Rethinking Recovery: Light at the End of the Tunnel for Acceptance?

There’s a common way of thinking about recovering from the major events life throws our way that goes something like this: Just Get Through It. Or: There Is Light at The End of the Tunnel.

However, it is important to understand that this might not always be the case and that some people may benefit from a different way of seeing things.

There is no denying that many of us strive for perfection in our daily lives. We want to do things right, we want to be in control. But with major events like a cancer diagnosis, the truth is there will be ups and downs — for a long time. And you might never find yourself at a point where all of your problems have been swept under the rug and life is good again. And maybe that’s okay.

Everyone is different and everyone deals with both the good and bad in life differently.

You might be having a great day. A great week. A great year, even. And then, before you can even detect how or who, the bad might hit you in the gut. Suddenly, you are back in the throes of grief and nothing, no one, seems capable of helping you. Suddenly, you are back in the trenches of loss, and trauma, and devastation.

It is in no way comfortable. But it’s real.

Here at Baron & Budd we’d like to remind our clients to go easy on themselves. Sure there are wonderful, joyous days ahead but there will also be trying times, too. And perhaps thinking of you and your families’ recovery from the loss that mesothelioma and other lethal cancers may bring in a “let’s just get over this hump”-mode is not ideal. This attitude may have helped you deal with the smaller things you’ve have gone through. But not this. Not cancer. Not mesothelioma. No way.

You will have ups and you will have downs.

And hopefully, the sooner you see that — the sooner you can be easier on yourself, and learn to just take life as it comes — you’ll find that it’s okay to take the bad with the good.

It’s life.