Feelings and emotions

Diagnosis and treatment for cancer is a difficult and stressful time for children, teenagers and young adults and their families.

During your treatment, the focus was on getting through day-to-day life and juggling hospital, school, work and siblings. New feelings can emerge after treatment has finished as you come to terms with your experience. You have been through a major trauma and faced things many young people have never even considered. 

Sometimes, cancer and its treatment can affect your psychological and emotional development. These effects could be positive or negative. For example, you might become more anxious than you were before, but you may also be more mature than other people of your age – and even many adults.

These changes can make it hard for you to fit in with your own age group. You may see things differently from other young people because of what you have been through.

Whatever you are feeling now is normal and right for you. There is no right or wrong way to feel.

You may feel some of the following emotions:

• relief and happiness
• fear of the cancer returning
• frustration about how your life has changed
• sadness about the loss of a regular childhood or teenage years
• guilt that you have survived when others didn’t
• feeling different from peers
• vulnerable because of your cancer experience and you may have worries about your health
• invincible because you have survived and can therefore do anything (this can possibly lead to unhealthy or risky behaviour)
• resentful as parents may become over-protective
• unexpected triggers and emotions caused by anniversaries of cancer events
• distress and anxiety due to the diagnosis of a late effect related to your cancer treatment or a new health problem

Many children and young adults treated for childhood cancer and their families cope well with moving onto the next chapter in their lives. Years later, some survivors find that they have undergone positive, meaningful and beneficial changes in themselves and their values as a result of surviving their experience. 

Sometimes, however, coping with physical problems or other stresses related to your cancer experience can make you feel down or distressed. These can be triggered by reminders of the upsetting aspects of treatment.

If you feel sad or anxious, and the feelings last more than a couple of weeks or interfere with your day-to-day life, it’s important to seek medical help. Please talk to your follow-up team or GP if this is the case. It can also be helpful to talk through your worries with people who you can trust. 

Survivor groups (including online and local meetings) can offer opportunities for you to meet other survivors to share experiences and to talk about ongoing issues. 

Useful websites:

www.nhs.uk/mental-health

JTV Cancer Support