Kat Cressida lives a pretty fascinating life. She’s the voice artist behind countless TV show and video game characters — but she’s also had to live with what she refers to as a “hidden disability.”
Cressida is a survivor of a rare type of cancer called Dermatofibrosarcoma Protuberans (DFSP), a soft tissue sarcoma that develops in the deep layers of the skin. The cancer, Cressida notes, is normally fatal. She says that living with the disease caused her to lose her sense of self to an extent, as her sole focus became surviving.
RELATED: The Cancer Journey-Living With Gratitude
“The hidden disabilities that one can face coming through cancer or any serious illness that takes you out of your current timeline, and throws you into some other place where your only motive of living is survival, can be anything from circumstantial depression to anxiety — always feeling nervous waiting for the other shoe to drop,” Cressida says. “…Also, a sense of loss of identity because you have so many other people telling you what you’re supposed to do, who you’re supposed to be, what should or shouldn’t happen.”
“You’ve spent so much surviving the physical aspects that you forget even who you were before that — your personality,” she adds.
There’s a silver lining, though: Cressida says she did get her personality and her sense of self back — it just took some healing and some time.
Learn more about SurvivorNet's rigorous medical review process.
Kat Cressida lives a pretty fascinating life. She’s the voice artist behind countless TV show and video game characters — but she’s also had to live with what she refers to as a “hidden disability.”
Cressida is a survivor of a rare type of cancer called Dermatofibrosarcoma Protuberans (DFSP), a soft tissue sarcoma that develops in the deep layers of the skin. The cancer, Cressida notes, is normally fatal. She says that living with the disease caused her to lose her sense of self to an extent, as her sole focus became surviving.
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RELATED: The Cancer Journey-Living With Gratitude
“The hidden disabilities that one can face coming through cancer or any serious illness that takes you out of your current timeline, and throws you into some other place where your only motive of living is survival, can be anything from circumstantial depression to anxiety — always feeling nervous waiting for the other shoe to drop,” Cressida says. “…Also, a sense of loss of identity because you have so many other people telling you what you’re supposed to do, who you’re supposed to be, what should or shouldn’t happen.”
“You’ve spent so much surviving the physical aspects that you forget even who you were before that — your personality,” she adds.
There’s a silver lining, though: Cressida says she did get her personality and her sense of self back — it just took some healing and some time.
Learn more about SurvivorNet's rigorous medical review process.
