Traumatised after hospital stay with child

[User887]

DS was in hospital few months ago for just over a week, really quite poorly. At one point we were potentially looking at a couple of really awful diagnoses, he’s not great at the moment, but it’s a lot better than what the Drs were originally thinking, and he’s expected to fully recover, which I feel so extremely grateful about.

The hospital stay has just completely turned my life upside down, I’ve realised that I have been taking everything for granted, tootling along in my day to day life just assuming life would just always be the same. It’s given me a massive scare as to how precious and fragile life really is, and unnerved me to my core. I’m seeing danger everywhere, I’m frightened of absolutely everything, and I’m terrified one of us is going get sick and die. My outlook on life is completely different to before DS got sick, is this a normal reaction or am I having some kind of breakdown?

I lived in a children’s hospital for a year, 15 years ago and I have still not got over it. It’s definitely PTSD in my case ☹️

It's very hard having a child in hospital. My DS was in hospital twice as a baby and toddler and we're had to take two years out of secondary school for PTSD treatment for him. I spent ten years being treated for PTSD after it too. I think it's just very very hard when a child is seriously unwell.

Take care there. If you can find a clinical psychologist to talk through it with, that will help very much indeed.

You might want to budget for the possibility that your child will struggle with it mid-teens. These things can come home to roost a bit later on sometimes.

My eldest had sepsis as a newborn and spent 2 weeks in NICU. Afterwards I was diagnosed with PND, but I think it was actually more like PTSD. It took me a long time to realise that what I was feeling wasnt how everyone felt with a baby. I did some CBT which didnt really help, but I wish id found a specialist for a different type of talking therapy. It might be worth asking your GP if there is someone you could be referred to, or if you have funds to go private, you might be able to find someone. Wishing your DS a speedy recovery and to you as well. 💐