Suleika Jaouad

I hate yoga, and I have no idea how to fold an origami crane.

The truth is that for me, the hardest part of my cancer experience began once the cancer was gone.

That heroic journey of the survivor we see in movies and watch play out on Instagram, it's a myth.

It isn't just untrue, it's dangerous, because it erases the very real challenges of recovery.

Now, don't get me wrong, I'm incredibly grateful to be alive, and I'm painfully aware that this struggle is a privilege that many don't get to experience.

But it's important that I tell you what this projection of heroism and expectation of constant gratitude does to people who are trying to recover.

Because being cured is not where the work of healing ends.

It's where it begins.

I'll never forget the day I was discharged from the hospital, finally done with treatment.

Those four years of chemo had taken a toll on my relationship with my longtime boyfriend, and he'd recently moved out.

And when I walked into my apartment, it was quiet, eerily so.

The person I wanted to call in this moment, the person who I knew would understand everything, was my friend Melissa.

She was a fellow cancer patient, but she had died three weeks earlier.

As I stood there in the doorway of my apartment, I wanted to cry, but I was too tired to cry.

The adrenaline was gone.

It felt as if the inner scaffolding that had held me together since my diagnosis had suddenly crumbled.

I had spent the past 1,500 days working tirelessly to achieve one goal.

to survive.

And now that I'd done so, I realized I had absolutely no idea how to live.

On paper, of course, I was better.