about paralyzing anxiety around my own death. More specifically, I'm afraid of dying from cancer. Even more specifically, I'm afraid of dying from breast cancer.

I didn't know that my fear was that specific until 9 months ago. I didn't even really know it existed at all - though I will admit I've always been pretty anxious about my health. It's a learned behavior that I perfected after watching my mother. More on that later...

Last September I found a lump on my breast. I agonized in panic and fear for 4 long days before I had an ultrasound confirm that it was a common cyst which was aspirated without complications or further treatment. In those 4 days, I had myself 100% convinced that I had breast cancer. I was planning my funeral in my head and thinking about how Steve would care for Jenna on his own. It was dark and sick and twisted and I could not stop myself.

3 weeks ago the same breast started hurting, but I couldn't feel anything. I thought it might be cycle-related, so I figured I'd wait it out until my period started to see if it went away. It didn't. After probably 100 self breast exams, I started to feel something right below my right nipple. I had to dig pretty deep to feel it, but I felt "something". (I will admit that I'm not sure I've ever poked around that much on my breast, so it's possible that it's always been there and I just don't know because up until 9 months ago, you could count the number of self breast exams I'd done over the course of my entire life on two hands.) I have pretty dense breasts with lots of texture, so it's hard to tell. I decided to get it checked out. On Monday I went to my ob/gyn. She did a very thorough breast exam and declared that my breast was full of perfectly normal breast tissue. However, she said she'd be happy to refer me for a "peace of mind" ultrasound if that would make me feel better. I also talked with her a little bit about my anxiety around this issue, and she kind of dismissed it - stating that most women are sensitized around breast issues and that it is completely normal to worry about lumps and bumps and breast pain.

Oh, if only my anxiety was normal. What does that mean anyway?

Phobia: an unreasonable sort of fear that can cause anxiety and panic.

I realize it's not unreasonable to worry about breast cancer. It is the most common cause of cancer death for women, after all. Everyone knows someone who has died of breast cancer. It affects 1 in every 8 women at some point in their life. However, it IS unreasonable to be so debilitatingly CONSUMED with fear, as I have been for the last 3 weeks, considering the following things:

1) I am only 33 years old
2) I have no risk factors for breast cancer - other than I'm a woman with breasts
3) My doctor examined me 2 days ago and assured me I was fine
4) I have all the signs of fibrocystic breast changes, which means that I will probably find and feel cysts on my breasts from time to time until menopause.
5) I have no control over any of this anyway and we're all going to die some day.

So, what has my fear look liked over the last 3 weeks?

I wake up every morning around 4:30am in a PANIC. My heart pounds in my chest, my pulse is racing, and I feel like I could jump out of my skin. Usually I can practice some deep breathing techniques and move past the initial anxiety attack, but the generalized feelings of anxiety persist until I get out of bed and get moving.

I feel dissociated from the world, like I'm hovering above watching everything happen but not participating. I go through the motions of daily life pretty well, but my brain is always elsewhere. Where it is? Hard to say. It's non-specific. Almost in a fog or something.

It comes and goes, sometimes by the minute. One minute I'll be doing pretty well, focused on work, or Jenna, or cooking dinner. The next minute - BOOM. There it is again. The racing pulse, the pounding heart, and the sheer terror.

I seem to need to constantly talk about it. With anyone who is unfortunate enough to have more than a 10 minute conversation with me. Poor DH takes the brunt of this - which is really, really hard for him. He doesn't know how to help me, and usually I end up getting upset because I feel like he's not supporting me. But he doesn't want to support my irrationality - so instead he kind of shuts down. I desperately want reassurance from people, but even when I get it, it doesn't make me feel much better.

So, clearly, I need to take action. The good news is that I like to take action. I am capable of lots and lots of action. In fact, sometimes I'm guilty of too much action. Here's what my action looks like thus far:

I have a "peace of mind" ultrasound scheduled for tomorrow morning at 11am. I have all kinds of crazy mixed-up feelings about this. Part of me feels ashamed that I feel the need to go to this extent to reassure myself that I am FINE, despite being told as much 2 days ago from my doctor. Part of me worries that I will become addicted to breast ultrasounds and feel the need for them several times a year for the rest of time. Part of me worries that something will be found on the ultrasound. And that it will be cancer. And that all my obsessive worrying caused it.

Did you hear that?

I worry that my worrying will cause me to get cancer.

That is important. That is the key. That is what I need to work on.

I know where it came from. I watched it come true for my mother. I watched my mother worry about getting cancer her entire adult life, and then I watched her get cancer and die.

That is some powerful stuff. I had no idea how much power that distorted belief holds buried deep inside my being.

Henceforth, action item #2 will begin on June 3. Intensive counseling with a new therapist who specializes in grief and loss issues. I could spend another hour writing about how I believe my anxiety around death and leaving Jenna motherless stems from my own issues surrounding my mothers death and my guilt about not being able to provide Jenna with a sibling to help her cope with my aforementioned death -- but I don't have another hour, so I'll save it for another time when I better understand it. Hopefully that will happen in therapy.

Action item #3 involves some form of medication to help me get past this current hurdle. (Did I say hurdle? Silly me. I meant LARGE MOUNTAIN.) I was hoping my obgyn would write me out a script, but she didn't bite, so I'll have to be a bit more proactive. I'm hoping for some Xanax to get me through these next couple weeks, and then a handy SSRI to help with the long haul. I've been on an SSRI once before in my life, and it helped immensely.

Action item #4 -- explore alternative healing strategies. Since I don't want to be on meds for the rest of my life, and I do have a general belief in the mind-body connection, I'm down with alternative medicine. Things I'd like to experiment with over the next few months/years include acupuncture, EFT, dream work, meditation and possibly some kind of healing touch/Reiki work.

I prematurely embarked on some dream work last weekend when I attended a dream workshop with a friend. It was intense. I had the same experience I always have when I do anything spiritually powerful - I cried the entire time. I had 5 dreams during the one night of the retreat and I documented all of them. I want to analyze them more. They are all so incredible! Interestingly, I haven't remembered a single dream since.

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It's taken me 2 hours to write this post. It feels good to get it out. I know I've got work to do, but I also know I have the tools to do the work. And that it will all be okay. In the end, it always is.