How to cope with a bad diagnosis

You’re going along with your life and everything is fine. Maybe you’ve felt a little ill lately, but you don’t think much of it. Why should you? In most cases, there’s usually nothing to worry about. But your doctor knows better — and the news you get stops you dead in your tracks.

There’s nothing easy about getting a bad diagnosis, no matter what the illness, especially when it forces you to start thinking about your own mortality. It’s not uncommon to be besieged by a flood of different feelings, ranging from fear, anger, hopelessness, and sadness. But allowing these negative emotions to take over won’t help you — or your health — as you navigate your way through the treatment process. The following tips can help you work through the complicated reactions associated with a diagnosis, so you can reserve your much-needed energy for healing.

• Wallow in your

feelings. Although it may sound counterintuitive, psychotherapist Tina Gilbertson says that wallowing in your feelings is the most effective way of getting through them. But, she warns, wallowing should not be confused with ruminating. When she talks about wallowing in your feelings, she just means allowing yourself to experience whatever emotion has come up for you in a particular moment. On the other hand, ruminating is an exercise your brain engages in, where you grapple with a series of what ifs and contemplate every possible scenario and outcome. Instead of getting engrossed by these mental acrobatics, Gilbertson, who authored “Constructive Wallowing: How to Beat Bad Feelings By Letting Yourself Have Them,” suggests pushing those thoughts aside and just sitting with your feelings. When you do that, you separate your thoughts from your emotions, which can help your feelings pass.

“The fastest way to work through a feeling is to acknowledge the feeling and name it if you can—I’m scared, I’m angry — because feelings have a life cycle,” she said. “An actual emotion only lasts a minute or two at any given time. In any given moment, if you’re feeling something, if you can just tolerate the feeling, and consciously decide to be with it — letting it run freely inside of you instead of trying to suppress it — then the actual emotion should only last a couple of minutes.”

• Cry it out. According to psychotherapist Jude Bijou, author of “Attitude Reconstruction: A Blueprint for Building a Better Life,” it’s not uncommon to actually feel your emotions physically in your body. When this happens, your body will actually take the lead in releasing these feelings. So if you feel like crying, or if your body is shaking, don’t hold back. Let the feelings work through your body physically, so you can work through them on an emotional level.

“We need to make the space to cry the sadness out,” she said. “We also need to shiver, tremble, shudder, or quiver to acknowledge the fear we’re feeling in our bodies—because that’s how to most effectively release the anxiety. And we need a way to express the anger physically, without words, so we can accept what we’ve been dealt and move forward from there.”

• Ask for help. Although you may not want to feel like you’re a burden on other people, it’s important to try to get the support you need when coming to terms with an illness. Whether you need a shoulder to cry on or advice about how to deal with your condition, give yourself the same compassion you would extend to a loved one. Reach out to your friends and family, support groups, or medical professionals and ask for what you need without judging yourself.

From diagnosis to dedication

When psychologist Paulette Kouffman Sherman found out she had breast cancer, first she was shocked. Then she became empowered and inspired.

Although Sherman planned to fight the disease as hard as she could, she also considered the legacy she would leave behind if she didn’t make it through. She decided the best way to turn this devastating diagnosis into a positive was to write books that would help others walking in her shoes.

“One of the things I said during my cancer is that my mission is stronger than my cancer,” Sherman said.

“It became my sole mission to help others on a broader scale. Whether that was true or not, thinking I could help others going through this experience to heal was very helpful to me.”

The result of this newfound mission was a series of books — including “My Quick Guide Through Breast Cancer: Diagnosis, Surgery, Chemotherapy and Radiation,” “The Cancer Path: A Spiritual Journey Into Healing, Wholeness and Love,” and the “Create Your Own Cancer Path Workbook” —specifically designed to help women struggling with breast cancer. And now that she’s beat her cancer, Sherman has a vehicle to empower women fighting the disease.