Cancer showed me who ‘my true friends are’ – Amy Dowden highlights pain of friendship shifts during cancer

Sign up to our free Living Well email for advice on living a happier, healthier and longer life Live your life healthier and happier with our free weekly Living Well newsletter Live your life healthier and happier with our free weekly Living Well newsletter SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy policy Strictly Come Dancing’s Amy Dowden said she learned who her “true friends are” while going through breast cancer. And now I just surround myself with them, because you are a product of the people who.” As October’s Breast Cancer Awareness Month gets underway, a psychologist who works in cancer support helps unpick the topic… A common experience Dowden, who completed chemotherapy last November but will need regular check-ups and injections for five years, has highlighted something many people dealing with cancer go through. In fact, sometimes just acknowledging this is the most helpful things people can do, or simply saying: “It sounds really hard and I don’t know what to say to make you feel better.” Muir adds: “What we often see is scripts they’ve learned perhaps from television or adverts, and these can be the kind of cliches people with their own diagnosis hate to hear. “And if that person then starts to get the sense that it’s not working, it’s not landing, you can see why they then back away because they feel out of their depth.” This is also why accessing support through organisations such as Maggie’s can be so important, as it gives people living with cancer, as well as their partners and loved ones, those safe spaces to talk and feel heard.