Waiting for the results of the tests is like waiting for a Supreme Court ruling: your future hangs in the air, beyond your control. The days between scans like PET scans and finding out the results make you a living Schrödinger's cat: your health is getting better and worse at the same time. Fear grows tenfold with every hour of uncertainty, like a devastating shadow image. It can make you feel as if your rational mind is being replaced by nervous anxiety. Ignorance steals your confidence, your life force and your motivation.
I was lucky - I had to wait less than 24 hours for the results of my last PET scan. In the past, I have waited up to five days for a follow-up appointment to find out what was going on in my body. I have tried to quell my anxious thoughts in this wilderness of uncertainty in many ways: I have travelled abroad, been to museums and concerts for hours, had acupuncture and massages, watched soaps non-stop, had a bath, visited aquariums, zoos, pizzerias, comic shops and humpalas. I have hiked until my legs cramped and worried so much that my heart became weak.
Taking photos with friends in photo booths is a good way to pass the time!
Of course, worrying has never helped. But that doesn't mean I stopped doing it. Worrying is like a self-preservation instinct for me - like if I imagine all the worst-case scenarios, then if something bad happens, I'll be prepared for it somehow.
But that is the secret of worry: it does not prepare you. It plants a seed in your consciousness that germinates and takes root, a cunning shoot that slowly embraces your joy and hope. “I feel pretty good,” your joy will say, and your anxiety will say, “It always does. Someone feels good and then gets bad results. It has happened to you. You should prepare for the worst.” And so you prepare for the worst - the thing you don't want to do at all. Your pulse quickens and you sweat with excitement, thinking about something that is weighing you down and worrying you. Just when you can try to calm down, you say to yourself, “Whatever it is, it will be okay. Think of all the good things you have.” And your anxiety taps you on the shoulder, reminding you that it is still there, and whispers, “Nothing is wrong. Everything you love will crumble to dust.”
Anxious at the age of twelve, waiting for 1999 to become 2000 and the millennium to kill us all. I fell into a Christmas tree at midnight.
Anxiety and worry will fight you every step of the way. For every step forward, it will try to put a noose around your ankle and pull you back. When they say “don't worry”, it doesn't work. The only things that help sometimes are distraction, sharing experiences with others and medication. And yet, I have discovered that anxiety has another enemy: clarity. It wilts when you look it closely in the face. When your anxiety says: “Everything you love will crumble to dust,” - rather than immediately dismissing it (which is also a perfectly natural and valid response that I often use), it sometimes helps to confront that cruel voice. You can answer it calmly:
“All the things people love disappear sooner or later - that's no surprise.” Anxiety will say, “Something terrible may happen, worse than you could ever imagine.”
You can calmly reply, “Yes, I know. Something bad could happen. I could even imagine the worst.” And you allow yourself, even if only briefly, to acknowledge that it is a possibility. (In this example, the worst that could happen to me would be, simply put, “to die”, although in reality it is much more complicated than that.) You don't have to force yourself to imagine the experience of the bad event - just acknowledge that it is a possibility. It's like seeing a car in the blind spot of your rear-view mirror - you don't have to turn your head to look at it, you just have to see it and know it's there.
One of the most powerful weapons of anxiety is a sense of helplessness. Ignorance takes control away and can even seem humiliating. There is no one right answer to managing emotions at times like these, but if other mechanisms don't work for you, try addressing your fears with a slight nod of the head - talk to them, acknowledge their presence and say that you will move on despite them being present. Fear is like a ghost shivering and threatening in the corner of the attic. Recognition is the light that is switched on to see that the “ghost” is just a sheet thrown over the boxes. Say hello to your fear - and move on.
To learn how to manage different intense emotions, join the IDARTO Centre for “Skills for Change” or psychological techniques for the video library “Psychologist in your pocket”.
Source: Browne R. (2017, Jan 19). “What's My Stage Again: The Not Knowing”. Medium. https://amysmartgirls.com/whats-my-stage-again-the-not-knowing-2c754d1cd7ff