Finding Safety Again: Living With PTSD After Cancer
When I was diagnosed with breast cancer at thirty-four, I thought the hardest part would be treatment. It wasn’t, it was everything that came after.
People talk about survival as a finish line — you fight, you win, you move on but no one tells you how to live with a body that still startles at every sound, or how to sleep when your mind replays hospital monitors and test results in the dark.
I didn’t know it then but what I was experiencing was PTSD. Not the kind most people associate with soldiers or disasters, but the kind that comes from facing your own mortality, from months of uncertainty, medical procedures and the quiet terror of not knowing if you’ll ever be the same again.
Even after the last round of chemo, my body didn’t feel safe. My heart raced for no reason, my breath would catch at the smell of antiseptic or the sight of a hospital on TV. My nervous system was still living in survival mode, long after the threat had passed.
For a while, I blamed myself because I thought I was supposed to feel grateful and of course I was, but gratitude didn’t stop the panic that lived under my skin. It took me time and psychological help to understand that survival rewires you. Your body keeps the score long after your mind wants to move on.
Rebuilding safety became my new kind of treatment, it wasn’t about pretending the fear was gone but more about creating enough gentleness for my body to learn that it didn’t have to stay on guard.
I started small on the days when I could just by breathing in nature, sitting quietly with animals who didn’t need words to understand, letting music become medicine again — the very same songs that once held me through chemo now helping me soften into the present and best of all travel.
That became its own kind of therapy, every new place reminded my body that life could hold beauty again, not just danger.
Slowly, the world started to feel less like a battlefield. My shoulders stopped bracing for bad news, I began to laugh without guilt and began to rest without fear.
There are still moments when my chest tightens before a scan or when grief hits out of nowhere but I’ve learned that healing isn’t about erasing the memory of what happened, it’s about making peace with it. Safety isn’t the absence of fear, it’s the trust that you can feel it, breathe through it and still choose life anyway.
At thirty-four, I met my mortality but in the years since, I’ve also met the version of me who understands that safety isn’t something the world gives you, it’s something you rebuild, slowly, from the inside out.
Maybe that’s what healing really is, learning to live in a body that once saved your life and teaching it that it’s safe to be alive again.
Mary C is a speaker, survivor, author, podcaster and coach who helps others rebuild safety and self-trust after life-changing events. Through her platform Perspectives by Mary, she shares reflections and resources on healing the nervous system and finding meaning beyond survival. www.perspectivesbymary.com