Finding Each Other

I am always amazed by what can happen when we take the risk to reach out and connect with others.  This type of experience used to be called “strangers on a train” and then was known as “strangers on a plane” – the deep encounters we can have with people we have never met and will likely never see again.  Today these chance meetings often happen online.

Recently I was moved to respond to two separate pieces in the New York Times.  Both letters were published and I have since received several very touching communications from people who related to what I had written.  This correspondence really touched me and reminds me of the deep intimacy that can occur when we open our hearts to another human being.  We feel seen and heard.  We experience an attachment through sharing what we carry within us with another.  I feel  a warm and strong sense of gratitude when I am joined with other people who’ve had similar experiences  … it makes me feel less alone.

Below are the two articles included with my comments:

Suleika Jouad: Lost in Transition After Cancer

http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/03/16/lost-in-transition-after-cancer/

Cheryl Krauter

San Francisco, CA 9 days ago

I was diagnosed with Triple Negative Breast Cancer 8 years ago this month. I’ve been “cut, poisoned and burned” and also live with the side effects of this aggressive treatment. My pains, my neuropathy, my wonky heart valves aren’t visible. What is undisguised is the scar on my chest where my port was: looking down at this mark, even after 8 years, I’m starting to cry. I made it out of a hellish journey and, like you, like all cancer survivors, the shadow of recurrence lives in the corner of the room. I was a psychotherapist before, during and after cancer. Both personally and professionally, I experienced the stunning absence of attention to the emotional trauma of that slams into us after finishing treatment. After about a year, I made a difficult personal choice to stay in the world of cancer as a humanistic psychotherapist/patient/survivor bringing attention and , hopefully, consciousness to this need. I deeply feel and believe that we need to tell the stories of our experience so that we can heal. It’s vital to create the resources for emotional support and growth not only for us, the patients, but for our partners, families and friends. In so many ways it is a solitary journey, but we don’t always have to walk it all by ourselves.
Cheryl
www.cherylkrauter.com

Angelina Jolie Pitt: Diary of a Surgery

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/24/opinion/angelina-jolie-pitt-diary-of-a-surgery.html?_r=0

Cheryl Krauter

San Francisco, CA 2 days ago

I feel a deep gratitude to Angelina Jolie Pitt for, once again, telling her personal story so that other women are given the knowledge which does, indeed make us all powerful. I was in my mid-fifties when I was diagnosed and treated for Triple Negative Breast Cancer. I was not young but I had a 13 year old boy and the thought of leaving him at that point was unbearable. This helped me fight for my life. I’m fortunate, I’m still around and have no evidence of cancer. While I was tested and am not BRCA positive, I know now that there are other genetic threads involved in this type of breast cancer. Nearly 8 years ago the tests didn’t exist to look at other possibilities but that has changed. I want to encourage other women who have a strong family history of cancer to ask their physicians about any and all genetic testing as well as to request a complete analysis and a pathology report of any surgically removed tumors. I want us all to educate ourselves and raise our voices for what we need.
I am a psychotherapist/survivor who now works with women who have cancer. My heart aches at the numbers of young women who are dealing with life threatening illness at such a young age … I sit with some of these women every week. I believe that cancer research is essential in understanding this disease which sometimes swoops in and carries off those who deserved to stick around a whole lot longer to live their lives.
Cheryl Krauter

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