To still feel traumatised after my sisters ill health?

[HersheysNo1]

My sister has epilepsy and over a year ago, she ended up in ICU because she couldn’t stop seizing (status epilepticus). She was a laced in a medically induced coma and we thought we were going to lose her.

I feel like I’m still struggling to process this, despite her having made a full recovery. She still lives with the condition and I feel overwhelmed by the fear and worry that this, or worse, could happen again. She is in her early 30’s and has a young child.

is it normal for me to still feel traumatised by what happened. At times, it consumes my thoughts. Will this get easier?

Get some trauma therapy. EMDR.

No it isn’t, sounds like you need to seek out a therapist.

It’s not abnormal, but you shouldn’t have to feel like this. Def get some help.

Thank you…

That sounds very traumatic and the fear you are feeling is completely understandable.

My young adult son was diagnosed with Epilepsy last year and the images in my mind of seeing him having seizures will never leave me. It consumes my thoughts and I live in a constant cycle of fear and anxiety.

Epilepsy is odd as it is so unpredictable- no one can plan for when it might happen again and living with the uncertainty is so hard.

I have booked to see a counsellor as I can’t carry on feeling the way I do and I know my anxiety is affecting my son - when he is just living his life with his condition as he absolutely should be!

So I have no answers or solutions - but just solidarity in the feelings that you are having. Maybe some counselling through your GP surgery could be an option you explore too?

It's completely understandable, you have been through something devastating.I wanted to second EMDR.as something that may help.
My son was in high dependency a few times ages 1-3. A few times I thought I'd lose him (although with hindsight I now understand that was highly unlikely) and I can remember vividly having an out of body experience when he was hooked up to all those lines and monitors.
I just had to go back to work and get on with life with a new terror of him ever getting ill, which started to leak into new anxieties around other things. I started to disassociate when stressed, and really struggled.
EMDR was tough at first but quite rapidly worked (I've also used it to help with other phobias)

The same thing happened to my 6 year old dc, I found it extremely traumatic, I have found it very hard to deal with over the last year coupled with the fear that it could happened again. I am slowly working my way through it with the help of therapy

It does get easier my son was on ICU for three weeks three years ago after developing acute necrotising pancreatitus and going into DKA ,and collapsing at home he managed to avoid going on a ventilator by the skin of his teeth ,the whole experience was very traumatising for me ,he coped with it a lot better than I did
Three years on hes now an insulin dependent diabetic but otherwise healthy
And it doesnt consume my thought, s anymore

That sounds very traumatic so I’d say therapy too. Do you know if it’s a condition that may happen again or was it just bad luck that time? Perhaps a chat with her doctor would help the process too, albeit they may not talk about her directly unless it’s at one of her appointments, they may be able to give you some reassurances.
its not rhe same but my daughter has Tourette’s Syndeome, its a spectrum condition and hers isn’t extreme, but we went on holiday alone to Cyprus, we wee in the early stages of understanding the condition and how it affected her, and she had a really scary tic attack, literally whole body tics, bangingher head, eyes rolling in her head, arms and legs thrashing, luckily we were in our room so she was on the bed and it calmed down pretty fast, but that also traumatised me, it was probably 6-7 years ago, but ever since I’ve been really worried she’d have another attack
and be somewhere she can’t be helped / safe so I do have some understanding of the helplessness and unpredictability, so I hope you’re able to get some support. At the time I was seeing a counsellor for something else, so was able to talk things through and it really helped