#191 Mental Health Without Shame

Finding yourself on this side of a breast cancer diagnosis is not easy.

It’s not something you expect to happen in your life and it’s not something you expect to have long-lasting repercussions.

Yet, it does.

The trauma of treatment and survival and the unsettling space of adjusting to life after treatment can have a powerful emotional toll.

So why is it so hard for women to reach out for help?

Why do we think there’s something wrong or shameful about treating our emotional illness but not our physical illness?

Depression and anxiety are common occurrences after breast cancer, and no one should have to go through them alone or feel ashamed of getting support.

In this episode, I’ll share some insights on the importance of valuing your mental health and treating yourself with grace and compassion when you need extra support.

No one goes through breast cancer alone and no one should struggle with the aftermath alone.

Mentioned in this episode:

The 4 Pillars of Breast Cancer Recovery

Depression and Anxiety in Breast Cancer Patients

Read the full transcript below:

Laura Lummer 0:00
You're listening to the breast cancer recovery coach podcast. I'm your host, Laura Lummer. I'm a Certified Life health and nutrition coach, and I'm also a breast cancer thriver. If you're trying to figure out how to move past the trauma and the emotional toll of breast cancer, you've come to the right place. In this podcast, I will give you the tools and the insights to create a life that's even better than before breast cancer. Well, let's get started.

Laura Lummer 0:33
Hello, Hello, friends. Welcome to another episode of the breast cancer recovery coach podcast. I'm your host, Laura Lummer. As always, I am really thrilled to be here today. I just want to start the show off today with a reminder that if you haven't done so yet, you can go to my website and download the four pillars of breast cancer recovery. It is my video series, it is four simple pillars that I use as the foundation for getting back to life after breast cancer for creating a better life after breast cancer. And it starts off with something that I think is really important and pertinent to what we're going to talk about here today. The first pillar of breast cancer recovery in that series is release. And it is so important for us to be able to notice the things in life the thoughts we have from the previous experiences we've been through, including cancer and cancer treatment, but so many other things, in relationships, in business and in life, that we have to understand how to let go of so that we can create space in our mind, and in our life, to renew ourselves in our life, which is the second pillar renewal, to renew ourselves in our life with healthier patterns of thinking, healthier feelings, healthier behaviors and better results. So you can go to the breast cancer recovery coach.com, it's right on the front page and download the four pillars of breast cancer recovery. Or you can go to the breast cancer recovery coach.com and click on Resources and you will find that download the video series along with other downloads and resources to support you. Because when it comes down to it, honestly, recovering from breast cancer creating a life that's better than before breast cancer, as so many people who start to work with me and coach with me say it's not about breast cancer. It's about the way we think about life. It is about the way we want to feel, and how we have to learn to think in different ways to be able to feel that way to take the actions we want to take in life and create the results. We want to live those results that truly are a life that's better than before breast cancer. So go to the website, the Resources section, and the four pillars of breast cancer recovery. It's all free, and very, very valuable stuff there. With each video, there is an exercise you can do for yourself to kind of look at things you're thinking right now and how they're affecting you in your life. I hope you enjoy it. All right. It is the month of May. And me has an significance beyond Mother's Day beyond me actually becoming a mother in May, my oldest son was born on May 6, but May is Mental Health Awareness Month. And I think that is a very important thing to address. Because there's something I hear all the time I see it in the breast cancer recovery group posts. I hear it from people who come to me for coaching. And it is, hey, the emotional toll and the emotional pain is so much worse than the physical pain. And I know that to be true. I know the emotional pain and struggle I went through with my breast cancer treatment. I know when you have a recurrence what happens I get it. And the sad thing is not that we go through this emotional pain, although Yeah, of course that's sad. But the really sad thing is so many women, the most common response that I see is I shouldn't be able to deal with those people saying to themselves, I shouldn't need to get support, I should be able to figure this out on my own. Honestly, that to me is like saying, I should be able to figure out how to treat my cancer by myself. Like what is happening there when in our brains. We decide that treating the physical body can be handled with urgency, that there's no shame in reaching out for help when something is wrong with our physical body. When something serious Something wrong with it like a cancer diagnosis. The first thing we do is how do you get this out of me? First thing we say, right? Where's the medication, where's the surgery? What do I have to do, and we do some drastic, toxic, awful things. But we do it to save our lives because we believe that's how you treat cancer. And yet, when another organ of the body, our brain isn't working correctly, something's going on, the chemicals are out of balance, the way we're thinking is not functioning is not serving us. And there's a difference there between needing to do thought work, needing support and help in switching up your thoughts and being able to have a different and healthier perspective on life. And being in a place where you actually need medical help, and professional medical, mental health care, to even get yourself to the place where you're capable, and have the capacity of being able to manage your own thoughts. There's truly some times if your brain isn't working, the way that it needs to work, if it needs some medication, and it needs some help and support to get there. There are those times when no matter how hard you try, you're not going to see past it because you don't have the capacity in that moment. Now, depression hat is something that's had a long, deep thread through my family. And you know, growing up, I'm 58 years old. So depression wasn't something that was really talked about when I was growing up. My mom, she suffered horribly from postpartum depression. But that wasn't something that was talked about. I remember many, many years, you know, there's six kids, and the first four of us are all 13 to 15 months apart. So she had four children under the age of four. And then she had two more live verse after that in three more miscarriages. That takes a big toll, she went through a lot. And I remember with the birth of my youngest sibling, which I can remember, we're nine years apart. And I can remember so many, I don't even know if it was years or months, but I just remember my mom crying and crying. And I remember her emotional breakdowns. And, you know, nobody talked about it. And there was no support available to her. I've talked about this before on webinars, you know, we didn't know. And there was this shame, right? It's like, for some reason, your brain should be strong enough, like whatever choices you make in life, you should just be able to deal with it. Whatever comes to life, you should be able to deal with it. And that's just not true. My dad dealt with depression, I have siblings that deal with depression. I have a child that deals with depression. And it is scary. It is a dark place. I feel emotional, just talking about it. Because remembering some of the incidents and experiences I've had with my with my son, and it's very, very frightening. But when he gets the help that he needs, which he's great about that, and he's doing really great now. It's amazing, right? It is a different person. And it is truly the difference between I mean having an infection with no antibiotics, having an infection with antibiotics, right, you get a Z Pak, you're better and a couple of days, a lot of times medication can make that difference. And I I'm focusing on this, not just because it's mental health awareness month, but because depression is very common in women after breast cancer, it is an emotional trauma. What I do, I mean, I'm a health coach, I'm a nutrition coach, but I'm a life coach. And then I've all three of those and studied all three of those and certified and I'm degrees and all three of those for a reason. Because they're dealt with differently. Because I could give you an exercise plan, I can give you a nutrition plan. But until you learn how to think about yourself in a healthy way, you'll never be able to stick to those things. Until your brain is in a place where it can function really well. It's going to be very challenging to manage life on your own. So it's not something that we just take for granted. Like we should just be able to handle this we should just be able to do this. Most people can't. It's really interesting because more people deal with and struggle with you know, these emotions are during life and obviously after breast cancer definitely. Then people who don't so I don't even know where we get this idea that people don't go through these struggles because I don't know a single person who doesn't go through emotional struggle. I don't know, a single person who doesn't go to some very dark places in their life who has some really tough emotional moments in their life or emotional months or emotional years. So, it's so interesting that we tell ourselves that we shouldn't have to be like that, or we don't need support when we're in that place. And I really believe that it goes back to our grandparents, our grandmothers, our great grandmother's. I mean, when we say Bootstrap, it put on your big girl panties like this was no joke. These women in that time in the world they were in had a lot to deal with, they did not have many of the modern conveniences, they certainly didn't have access to the support that we have. I giggle right now because I think like, if I would if my grandpa were still here, and I was like, Yeah, Grandpa, you know, I help. I'm a life coach, I help people become more aware of the results that their thoughts are creating in their life.

Laura Lummer 10:55
Like, what the hell are you talking about? Right? Because it wasn't the mentality. And sadly, that's been passed on to us. So even in as I shared a moment ago, when dealing with my son, when he was struggling with depression, he was able to get on medication, thank God, it was able to regulate what was happening in his brain, thank God. And it was also a temporary thing for him, he needed medical support for a short period of time. And then he was able to move past that very challenging part of his life and manage himself and do other things that suited him in his life, to manage his emotions, and to restore his wellness. But when he got on those medications, I was so grateful and so thankful that they existed, because because I could have lost my son. And there is no shame in someone reaching out to save their life because they need mental support. And I want you to hear this, I want to say this on the podcast, because I know there are people listening to this show now that need help. I know you are in mental and emotional pain. And I believe from what I've seen, from my experience that you pile on that to that emotional pain, you pile on shame, and guilt, and self judgment and pressure. And please hear me when I say you need to love yourself, you need to create some space in your life and open up to receiving support and guidance. There is nothing wrong with supporting mental health. I was reading this study, and I'll post the link to it in the show notes for this episode, which you can find at the breast cancer recovery. coach.com forward slash 191. This study was it's looking at many different studies of depression and anxiety and breast cancer survivors. But one of the statistics was that more than 30% of women diagnosed with breast cancer suffer from depression in that first year after diagnosis and treatment. And that women who have a recurrence more than 40% suffer from depression, and many of them depression and anxiety at the same time. Now it's referred to as mild depression. In as I was saying, with my son, right, he struggled the words with depression during the pandemic, when he was locked down. He was a senior in college, he had those pressures that college students have to get everything done and also to wonder what they're going to do when they graduate from college. And you have to make their way out in the world. And all that was going on with all of the civil unrest and the pandemic and the lockdown and the political craziness, right, all of that. And so he needed extra support, and it was temporary. And that is the case with many women going through breast cancer. And it is the case with many of us after a diagnosis and during treatment. But for some that isn't for some it's more severe. For some it's moderate. For some it's mild for some it's severe, and it doesn't matter. You don't have to go through it on your own. No matter if it's mild or moderate or severe. It's depression. And would you ever say to somebody who had the flu or who had an infection or who had cancer? Oh, you only have stage one cancer so you don't really need treatment? Of course not. We would never do something like that. So if you have mild mental health needs, you still have mental health needs. And I just cannot impress a new enough that there are just fabulous support systems out there. There are so many great mental health professionals. There are coaches that you can go to to help you very quickly see some of those thoughts if you're suffering with something mild, and you know coaches and like myself, there are people who have come to me that I have had to say I am refer them on to a licensed mental health professional, because I see that what they're struggling with is something beyond the scope of my practice as a life coach. So I was reading something the other day, I'm sure you heard about the death of Naomi Judd and I was reading an article where her daughter, Ashley was talking about her. And apparently, she was going to be inducted into the Hall of Fame. And I wanted to share what I read here in this article, because I thought this was such a profound statement. She said, Our mother couldn't hang on until she was inducted into the Hall of Fame by her peers. She said, that is the level of catastrophe of what was going on inside of her, because of the barrier between the regard in which they held her couldn't penetrate her heart. And the lie, the disease told her was so convincing. And when I read that, I thought, Yes, I mean, I see that just in the coaching idea, right, our brain is telling us things so many times that are not true. And teaching people how to use that skill of looking at what is actually true. And then what their thoughts are about what is true. That's a life changing skill. That's what I do in coaching, right, and it changes people's lives, I see it all the time, but to to be able to see that to be able to see the facts as they are in life and to be able to observe your own thoughts, to be able to understand that you have the capacity to choose your thoughts so that you can be deliberate and intentional in the way you decide to think about yourself that someplace do you have to be in a healthier state of mind to get to being in that place where you're able to see it requires a mind that has the capacity to absorb it. And like she says here that the disease, the lie, the disease told her was so convincing, and that it couldn't penetrate her heart, her thoughts, the love from other people couldn't penetrate their heart, her heart. And I see that so often, in survivors who just are not capable, or think that they shouldn't, or think that it's bad, or they should be stronger, and they don't open themselves to the support of their loved ones. They don't feel the love. And they're in this place where their brain is on your you screwed up, you failed, you're not good enough, you shouldn't have let this happen to you. It's your fault. Now look at you, you're not pretty, you're not sexy, you're causing worry to all of these people, I mean, horrible, horrible stories that we tell ourselves. And if you're already suffering from mild depression, and then talking to yourself like that, buying into those kinds of thought patterns, trust me, it will only make things worse. So for me, it was such an important thing to be able to talk about this on the show. And to bring some attention to the importance of mental health to the awareness of mental health. And to the understanding that there is no shame in this. There is no it should be it's not like my body should be able to go to the end of life without ever having a disease of any kind. I mean, that's just an unrealistic expectation. It's awesome, if it happens is wonderful if it happens, but it's an unrealistic expectation. Bodies are biological things and they're susceptible to disease and to virus and to bacteria and things happen. And our brain is an organ. And that organ can need help, it can also get sick. And so being able to embrace that, and especially after experiencing a trauma as you have because you have heard the words you have cancer, that is a trauma. That is saying you have something inside of you, that can kill you. If we don't treat it that is scary. It is traumatic. And it's okay to say that is totally okay. It doesn't make you a victim. It makes you a human being who's had a very frightening experience. And when that experience is frightening enough for many of us, it can alter the way that our brain functions and it can result in tremendous emotional pain and struggle.

Laura Lummer 19:49
So I want you to know, you do not have to go through that alone. I want you to know that you are loved you have the right To be loved, and there's nothing wrong or broken or weak about you. If you feel you need some support for your emotional pain, for your mental health, and I'm here, if you feel like I need to talk to somebody to help me work through this, I need to do some work on myself, I need to look at the way my brain is thinking I need to learn how to see the way that I'm thinking is affecting my life and understand what I can do to change that. You can find me at the breast cancer recovery coach.com Because there's nothing I love more than supporting and empowering other survivors to be able to know that they're in charge of their life and their wellness. So take care of yourself, my friend, love yourself and don't buy into the crazy ideas that our brains so often toss up of shame and guilt and imperfection and brokenness. It is just not true. All right, I will talk to you again next week and until then, Please be good to yourself. You deserve it. Courage to

Speaker 2 21:13
the test laid all your doubts. Your mind is clearer than before your heart is full and wanting more your futures Give it all you know you've been waiting on