Tizita is an Amharic word that means a bittersweet remembrance and longing for a time, person, or thing gone by. Cancer survivors will know this feeling well.
When I was first diagnosed with cancer, I was in a real tizz. I was all over the shop.
Then years later and I was told I had cancer again, I found myself in a complete Tiswas.
On both occasions, I mourned for myself. I mourned for others and just longed to reverse the situation I was in and be in the moment of happier times.
Tizita is therefore a word that is well-matched to the cancer experience. It’s the equivalent of the cancer blues.
To mourn a time gone by is a normal part of human life but with a serious illness, these memories and a longing to be back in healthier and happier times is a nostalgic trip fraught with difficulties.
The loss of your previous life ‘Before Cancer’ (BC) hits home really hard because you know you can’t ever get that back. This journey of introspection is to be expected and self-grieving can be healing.
Remembering what was can still be a positive experience but to dwell on the past for too long isn’t healthy because it can drag you down and keep you there. To keep thinking about life BC is adding salt to the wound.
We have to move beyond this melancholic reminiscence or we become a prisoner to it. We need instead to acknowledge the certainty of change and impermanence and embrace resilience or risk our psychosocial wellbeing.
Life puts us in a position that tears us apart, if we allow it. We can’t deny ourselves the memories of who we once were but we can’t destroy ourselves either by self-grieving.
Some of us might go through the so-called ‘five stages of grief’ when it comes to mourning our old self but then again, you might find that you don’t! This overly-simplistic model of grief has no scientific foundation and who is to say that people grieve in stages?
Many cancer patients adjust to their ‘loss’ in their own way and not through stages. Some don’t.
The Venn diagram intersection of autobiographical memories, loss and longing is part of the healing process and the inevitable shift in identity. You will always miss the ‘old me’ but you mustn’t neglect the ‘new me’ either as who you are now deserves to be loved and protected.