After surviving cancer and developing PTSD, here’s what I do to take care of my mental health as an introvert.
I’ll be honest with you: I really struggled with my mental health.
For those of you who don’t know, I was diagnosed with stage 3 rectal cancer in November 2024 at the age of 42. I went through eight brutal rounds of chemotherapy, a month and a half of radiation and three surgeries that removed part of my colon and left me with a permanent colostomy bag. I have been cancer free since September 2025.
At first I was very excited to be alive. Like the single mother to a five-year-old boy, every moment with him seemed precious, like I deserved every snack, every cuddle, every “MOM!” the hard way.
Then, a few months after the end of the active treatment, I started having nightmares and panic attacks. I could never rest. Nothing felt safe anymore. I had terrifying visions of terrible things—school shootings, fatal car accidents, sudden losses that I couldn’t stop.
Because it’s me brain he reasoned that if an extremely rare thing—early, late-stage cancer—had already happened to me, other rare tragedies could just as easily happen.
On top of that, I survived a twisted cycle of domestic abuse—that’s another story—and then, in the midst of cancer treatment, my father, one of my biggest supporters, died suddenly.
I was recently diagnosed with PTSD and it all made sense.
They say that the time after the end of cancer treatment is actually one of the hardest times. Kate Middleton, Princess of Wales, he explained it perfectly when he said:
“You put on a kind of brave face, stoicism during the treatment. The treatment happens, and then it’s like, ‘I’m done, I’m back to normal,’ but actually the phase after that is very, very difficult.”
This is what I’ve been up to lately: trying to understand what happens after survival. And it made me think about the relationship between them aloofness and mental health.
I want to share what I do now for my mental health in case it helps someone else who is struggling. Because I believe that e.g they are introvertswe have to be very conscious about our mental health.
What science says about introverts and mental health
First, to be clear, introversion is not a mental illness per se, nor does it “cause” mental illness.
During the research, the strongest risk factor for mental illnesses such as depression, anxietyand PTSD is neuroticism. People who are high in neuroticism react more strongly to it tension and sees everyday situations as more threatening. They tend to experience many negative emotions such as anxiety, fear, worry, self-doubt and sadness.
But being an introvert can also affect your mental health. Research shows that introverts tend to mean more depression and anxiety symptoms like extroverts.
Why? Maybe it’s because introverts get fewer positive “mood boosts” throughout the day than extroverts. Maybe because we might have less social support. Maybe because we are more prone to it rumination and isolation.
Whatever the reason, it’s a reminder that we introverts can’t treat our mental health as an afterthought.
The little things that help me feel safe again
Here’s what I do to maintain my mental health:
1. I take sleep seriously.
Anxious thoughts make it difficult to fall asleep. Nightmares wake me up and make it hard for me to drift off again. So my therapist gave me a simple rule: Don’t just lie there. If I can’t sleep, I get out of bed and do something boring in a dimly lit room.
My therapist suggested a craft, but I’m not really a craft person. So I got a “painting with stickers” book for kids, like this. I get up, sit at the kitchen table and stick some stickers on the page until my body starts to feel sleepy again.
Then, when I go back to bed, I play a little word game to keep my mind from wandering back to my worries. I pick a letter, like M, and name every word I can think of that starts with: Minnesota, milk, mystery, moon, mailbox…
Another method I work with sleep is by going to bed around the same time every night and I don’t stay up past the point where I feel sleepy so I don’t get a ‘second wind’.
2. I make sure that time spent alone does not become isolation.
As an introvert, I like spending time alone. But when you struggle with PTSD like I do, time alone can actually feel like dangerous.
“You are alone in this crisis,” says my mind.
So I purposely spend time with people who make me feel comfortable and emotionally safe, whether it’s over lunch or just talking on the phone. I have zero tolerance for people who don’t feel good about my nervous system.
Sometimes it’s not really about that to socialize. It’s just about being out there with other people to remind myself that I’m not alone. I go to my favorite coffee shop, which is safe for me.
I remind myself that we were never meant to live in complete isolation, even as introverts. Spending time with the right people helps regulate my nervous system.
3. I will speak up if something sends me into a spiral.
For example, just yesterday someone close to me said, “A few years ago, your life seemed to be going so well! Then all these bad things happened!”
I had to stop this person and tell them that it wasn’t helping me to think that way. It doesn’t help that I focus on everything I’ve lost to cancer—and I’ve lost a lot. I can only move forward with what I have from here.
4. I give my brain less screen time and more sunlight.
I stopped scrolling social media first thing in the morning. Now I open the curtains, face the sun, and take five deep breaths to start my day—homework from my therapist.
And now that the weather is nice outside, I go for walks and listen to instrumental music on my free evenings instead of watching another episode of a show.
5. I show up for therapy every week.
We do ACT or Acceptance and commitment therapy. One of the exercises my therapist taught me is called “Leaves on the Stream.” You close your eyes, imagine a calm stream, and place all your worries on a leaf as it floats away.
It sounds simple, but it helps when my mind goes into anxious thoughts and panic. Here’s a prompt you can try the exercise yourself.
I also choose to drive over an hour to my therapist’s office to see her in person instead of doing therapy virtually. I’ve noticed that being physically in his presence regulates my nervous system more than talking to him through a screen.
6. I come back to myself.
I clean and organize home. I’m learning to cook healthy meals instead of getting takeout or making something from a package. it’s me practice every other day in some way. Physically taking care of my environment and my body became a way of taking care of my mental health.
We introverts are not doomed to poor mental health just because we are introverts. But I think we need to be more conscious about it.
After spending over a year focusing almost entirely on my physical health—beating cancer—I realized that my mental health was just as important.
I wish you, dear introvert, that you too take care of your mental health.
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