It's Terrible and It's Temporary
How a Maryland Marriage and Family Therapist is getting through the toughest time of her life.
Just want the answers? Scroll down to “my secret weapons…” skip the backstory and go straight to the tools.
The last two years have been hard for everyone. 2020 was full of loss and change. 2021 was full of ups & downs, with blasts of hope followed by repeated returns to fear. Masks on. Masks off. Masks on. Numbers looking better, then looking worse.
We are all hoping desperately that 2022 brings a return to normalcy. I truly believe that it will. But not for me.
Seeing the future as worse than the present is unusual for me. And a little out of sync with what other people are feeling right now. But not entirely.
The negative news has been plentiful in the last several years. We’re all feeling some discouragement. About climate change. Poverty and inequity. Systemic racism. Hate and violence toward our LGBTQIA+ friends and our immigrant neighbors.
The anxiety is getting worse: for us. For our kids.
And for me personally. There’s a reason for this. My husband of 21 years (and friend since age 6) was diagnosed in 2021 with a brain tumor.
Cue the stories. “I had a friend who had a tumor and they took it all out 20 years ago and they’re fine.” I’ve been hearing a lot of these. And they’re a little bit encouraging.
But just like in any scary situation, hearing “it’ll be fine” mostly makes me feel dismissed or misunderstood. Pro tip: try to remember that when your child or partner is feeling anxious. It’s HARD to learn to say something else instead. But it can be really helpful. (Need some detailed help with that? Try SPACE treatment.)
The thing is, there are different types of brain tumors. With different prognoses. Those that aren’t fatal are often reclassified as some other kind of growth after a biopsy.
This one is still a brain tumor. The kind they can’t just take out. The kind that you throw every resource at to try to buy some time. For my partner that means surgery + radiation + a year of chemotherapy.
That’s where my sudden shift to pessimism is coming from. This is the tough stuff. The stuff you hear about but don’t expect to happen to you. The stuff that takes your usual coping strategies and blows right past them.
So how am I here? Working, smiling, enjoying myself.
I’ll tell you.
My secret weapons in the battle with anticipatory grief.
These are all tools, or mindsets, that we teach our therapy clients. And I’m thankful to have gotten the chance to practice them at work every day. We teach these ways of experiencing and living in the world because they work to keep our mental health intact.
Perspective: being in the here and now
This moment of pain is temporary. And I mean the minute, or hour, or day that knocks me flat. However deep in the pit of despair I am right now, it is right now. It isn’t always.
Tuning into my body through exercise, stretching, or deep breathing helps me to just be where I am. So that I can ride the wave of emotion to whatever is coming next.
Journaling also helps me tremendously with this. I can let the words for what I’m feeling flow onto the page. And I can go back and visit my feelings from a different moment. Doing that reminds me that something else is yet to come. Life is not just this.
My reset button
Music is the reset button for my mood. What’s yours? I can pull up something sad to elicit the emotion that’s lurking beneath the surface. Or something I deeply enjoy to trigger my automatic smile reflex.
I never realized until recently how much noise canceling headphones could enhance this experience. They truly give me a moment of solitude in a crowd. I withdraw into my own little bubble full of music or an audiobook, and feel instantly different.
Music can also make me want to dance. I’m a terrible dancer. But I dance a lot. (Alone.) Especially when I need a burst of energy for the next thing I’m doing.
Growth mindset
Yes, even in this, growth mindset counts. I may not have mastered this, but I am learning. It helps that I am inherently curious. Especially about human relationships. (Bringing your tough stuff into your therapy sessions? GREAT. I am genuinely excited to be there with you.)
In this moment, I am wondering how this experience will change me. My family. Our couple relationship. What resilience will I discover that I didn’t know about? Will I understand more deeply the pain of the people I treat in my therapy practice? How will I continue to make space for my own emotions when others need to know I’ll be ok? And manage when those emotions are now more unpredictable?
Accepting help, and accepting that I need it
“Yes, please. That would be helpful.” It is not easy to let others do what you know you are capable of doing. (Cue guilt about accepting help, when I am technically able to run around from dawn till midnight getting everything done myself.)
Letting others show kindness through acts of service does lighten my load. And lightening my load frees me up to do the things that only I can do. Loving my partner and children through this.
Setting boundaries is an essential component of accepting help. Saying “no thank you” to the things that aren’t helpful helps us say yes to the things that are. If we can’t say yes to some and no to others, we have to choose between taking on too much help (no, please don’t stay at our house for a month just in case we need you) or none at all.
A sense of purpose
At work and at home, it helps me to focus on what I can do and what I don’t need to. The doctors have their role. My partner has his. And I have mine. I felt at peace during his surgery because my partner had chosen the doctors he trusted most. Someone else was doing this part of the job. And I trusted them to do their best.
That leaves me to focus on the bits I can do. Show my partner love. Patience. Support. Check in on our children (15 and 10). Manage the flow of information to them and to others. And say YES to the support that’s offered to me. Those jobs are every bit as important as the other work being done in the operating room. Or the radiation oncology department.
I am fortunate to also have a sense of purpose at work. Going back to work (several weeks) after my husband’s surgery was HARD, but brought me back into balance emotionally. I always knew I loved my work, but now I see how much I need it.
Therapy
I have a therapist that I trust, and added more sessions to my calendar during this time. It’s harder than ever to fit it in. But it gives me time to tune in more deeply to myself. To take my emotional temperature.
When I found myself needing that more often than I could make it work, I added tools to my toolbox. A recorded mindfulness exercise. A wearable device that seems to work for me. (I am using the Apollo Neuro device, and find that it helps settle my nervous system in the toughest moments.) My partner found this device online and bought it for me as a gift. I don’t have any affiliation with the company or benefit in any way from talking about it.
Healthy relationships
I’m a pro at this, right? Not at home. It has taken YEARS of practice to get to a place where I know what I need in my relationships, and can ask for it.
That’s a delicate balance in a moment like this. When my partner is facing so much. I’ve learned something that seems counter-intuitive. Putting my own needs on hold to care for him is the worst thing I can do. Not just for me, but for him. For us.
When my partner is struggling emotionally, getting a chance to help me often makes him feel better. He’ll validate what I’m feeling with “I’m not the only one going through something here.” We hear each other’s needs (we expect them to be stated overtly… no guessing allowed) and try to meet them.
Sometimes we can’t be there for each other. When he was recovering from surgery and I needed affection. When I’m at work and he needs to talk. In those moments we use the other strategies above.
A gift that cost nothing
My partner also did something brilliant and gave me a stand-in for his attention. (A recording of him talking about why he loves me. It’s amazing.) He mentioned the idea jokingly one day, and it struck a chord with me. Instead of just hoping he would do it I told him “yes please. Do that.” And he did. (There are those explicitly stated wants and needs I was talking about.)
Now when he can’t be there, I can still get a dose of his love. I’ve probably listened to it 15 times in the last 3 months. We never would have done this without the threat of loss hanging over us. But we should have.
I highly recommend giving this gift to your partner. It stops me from being hurt or angry or resentful that our needs aren’t lining up. (That, after all, is a normal part of any relationship.) And it keeps me focused on getting what I need in the moment, rather than on what he can or can’t do for me.