Dealing With Grief After Cancer
- WWE Wrestling Star Jade Cargill, 31, is coping with grief after her mom’s emotional battle with cancer. While details surrounding her mom’s cancer diagnosis remain private, the grief that emerges in its wake is often challenging for surviving loved ones.
- The grieving process comes in stages: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. These labels help us frame and identify what we may be feeling, and these stages can occur in any order.
- New York-based clinical psychologist Dr. Marianna Strongin says it may be helpful to remind yourself that these feelings are “meaningful yet temporary.”
If you approach them with compassion, kindness, and eventual acceptance, you will come away from this period with a renewed sense of resilience and purpose.
WWE wrestling megastar Jade Cargill, 31, is coping with the emotional aftermath of her mom’s cancer fight. Cargill shared a heartfelt Instagram post honoring her late mother. “You put up a good fight, Mom,” she wrote.
When a loved one is diagnosed with cancer, people closest to them join them on their journey. Sometimes, these valuable members of the cancer warrior’s support group must deal with grief, which has its own share of attached emotions. If you find yourself in this taxing headspace, giving yourself grace and time to grieve is important.
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Cargill recently signed with World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) after wrestling for a few years with All Elite Wrestling (AEW) and winning championships along the way. She previously told Muscle and Fitness Magazine that she’s been involved in sports all her life. Although the mother of one portrays pristine confidence and impenetrable power on-screen, she’s deeply impacted by her mother’s cancer journey. She is not alone if this unfortunate occurrence emerges.
Cargill’s journey through the many stages of grief after losing her mom to cancer is something so many people can relate to. Those supporting loved ones bravely battling cancer also traverse an emotional road.
SurvivorNet wants you to know everyone grieves differently.
Helping You Through Grief and Cancer
How to Cope After Losing a Loved One to Cancer
Grief is defined as the devastation that occurs when we lose someone. Grieving comes in five stages, commonly referred to as the “five stages of grief.”
The stages of grief are denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. These labels help us frame and identify what we may be feeling. These stages can occur in any order.
As you find yourself experiencing some of these stages, remember that the emotions you are feeling are meaningful but also temporary. If you approach them with compassion, kindness, and eventual acceptance, you will come away from this period with a renewed sense of resilience and purpose.
WATCH: Managing the stages of grief.
“Grief comes in waves,” says Dr. Scott Irwin, a psychiatrist and Director of Supportive Care Services at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center.
“They’re grieving the change in their life; the future they had imagined is now different.”
Some days can be tougher than others, but Dr. Irwin says talk therapy can be helpful. It’s important to reach out to your doctor, to a therapist, or to support groups in your community for the help you need.
SurvivorNet spoke with Megan Newcomer, who lost a close friend to metastatic cancer in 2018. She shared her unique way of coping with grief. Her friend was an athlete and soccer player, so to help her cope, she embarked on a marathon race in his honor.
Newcomer advises others grieving to first “acknowledge your feelings.”
“Then, think about a way that you could honor the person through a meaningful mechanism. So that can be artwork, music, or developing a financial fundraising project. It could be something very simple, but I do think having it be intentional, that this is what you’re doing to help honor this person,” Newcomer adds.
New York-based clinical psychologist Dr. Marianna Strongin says it may be helpful to remind yourself that these feelings are “meaningful yet temporary.”
“If you approach them with compassion, kindness, and eventually acceptance, you will come away from this period in your life more connected to your resilience and strength,” she wrote for SurvivorNet.
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