Why did this Happen to Me?
Posted 5/29/2012
Posted in
I have always been fascinated by our private musings re the reasons for our cancer diagnoses. There are the obvious and common thoughts about environmental toxins, family history, and (I really hate this one) some kind of poor psychological adjustment. The emotional "reasons" cluster around self blame for a number of things: stress, not controlling anger, unfinished painful relationships. There have been studies that proved these are not the case, and that cancer happens regardless of psychological make up and style. Many of us have quite unusual thoughts as to the origins of the cancer; one of my favorites was a woman who insisted it happened because her dog stepped on her breast.
My own unproven theories are related to my father's exposure to nuclear reactors and even observing the Bimini atoll bomb explosion--from the "safety" of a nearby ship.
Do remember that no one knows, with the exception of women who carry the BRCA genetic mutation, why breast cancer happens. It is really hard to accept that as we all want an answer. If we knew the "why", we think we can perhaps better control our future health. In a word: it's not going to happen.
At any rate, this is an article from the Journal of Psychosocial Oncology about a study asking survivors of the ten most common cancers why they believed it had happened. There were quite a few "why me?"s and that rather surprises me, since I rarely hear it. You may be interested in the other possibilities. Here is an excerpt from "Causal Attribution Among Cancer Survivors of the 10 Most Common Cancers":
Among the 606 survivors, who identified specific causal attributions, the three most common broad category causal attributions were lifestyle (n = 234, 38.6%), biological (n = 214, 35.3%), and environmental (n = 145, 23.9%) factors (Table 2). The leading lifestyle attributions identified by participants were hormone use (i.e., menopausal hormone therapy, oral contraceptives) (n = 72), diet (n = 53), and general lifestyle factors (n = 41).
Among participants who identified biological factors, the vast majority (n = 189) listed heredity/genetics as a cause of their cancer. The most common reasons cited within the environmental category were general environment (n = 50), toxins (n = 41), and occupational hazards (n = 29).
We examined variation in attributions across cancer type looking at the five most common cancers (breast, prostate, colorectal, lung, and NHL) and other cancers combined (the five less prevalent cancer types: bladder,uterine, skin, melanoma, ovarian, kidney) (Table 3). Breast cancer survivors and survivors of the less prevalent cancers attributed their illness most often to lifestyle, biological, and environmental factors. Prostate and colorectal cancer survivors were most likely to list biological reasons, whereas lung and NHL cancer survivors most often ascribed smoking and environmental factors, respectively, as the cause of their cancer.
Authors:
LEAH M. FERRUCCI, PhD, MPH
Yale University School of Nursing, New Haven, CT, USA
BRENDA CARTMEL, PhD
Yale School of Public Health, New Haven, CT, USA
YASEMIN E. TURKMAN, APRN, PMHNP-BC, MSN, MPH
and MAURA E. MURPHY, MSN, CPNP
Yale University School of Nursing, New Haven, CT, USA
TENBROECK SMITH, MA and KEVIN D. STEIN, PhD
Behavioral Research Center, American Cancer Society, Atlanta, GA, USA
RUTH McCORKLE, PhD, FAAN
Yale University School of Nursing, New Haven, CT, USA
Tags: