The Holiday Season Can Create Challenges for Cancer Patients. Here’s How to Navigate the Frenzy.

Here at SurvivorNet, we understand what this feels like. And we're here to help, providing you with tips on how to navigate the holiday season when you have cancer.

We recently sat down with Dr. Marianna Strongin, a licensed clinical psychologist and founder of Strong In Therapy Psychology, who gave us her expert thoughts.

If Your Loved Ones Want to Discuss Your Cancer

Whether you're the one with cancer, or your loved one has cancer, there's a valuable lesson to be learned here when navigating the holiday season. As a cancer patient, how do you navigate when your loved one wants to talk about your cancer? And as a loved one, how do you know when the person with cancer wants to, or doesn't want to talk about it?

"When talking to loved ones about your preferences and discussing your cancer journey during the holidays, it's important that you be your authentic self," Dr. Strongin says. "So rather than telling people exactly what you want, it's important to share why you want that."

"When we are our most authentic self and disclose our true feelings, the people around us feel us. So if you aren't feeling comfortable talking about your cancer and you don't want it to be a part of the holiday season, tell them why that is. Tell them why talking about it would be so distressing for you."

If someone in your family has cancer and makes it clear they don't want to talk about it, then you need to respect that. Everyone deals with having this disease in a different way some people want to talk about it, while others don't. And that's totally OK.

Keeping a Positive Attitude During the Holiday Season

The holiday season has a way of marking the time in our lives, Dr. Strongin says. It tends to be more intense than other times of the year. So what if you're having a hard time remaining positive during this season that's supposed to be filled with so much joy?

"For patients who are going through a difficult moment, it becomes a real lens into what's happening for them because they can remember the holidays the year before or even the year before that," Dr. Strongin says. "And it becomes a sense of reality when they know that this is going to be the year that's marked by this (a cancer battle or diagnosis)."

If you find that you identify with what Dr. Strongin is saying, she tells us that she has a challenge for you this holiday season: "I really challenged (cancer patients) to kind of take this holiday as it is, to find the joy in it, to find ways to accept the reality of where they are in this time and space."

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