Note of warning for sensitive listeners, this episode touches on suicidal ideation. Jen Rozenbaum is a photographer and author who was diagnosed at 41 with Stage IIb hormone-positive lobular breast cancer. In this episode Jen reads her piece “The Search to Feel Alive” from Wildfire Magazine’s 2021 “Grief & Acceptance” issue. Jen tackles the hard subject of suicidal ideation, and the difference between being alive and feeling alive. How do you live your life once you are done with breast cancer treatment and declared No Evidence of Disease when the reality is it is an unrecognizable new life littered with the rubble of your pre-diagnosis existence? What if all you want to do is get in bed and never get out? What if you aren’t the badass cancer warrior people think you are? How do you cope when well-meaning outsiders say “at least you are alive” and “you should be celebrating” but you feel minimized and isolated from those comments? The breast cancer community is starting to talk more about mental health, anxiety, and depression - but not so much about suicidal ideation. April will talk more with Jen about survivor’s guilt, and the turning points to find help.
