Anahí de Cárdenas was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2019 and since then her life has been a swing of strong emotions. Despite the toughness of his battle, during that time he wrote a diary that he has now just published with Penguin Random House under the title #Fuck cancer Lado B.
It is a tremendously honest book and a courageous testimony where the 37-year-old actress reveals details of what it was like to face a devastating illness on a daily basis. All her fears, her struggles, anguish and hopes are reflected in the pages of this work, where at times she even jokes about herself with humor.
His fight against cancer has not been the only one he has fought in his life: He also talks about his mental health and even the COVID he contracted after finishing his last chemotherapy. After so much road traveled, Anahí continues to transform her experience into positive actions.
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Become a tenacious activist with her foundation ‘Prevents Peru‘, she hopes to carry a message of prevention throughout the country and psychologically support women who suffer from breast cancer. “Prevention is everything”, he tells us, today healthy, happier and alive than ever.
How did the idea of writing this book come about?
The truth is that I did not start writing it as if it were going to be published, because writing has always helped me process what happens to me and I have done it since I was a teenager. I began to write it for myself, to put on paper everything that I felt and went through my head during the process of my illness. After a month and a half they contacted me Penguin to propose to publish a compilation with my Instagram post and I told them about what I was doing. They loved the idea, so I kept writing for a year and a half.
What was it that motivated you to post something so personal?
When I started with this process I found a lot of literature on cancer, but not from public people like me. Many people in my networks wrote to me asking questions, and when I got sick, I felt that I had not found the book for me from which to draw references. So it seemed cool to me that people who were going through this had a first-hand story. I feel like it was what I had to do and give to the community in order to lighten the load a bit.
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In addition to the process of your cancer, in the book you touch on the subject of mental health. You talk about the treatments you had as a teenager, anxiety, depression, borderline, even the time you were misdiagnosed with schizophrenia. How does this other story come up?
I think it is important to shed light on mental health, it is an issue that has been in the dark for too long. I am a believer that without mental health we are not going to get anywhere, so it is important to remove the stigma and start talking about it, because there isn’t a single person I know who hasn’t been through a mental health episode. And the serious problem that persists is that people are ashamed of this, because for many years they have seen people who go through processes such as depression, anxiety, eating disorders or borderline (like me), as unreliable people and that is a lie .
It is a misunderstood issue that, in addition, is in the queue in the field of public health.
Absolutely! It is an issue that is in the queue and our country is one with the highest rates of femicides. Why do you think that is? Due to the lack of access to mental health. What I have tried in this book is like a big hug to the people who are reading it and tell them that they are not alone and that I understand them. No emotion is bad, all are valid because they come from within us. You cannot do anything to stop feeling, they are things that have to be accepted and once they are accepted and looked at with compassion, one begins to be able to handle and control them.
Another revelation that you make in your book is that you also had COVID. After horns sticks! Are you aware of how strong you are?
(Laughs) Thank goodness it was after I finished my chemotherapy. It was a big scare.
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Why didn’t you make it public on your networks?
Yes I commented on it in a Live, I think, but it went completely unnoticed. Perhaps it was probably not understood.
At different times in your story, you also affirm that cancer has made you a happier person and you even thank it. This is such a tough disease … Why do you say it has made you a better person?
Because it has made me more grateful. When you come face to face with death, with the possibility of dying (and also twice with cancer and COVID), you automatically begin to see the things that you would miss if you die and I do not want to stop living, I am happy living. I want to live until very old and be surrounded by the people I love, my animals, work that makes me very happy. As much as we have gray days (which we all have) the balance at the end of the day is positive. When you start to give thanks, everything changes, I think.
I think that COVID taught many people to be grateful with life, as you say, and value what is truly important.
That’s how it is. Life is fragile, nobody has bought it, the disease does not discriminate and what we must do is prepare and be very aware of how lucky we are.
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What things about Anahí no longer exist after having cancer?
It is not that they do not exist, they are part of my history and they are parts with which I am at peace and with which I continue to work in order to remain at peace.
So I change the question. With what things are you at peace now?
(Prolonged silence) It is very particular what you ask me, because I just got out of a therapy where I am working on a trauma reprocessing technique and today I went to the middle, because I was having a hard time entering to see all those things that I have left sideways. But I tell you what things I have learned. I have learned that life is in control, that the children that inhabit those different parts of me: the perfectionist, the guilty, the angry … the adult Anahí can calm them down. At least I already know how to make them calm down. And that the adult from her place as an adult says: “Hey, calm down. It’s over, look at it, you don’t have to feel that way, your feelings are valid, but now I’ll take care of it ”.
I imagine that you are happy for your next return to the face-to-face theater.
Yes, I am happy, I look like a dog with two tails, I cannot with the happiness of stepping on a stage. I return to the theater on November 20 with Tías Tea with four face-to-face performances and streaming. I was also in Houston recording vocals for my new songs, because in mid-November I released my album. It’s pop music with my lyrics, some in Spanish and some in English. It’s so beatiful. What’s more, I have three films that I am waiting for: Forbidden to leave, Do not tell me spinster 2 and Just like me.
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