Am I angry I got cancer? No. But I have a lot of other emotions

Why am I not angry that I got cancer? I was. But I’m not any more. Here’s why and what I’m feeling now

It is very common during or after cancer treatment to feel angry. It’s so f-ing unfair. Why me? Why my family? Why now? Cancer takes so much and changes so much. It barges in uninvited and rearranges everything — your body, your plans, your sense of safety, your identity.

It’s normal to feel angry.

Sometimes we don’t talk about that enough. We’re encouraged to be “brave” and “positive” and “inspiring”. We’re praised for resilience. But beneath all of that can be a hot, pulsing rage. At the diagnosis. At the delays. At the scars. At the people who say the wrong thing. At the randomness of it all.

I don’t.

Or at least not any more.

I did initially. When I was first diagnosed, I went for long walks and screamed at the trees. Proper, feral screaming. I made my throat so sore I could barely swallow. I played angry teenage boy music on repeat and pedalled my bike so hard I puked. So, yeah, I was angry.

Angry at my body for “failing” me. Angry at the universe. Angry that other people were carrying on with their normal lives while mine had fallen off a cliff edge. Angry that I had to tell my family. Angry that my children would be scared. Angry that I suddenly belonged to a club I had never asked to join.

Anger was easier than fear. Easier than grief. Easier than sitting with the possibility that life might be shorter than I had assumed.

For many of us, anger is a protective layer. Underneath it is sadness. Loss. Vulnerability. When treatment finishes and the cards stop coming and the appointments space out, those feelings can get louder. The world expects you to be “back to normal”, but you are anything but.

But I’ve managed to let the anger go.

Not by pretending it wasn’t there. Not by bypassing it with toxic positivity. I felt it. I sweated it out. I cried it out. I raged it out on forest paths and country lanes. And slowly, it loosened its grip.

I don’t actually hate cancer. I’m still scared of it coming back — that thought is never far from the front of my mind. Scan dates still make my stomach flip. An unexplained ache can still send me into a spiral at 3am. I get frustrated and sad at the ongoing side effects. The reminders in the mirror. The fatigue that arrives unannounced. The way my body doesn’t quite behave as it used to.

But I have accepted that cancer is part of my story and that, in many ways, it has shaped me in good ways too.

I know that can be hard to hear when you’re in the thick of it. I would never suggest cancer is a “gift”. I wish it hadn’t happened. Of course I do. But I can acknowledge that it forced me to confront things I had been outrunning for years.

It taught me so much about my priorities. Who and what are important to me. What I want to put my time and energy into. What actually matters when everything else is stripped away.

It’s taught me a new patience and a deeper gratitude, which can only be good things — especially as I am very guilty of running my life at a million miles an hour and distracting myself from my feelings. Before cancer, I was brilliant at being busy. Busy meant successful. Busy meant valued. Busy meant I didn’t have to sit still long enough to feel.

Cancer made me sit still.

And in that stillness, I am learning to let myself feel more. The uncomfortable stuff as well as the beautiful stuff. I cry more easily. I laugh more freely. I am more affected by other people’s stories.

This is my face when I heard that a lady I have been chatting to had finally had the surgery she wanted approved. We barely know each other. She’s not a client. I was just being a listening ear. But there we were, both sobbing with relief that she got what she asked for — but had had to fight for.

Pre-cancer me might have nodded sympathetically and moved on with my day. This version of me feels it in her bones.

I like this version of me. I’m more open and sensitive than I used to be.

But I’m also tougher. More ruthless in a healthy way. I do what I want — not in a mean way — but I put myself higher up the priority list than I used to. I say no more easily. I tolerate less nonsense. I give a lot fewer shits about pleasing everyone.

Maybe that’s also my age. I’m turning 50 this year.

I’m scarred, boobless, wrinklier and older. And strangely, more at home in my skin than ever before. The war I waged against my body when I was younger is over — thanks to cancer. No more binge drinking. No more overtraining and under-eating. No more glorifying exhaustion. My poor little body has been beaten up over the years, and cancer was the loudest wake-up call of all.

It demanded that I care for myself differently.

It demanded that I respect my limits.

It demanded that I forgive my body.

It’s so good to finally be at peace with my body and all its faults. At last.

So no, I’m not angry with cancer.

But that doesn’t mean you’re wrong if you are.

Anger after cancer is valid. So is sadness. So is jealousy. So is fear. So is relief. So is joy. We can hold contradictory emotions at the same time. We can be grateful to be alive and furious that we had to fight so hard for it.

Are you angry?

If you are, let yourself be. Scream at the trees if you need to. Pedal until your legs burn. Write the sweary journal entry. Talk to someone who won’t try to fix you.

And if, one day, the anger softens into something else — acceptance, peace, perspective — that’s okay too.

Ps. I still wish it hadn’t happened, though.

All I want is a simple life after cancer!