Episode Overview

Did you know that up to 90% of breast cancer survivors experience PTSD symptoms after diagnosis? Many women struggle with anxiety, emotional numbness, and hypervigilance long after treatment ends—but they often feel like they should be “over it” by now.

In today’s episode of Better Than Before Breast Cancer, I’m diving deep into:
✅ How common PTSD is after breast cancer (with real statistics and research)
✅ The hidden ways PTSD impacts your daily life, relationships, and physical health
✅ Why women resist emotional support and think they should "just handle it" alone
✅ How seeking help can actually improve both PTSD symptoms and long-term health
✅ Where to find professional, peer, and holistic support options

If you’ve ever felt overwhelmed, disconnected, or like you “should be doing better” after breast cancer, this episode is for you. You don’t have to figure this out alone. Healing is possible, and support is available.

Resources & Support Mentioned in This Episode:

🔹 Find a CBT or EMDR Therapist
🔹 Palouse Mindfulness (Free Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction)
🔹 Better Than Before Breast Cancer™ Life Coaching Membership

More Ways to Connect & Get Support:

💌 Join my email list for weekly wellness tips & podcast updates → The Breast Cancer Recovery Coach
👩‍💻 Follow me on Instagram for daily inspiration → @thebreastcancerrecoverycoach
🎙 Subscribe & leave a review on Apple Podcasts → Better Than Before Breast Cancer with The Breast Cancer Recovery Coach

If this episode resonated with you, please share it with another survivor who needs to hear this message. Your healing matters. 💗

Read the full transcript:

0:00
You're listening to better than before breast cancer with the breast cancer recovery coach, I'm your host, Laura Lummer. I'm a certified life coach, and I'm a breast cancer thriver. In this podcast, I will give you the skills on the insides and the tools to move past the emotional and physical trauma of a breast cancer diagnosis if you're looking for a way to create a life that's even better than before breast cancer, you've come to the right place. Let's get started. Hey, friends, welcome back to another episode of Better than before breast cancer. This is episode 402 and I'm your host, Laura Lummer, and today we're going to talk about something that has just been coming up a lot and and it affects our breast cancer community, but, gosh, I think it just affects all people in so many areas of life. And I want to talk about PTSD, Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, what that means to us as human beings and as breast cancer survivors, and especially after a diagnosis, you know, the emotional piece of cancer, cancer recovery, healing. God, I think just life in general is so powerful and so there's just so much shade around it, you know, shame, guilt, self judgment, and it's so important that we talk about it. It's so important that we bring this out into the open for ourselves and for each other, right? If we can come to a safe place, find a community that gets it, that understands it's so healing. And I'm going to talk about why and how that helps us to heal. What Post Traumatic Stress Disorder is, and what post traumatic stress symptoms are, and how much of this population, how many of us, are impacted like that. I think it is. You know, I was doing some research the other day on something, and this PTSD statistic when it came to breast cancer survivors, came up, and I was just blown away at how many suffer from this. And it's not surprising, because I see it often in women that I coach and I we're going to talk about, why, like, why do we hesitate to reach out for support. Why do we not recognize sometimes, these symptoms that are happening to us for what they actually are? You know, you think about, of course, when you get a diagnosis in that moment, at a time of diagnosis, that, of course, it's traumatizing, but I think you're going to be surprised to hear how long these symptoms impact us and how powerful they can be. These psychological effects of a trauma like breast cancer can linger for months and years. They show up as anxiety, hyper vigilance, like overly focusing on every little thing, on on on toxins, on nutrition, on all the things. And I hear this all the time, I'm doing all the things. I'm doing all the things. So this blood test better show up this way, and that creates a lot of anxiety. We can it can show up as emotional numbness, or it can show up as a full blown PTSD. It can grow into depression, already mentioned, anxiety, and so I want to talk about it, because I see a lot of this. I see so many women struggle to support themselves, to recognize what they're going through, to hold space for it, to honor it, and to just allow themselves to get the support they need, and allow themselves to recognize that there's nothing wrong with them, because we've been through a trauma, and the trauma extends. You know, there's big T traumas and little T traumas. I think a breast cancer diagnosis is a big T trauma, but we can compound that, because life is hard, right? Lots of times struggles come up, and we have to be able to look at what we're struggling with in life, why we're struggling with it, what traumatic episodes we've been through, and kind of, I think about it a little bit in the same way as I think about toxic burden from chemical exposures, right? We have like this trauma burden, and the trauma burden builds up. So if there's just little things that have happened throughout our lives, lots of times we try to dismiss it, and we say, oh, man, so many people have it worse than I do. And I like to tell people it's like, we cannot go into comparison mode when it comes to suffering. If you're suffering, your suffering is real and it's painful and it sucks and you can't and I hope that you won't dismiss it by comparing it to the severity of someone of your perception of someone else's struggle, right? So whether our our trauma comes through financial issues, relationship issues, worries about. Children, job, stress, all of these things, they add up. They add up. They add up if we don't let ourselves find the support we need. Recognize that it's difficult, understand that it requires cognitive skills, abilities to cope with these different things and to actually process them and not stuff them right. We want to stop stuffing. We want to stop saying, I got this put on my big girl panties and go forward. You know, maybe putting on your big girl panties is the ability to hold space for all of the emotions. Maybe being strong is deciding to allow yourself to be vulnerable and to just hold that space and say I am a human being, which means I am an emotional creature, and I am experiencing this, and there's no judgment there. I just am. This is what I'm feeling. This is what I'm going through, and I'm not sure what to do with it. It's okay. There's nothing wrong with that. Way worse to say I shouldn't feel like this. I shouldn't recognize that I shouldn't be there. I should be past this by now. So why I want to talk about this is that it's so common. Let me give you some statistics that I found in a study from Columbia University. They found that 23% of women reported PTSD symptoms within the first two to three months after their diagnosis. That probably makes total sense, right? Shocking, of course, we understand that. Then another study published in Nature found 20% of women experienced severe post traumatic stress symptoms three months after surgery. And then listen to this research published in E cancer found that more than 90% of patients experienced some level of post traumatic stress after their cancer diagnosis, 90% and 14% of those showed severe symptoms lasting For years. Okay, these numbers are staggering, and yet, PTSD after breast cancer isn't something that's really talked about enough. I don't think so. I'm going to break it down for you today. Let's be really real about this. How does PTSD impact our lives? Why do we resist? Why do women resist getting the support they need? And most importantly, how getting support, how seeking support, can actually improve both your mental and physical health, because they're not separate. They go together. I say this all the time, they go together. If we have an unhealthy gut, we're going to have an unhealthy mental state, right? Wellness is a whole thing. We call it holistic, right? A holistic approach to wellness doesn't leave out anything. It looks at all the things, all the parts of the body, the body, the mind, the spirit, all of the things. And it takes into consideration all of the tools, standard of care tools, pharmaceutical tools, natural tools, all the things, right, anything you need to support yourself. So let's talk about how PTSD can show up in daily life. Feelings like, I should be over it. I know, and yet you know

8:17
you're struggling with anxiety, intrusive thoughts, like thoughts running I hear this from clients all the time, my brain is just so full of thoughts I just I can't find any peace, and so we turn to things to distract us from all of these thoughts that are just running around in our head. Then we're judging them and we're forecasting them into our future, which increases anxiety even more, and can actually lead to a lot of emotional burnout, and then we end up with depression. We could have a sense of numbness. Have you ever felt a sense of numbness like and I have had people come to me and say this, I don't cry. I don't know how to cry. Okay, let me tell you that that right there is a sense of numbness. That's an emotional numbing, and I compare that to overwhelm, right? When our emotions when we're numb, it's not like we are incapable of feeling I say we're feeling so much that it's too much, and we just kind of go numb, right? Here's how PTSD can affect you after breast cancer, it can lead to feelings of anxiousness, irritability, mood swings. Do you have those? Do you ever think that's related to the trauma you've been through? Or do you think it's menopause, right? It's hormonal. Some women feel very disconnected from their emotions altogether. I work with a tool called the model which I was trained in when I went to Life Coach School, training at the Life Coach School. And in that, one of the lines we look at what circumstances are in life, because circumstances are all neutral. And so we look at our thoughts around even thinking about circumstances being neutral. We so it's circumstances thoughts. Feelings. And a lot of times when we get to that feeling line, and I say, how does that thought make you feel? It is not uncommon for me to hear, I don't really know, right? And the stories begin, well, I do this and I do that, but it's so hard sometimes for people to just allow their feelings to be there, connect to them, and just even be able to label them and name them. This is what I'm feeling so that that kind of emotional numbness can be a symptom. It can affect your sleep and your energy. Insomnia, nightmares, chronic fatigue. These are all common symptoms of PTSD and poor sleep, as we well know, impacts healing and our overall well being completely it has a huge impact on us. PTSD can affect your ability to move forward, right? I in my membership better than before breast cancer. And everything I do and everything I coach on is creating a life you love, creating a life you want. But sometimes, if we are not conscious of what's happening in our emotions, we we don't move forward. Right? PTSD can keep you in a state of this hyper vigilance, where your energy, your thoughts, everything, all of your intentions, go into cancer, right? We think we want to heal. We think we want to create a healthy lifestyle, but what we're thinking about all the time is, what this give me cancer? Will this reduce my risk of cancer? And it's just this, this hyper state of vigilance when it comes to anything that you think could influence cancer in some way, so it makes it hard for you to feel safe in your own body. It makes it hard for you to trust that your health is stable, even when you know scientific evidence has been presented to you through scans and blood work and all the things that can show you. Hey, you have no evidence of disease, and yet, I see this all the time, that some of my clients, they just can't embrace, that they're very, very stuck. Is this related to the trauma? This is kind of like that hyper vigilance. I don't want to let my guard down. I don't want to embrace what doctors have told me and shown me actual pictures of and said, Look, there's no metabolic activity of cancer in your body. Look, your blood shows nothing. Look, you're all good. It's very difficult for some women to embrace that and to celebrate it, because they don't want to let their guard down and think, I'll miss something. And what happens is, then they're just so focused on everything and anything that might have to do with cancer, cancer risk or cancer recurrence, that they don't allow joy into their life. So this can lead to a lot of just self sabotage when it comes to joy, right? So maintaining a healthy lifestyle being and I would say it makes it difficult to maintain a healthy lifestyle from a joyful perspective, right? So hyper vigilance is denying everything to yourself, like the word discipline, right? Discipline, discipline, discipline. But it's not discipline from joy. It's not going into a fasted state because you believe that this is a good thing for you, and you feel good energy when you go into it and you love that this is a tool available to help cleanse and rebuild the immune system, right? It's going into a fasted state for this amount of hours because I was told this is what it will do, and I'm miserable and I hate it, and I'm doing it anyway, right? That's two very different experiences. And what's really important to understand, again, I'm going to say I don't think I can say this enough is emotional trauma affects physical healing, chronic stress, PTSD symptoms, they increase inflammation, they weaken the immune system, they disrupt our hormone balance. And studies have even shown that women with high levels of emotional distress have a higher risk of recurrence. So it's this weird, crazy, cyclical thing, right? I'm afraid of getting cancer, so I'm hyper vigilant about getting cancer, and then that causes me to be stressed out, then that increases my risk of cancer.

14:15
Happiness heals. Joy heals. Loving life improves your quality of life. And when I say heals, it's not like, Oh, I'm going to be out happy one day and I'm healed the next day. You know what I mean? It contributes to better outcomes when we invite joy and live a joyful life. Okay, so do you have post traumatic stress symptoms? Have you ever wondered, why do I still feel like this. Why can't I just move on? Do you judge yourself for it? Because it's not because you're weak. Is because trauma leaves an imprint in your mind and your body, and healing takes time and energy and intention and effort and so. If PTSD is this common, if 90% of women diagnosed with breast cancer in a study show that they have had some kind of PTSD symptoms, why don't we talk about this more? Why don't we seek more help for this? Why do so many women feel like they've got to figure this out on their own? You know, in my better than before breast cancer membership, I'll often have people call or book a call or a consultation or Q A or send me email, and they will say over and over, I just, I just don't do the group thing, you know? I just don't want my talk about my personal life. I just don't want to share what I've been through. And that, in and of itself, we have to question, why do we feel like that? Why do we feel like we have to do this on our own now, looking for a safe space where you can be vulnerable and you can express yourself, where space is being held for you, and it's not just a bitch session, but it's designed so that you can process these thoughts to be able to move forward in your life. That's that's a good thing to focus on, right? We want to make sure that when we look for support, we find that environment that helps us feel like we're moving forward in life, not being stuck and just complaining about what is happening, but also holding space to express what is happening, right? There's a difference. There's a difference between saying, This is what I'm doing, and this is what I'm feeling, and you know, this isn't where I want to be, and then just being stuck there, right when we're trying to put intention into processing it, working through it, figuring it out, so that we can release it, first pillar, breast cancer recovery, release it, releasing those thoughts, emotions, that stories, that keep us stuck, so that we can do the things to support and renew ourselves, right? So why do we feel like we have to push through it? Why do we feel like we've got to get back to normal as soon as possible? I hate that saying, and you know that if you listen to this podcast with an irregularity, you know I feel like that. I think there's also in women, this story and in society, this pressure to be grateful, right? We hear you should just be happy you survived. So then, when we struggle emotionally, we feel guilty. We tell ourselves, other people have it worse. We go back into that comparison. We say, I'm weak. I should be stronger, and it's bullshit. Okay. We have this fear of burdening others if I express myself, I don't want them to worry about me. Guys, that's why we're in relationships. What do we want from relationships? Support, caring, joy, connection, if we're not willing to allow ourselves to express what is real and where we're at and if we choose the thought, if I share where I'm at, if I share what I'm experiencing, I'm a burden. Why would we choose that thought? Why would you choose that thought? If I express what I'm feeling and what I'm going through to get support from this person I love, it's a gift for them to be able to be there for you, right? Do you know how difficult it is think about someone you love in your life, and when you know they're going through something challenging, you can see, you can tell you know this person. You know that they're worried or they're in fear, you know they're struggling. And every time you ask about like, that's fine, I'm good, right? It's all good. Or you do it yourself, right? People ask you, you know, and you know they know because they're asking you. They're like, I know something's wrong. I know I you don't see myself, right? Now, I'm fine. I'm fine. This is, this is complete disconnection, right? This is not serving anybody in any way. And when you love someone and they're in that position, and you go to them, what do you want? You want to support them. You want them to be open and honest with you. You want to help them in their healing and their processing, right? So why would we choose the thought I'm a burden to others? Just think about that. So we go through treatment, it can last months, it can last years, and then we get done with treatment, and now we've got to process all the trauma of treatment, and yet there's guilt that comes up because I hear the story all the time. They've already been there for me for all this time, I should be able to move forward now? Well, no, you shouldn't, because this is the process. We get this diagnosis, we go through this treatment. It's difficult, it's traumatizing, it's hard, and then it's not over, because it goes on for years. As you well know, the scans, the blood work, the the worry about recurrence, the medications, the aromatase inhibitors, the multiple surgeries to fix whatever didn't go right, and original surgeries right. It doesn't just end. And yet, we still hold on that story. I just don't want to ask for more. We don't want to really. We tell people we need more support. Why? Why do we put a deadline on that? Like, how much support Are we allowed to get? What's the cutoff is a year enough? Six months, two years. If we need support for 10 years, is that not allowed? Like, what is your story? How much support from the people you love is enough, and that's all you get. And

20:22
then there's some of us that just don't even realize that we're experiencing symptoms of PTSD, and we just think it's stress. We just think we can't handle things, and we just think we have to push through it. And I want to say to you again and again, in as many different ways as I can healing does not happen in isolation, and seeking support can help you. So let's talk about how it can help you, and what. How does seeking support actually make a difference? Well, studies have shown that women who engage in emotional healing, whether that's through therapy, support groups or mind body practices, actually experience lower stress levels, improved immune function and better physical recovery. Here's a couple of powerful ways to seek support, professional therapy, cognitive behavioral therapy. Cognitive behavioral therapy is a wonderful approach to just looking at the mind cognitive thinking, the way we think, right and the way we behave. The way we think influences the way we behave. So getting that support, getting that therapy, doing that work through some channel that helps you look at your thoughts and learn the skills and ability to reframe them. Very helpful. EMDR, eye movement desensitization and reprocessing. This is a super powerful process, and I have several clients who have done this, and it's just done wonders for them. And so I would put links in the show notes for this episode to some resources that you can check out for EMDR, cognitive behavioral support, support groups I've already mentioned, better than before breast cancer group, right? There's lots of groups out there. There's all kinds of nonprofit organizations. There's different you know, after breast cancer coaches popping up all over the place now, and it's wonderful. It's great connecting with other women who've been through breast cancer, is life changing if it's done in a healthy and constructive environment, right? So I think this is a very important thing, because I mentioned it a little while ago, a few minutes ago, that I'll have women come to me and say, just like, yeah, not the group thing, or Yeah, I don't come to the they'll join my membership and watch the recordings of everything but not show up in the live group calls, right? And it's interesting, because when they finally decide to try it, I have never yet heard someone who hasn't said I felt a lot better after that, or even if they never spoke during the call that they heard something, they say, Wow, that was really powerful. That helped me to shift, that helped me to see that I'm going through that too, right? So it can be really powerful when you find the right support group that resonates with you, and again, is constructive, right mind, body healing. Yoga, trauma sensitive. Yoga, mindfulness, breath work, mindfulness, stress reduction practices, journaling, self reflection, getting things out of your head. I often will share this with my clients that it's, you know, I'm a huge Harry Potter fan, and there's that episode where Dumbledore, just like pulls thoughts out there, these wispy little things. And I think about that energy of thoughts in our head, and when we pull them out and we put them on a piece of paper, and we make them tangible, and we can see it, and even if we just set aside five minutes to get thoughts out of our head and on a piece of paper, we can acknowledge that this is true. This is what I'm thinking. This is true. This is what I'm feeling, and it can have a huge impact for you. So if you're listening to this and you're thinking, I know I need support, but I don't know where to start, take a small step. Do one of the things that I just mentioned, start to have a journal. Now I hear this is not uncommon for me, to hear people are afraid to journal, because if they're honest with themselves about what they're thinking and feeling, they're afraid someone else will come across it. If that's you, know that you can write things down. The exercise is equally as effective. You can write it down. You can get out of your head, and then you can shred it. You can burn it. You can throw it in the trash can. Okay, if you're not comfortable leaving something around that's your wrong, vulnerable thoughts. Write them down and get the relief, and then get rid of it. Okay, reach out to a friend, check out a group coaching session, just even a small step towards that healing is just to acknowledge. Knowledge that you deserve healing. It's to acknowledge you deserve support, and support can improve your physical health in so many ways. All right, I want to leave you with this thought, healing is not just about being cancer free. And you know, there's evidence of that that I shared a few minutes ago. When I have clients come to me who are cancer free and display no joy, can't allow themselves to embrace that, will not accept it mentally, just won't believe that it's true, and continue to just be caught up in this cycle of stress and fear. So if cancer free meant healing, I think people would be in a lot different mental state. But it's not just about the scientific evidence that there's no metabolic activity of cancer in a body. It is about reclaiming your life in a way that feels good, in a way that feels whole, in a way that feels joyful. It is about allowing yourself to completely be your authentic self, to be completely comfortable being you. No hiding. You don't have to hide who you are, what your desires are, what you want, what you're feeling, and you don't have to go through it alone. Connection is a big part of this. There's support out there, there's healing out there, and there's a life out there that is open for you to create it in any way you want a life out there. You know, again, we'll go back to what my favorite quote from nation winters you cannot get well in the same life you got sick in so there is opportunity to create a life that is better than before, a diagnosis of breast cancer, but you got to reach out, right? You have, how do you do that? If you don't know how, if you don't have the skills, if you've never had to make really or you've never chosen to make really big changes in your life and then deal with all the emotions and thoughts and consequences that come up as a result of that, right? It's not easy, and that's it. All the more reason for support, because it's not easy, right? When things aren't easy, having someone to talk to, getting words again, energy, expressing yourself, getting that out of your body is amazing. It does wonders. So if you're struggling, if you think you need support, and you're not reaching out to get it, I hope that this helps you to know there's nothing wrong with you. You're not alone, you're not broken, you're not weak, none of those self judgment labels are true. You've been through trauma. It's impacting you, and dealing with that is part of the healing process. All right, so give yourself enough love, enough compassion and enough space to get the help that you need. All right, friends, resources are going to be in the show notes, the breast cancer recovery coach, com, forward, slash, 402, you'll also find links right here where you're listening to this podcast or watching it on YouTube. And please subscribe and follow wherever it is that you're listening and know that it's not only okay, but encouraged to get the help you need so that you can live a joyful life. All right, friends, I'll talk to you again next week. Take care.