Finding Purpose Amid Health Challenges
- Singer-songwriter Avril Lavigne, 39, recounts her emotional struggle with Lyme disease roughly a decade ago. The experience that began with night sweats and flu-like symptoms left her bedridden for months, affecting her physically and emotionally. After she recovered, she became an advocate for Lyme disease through her foundation.
- Lyme disease impacts people bitten by infected black-legged ticks. Typical symptoms include fever, headache, fatigue, and a characteristic skin rash called erythema migraines. If left untreated, an infection can spread to joints, the heart, and the nervous system.
- When it comes to dealing with anxiety, psychologist Dr. Marianna Strongin says it’s important to have a healthy relationship with your anxiety and get to know it rather than fear it, avoid it, or push it away. Also, relying on your support group can help, too.
- Certain triggers like stress, traumatic events, or changes in your physical health can affect your mental health. For cancer patients, a diagnosis undoubtedly impacts their mental health.
- Genetic testing can help determine the best course of mental health treatment for people struggling with anxiety and depression. The test can give doctors a profile of how a person will likely respond to different psychiatric medications.
Singer Avril Lavigne, 39, once worried Lyme disease would impact her singing ability. She recounts a traumatizing time in her life at the height of her career, where her diagnosis left her bedridden for months.
Lyme disease impacts people bitten by infected black-legged ticks. If left untreated, an infection can spread to joints, the heart, and the nervous system.
She described 2014 and 2015 as “the worst years” of her life physically and emotionally.
“I had accepted (my mortality) and could feel my body shutting down. I felt like I was drowning. Like I was going underwater, and I just needed to come up for air. Like I was in a river being pulled in a current. Unable to breathe,” Lavigne said, according to Hello Magazine.
To help her recover, she relied on antibiotics and lots of rest. Her Lyme disease journey inspired her 2019 album.
Years later when fellow singer Justin Bieber, 29, was diagnosed with Lyme disease. Lavigne took to social media to express her support.
“To everyone affected by Lyme, I want to tell you that there is HOPE. Because Lyme is a daily struggle, for the better part of two years, I was really sick and fighting for my life. Writing #HeadAboveWater helped me through the worst of it, but the bad days still come and go,” Lavigne said.
The “My Happy Ending” singer’s Lyme disease diagnosis inspired her to launch the Avril Lavigne Foundation, which helps people diagnosed with Lyme disease and other severe illnesses and disabilities.
Expert Resources for Mental Health
- How to Be Realistically Optimistic: Coping With Mental Health Long-Term
- Mental Health and Cancer — The Fight, Flight or Freeze Response
- How to Handle the Emotional Toll of Caring for a Loved One With Cancer: Prioritizing Your Mental Health
- Mental Health: Coping With Feelings of Anger
- Mental Health and Cancer: New Survey Shows Over a Third of Patients Aren’t Getting the Support They Need
Lavigne indicated the significant impact Lyme disease had on her emotionally, and often, mental health doesn’t get as much attention as physical ailments after a diagnosis. Among cancer patients, this is also true. However, SurvivorNet continues to make strides in promoting patients’ physical and mental health while on their journeys.
For cancer patients, a diagnosis undoubtedly impacts their mental health. If you are diagnosed with cancer or other chronic disease, you should be mindful of your mental health because it can affect your overall prognosis.
RELATED: Psychologist Dr. Samantha Board discusses managing mental health long-term.
“For long-term mental health and living with cancer, flexibility is really at the core of how to manage long-term mental health,” says New York-based psychologist Dr. Samantha Boardman.
Dr. Boardman suggests asking yourself questions about how you deal with stressful situations to see if they’re working or need adjusting.
“Are your coping strategies in the way that you’re using them now? Are they as effective as they were in the past? Take a look at your beliefs. Do you have any fixed beliefs that are counterproductive and are impeding you from taking positive steps?” Dr. Boardman said.
To keep your mental health in check, it’s important to be aware of subtle signs that something is affecting your mind. These signs include:
- A change in eating or sleeping habits
- Losing interest in people or usual activities
- Experiencing little or no energy
- Numb and/or hopeless feelings
- Turning to drink or drugs more than usual
- Non-typical angry, upset, or on-edge feelings
- Yelling/fighting with loved ones
- Experiencing mood swings
- Intrusive thoughts
- Trouble getting through daily tasks
If you struggle in any of these areas, talk to your doctor or a mental health professional to begin your emotional journey alongside your other cancer treatment.
“Depression and stress make it harder to treat cancer [and] make it harder to tolerate the treatments,” Dr. Scott Irwin, director of supportive care services at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, previously told SurvivorNet.
“There’s data that if you have extra stress or depression that you may not recover or you have a higher risk of recurrence, so in treating the depression, we’re actually impacting the cancer care outcomes,” Dr. Irwin added.
WATCH: Understanding genetic testing and its connection to mental health.
How to Maintain Good Mental Health
Psychologist Dr. Marianna Strongin shared some simple tips to help maintain good mental health and healthily reduce stress.
When dealing with anxiety, Dr. Strongin said it’s important to have a healthy relationship with these feelings and get to know them rather than fear them, avoid them, or push them away.
“By learning more about your anxious thoughts and tendencies, one can begin to answer their anxious thoughts even in moments when there aren’t any answers. For cancer patients, the worried thoughts tend to be, “Will I survive?” It’s important to let those thoughts come in and be able to tolerate them before answering them. This is a very powerful coping skill,” Dr. Strongin explained.
Questions to Ask Your Doctor
If you find yourself struggling with a diagnosis or helping a loved one cope with their emotions, consider asking your doctor the following questions:
- How can I go about improving my outlook/mental health?
- Are there any activities I can do to encourage positive feelings?
- When should I seek other interventions if I’m still struggling?
- What are the steps to finding a different therapist if the one I’m using is not working out?
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