"Who Am I Now?"

"I just want everything to go back to the way it was before cancer."

I hear this from almost every patient I sit with during their cancer experience and beyond. I understand this desire.

Human beings are most comfortable in routine. Therefore, it's normal that you would want to seek what you knew before.

Familiarity breeds comfort. And when we're comfortable, we know what to expect; when we know what to expect, we feel we can handle what comes our way because we're prepared.

But there’s something that can make returning to the way things were especially difficult: you may no longer feel entirely like the person you were before.

That feeling makes sense. You’ve lived through something that changes you. It changes your relationship with time, your body, and often with others. You become much more aware of what's more meaningful to you, including some relationships. You begin to reflect on what you really want to do with your life. How you want to spend your time and your energy. How you really want to spend yourself moving forward.

So even though you might have a desire to return to the way things were before cancer, it's almost an impossible task to do so completely.

You may return to familiar routines and discover they don't feel quite as familiar anymore.

You might find yourself wanting to spend your time differently. Some relationships may feel different. Things you once tolerated may suddenly feel more costly than you're willing to give. You might want to redraw boundaries, spend yourself differently, and focus your attention on things and people who previously received less of it from you.

And this is hard to do. It's uncomfortable to say, Yeah, that's the way things used to be, but now they have to be a little different moving forward.

So you can feel a lot of emotional discomfort as you try to navigate this new terrain as it unfolds.

And in all of this, you’re having to familiarize yourself with who you’re evolving into.

I hear my patients notice things like:

 I don't want to spend my time that way anymore.

That matters more to me than I realized.

I can't—or don't want to—push my body the way I used to.

Why does something I used to enjoy no longer feel the same?

Who am I now? 

You may seek a return to a life that looks familiar, only to discover you no longer fit into it in quite the same way.

And that’s uncomfortable, because changing how you participate in your own life can create friction. Other people knew the previous version of you. You knew the previous version of you. There was a script. Now some of the lines are being rewritten, even though nobody asked for a rewrite.

There’s a particular kind of discomfort in getting to know someone you once knew differently.

Especially when that someone is you.

Maybe the discomfort isn't a sign that you're failing at this.

Maybe some of it comes from learning how to inhabit a life that has changed—and discovering, a little bit at a time, how you want to live inside it.

Here’s the thing: you don't have to figure that out immediately.

You may not recognize yourself completely yet.

That doesn't mean you're lost.

You may simply still be getting acquainted.

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Reflections on the inner psychological experience of living alongside cancer.

Jae L. Ross, PsyD, is a clinical psychologist who works with individuals and families whose lives have been reshaped by cancer, helping them navigate the emotional challenges of diagnosis, treatment, and beyond.

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