Recovering from a traumatic incident

[IRememberSoIDo]

Hi

I'm just wondering if anyone has ever had a traumatic health experience and how you recovered from it. I fainted twice last Saturday night whilst out for dinner with friends, once in the restaurant and once when they got me to stand in the hospital shortly afterwards. The A&E staff were very nice but frightened the life out of me and started talking about needing pacemakers and all sorts without having done a single test. I was moved to high dependency cardiac overnight where I was constantly monitored and then moved to the more general cardiac ward still on a monitor. The consultant thought it was just a fainting spell as 48 hours of blood tests, monitors, ecg's and echocardiograms showed everything normal. I'm on a monitor at home now for a week to rule out nothing underlying caused it but the consultant and my GP who I saw subsequently were both optimistic the monitor was a precaution. I'm feeling ok physically ever since but my nerves are shot. I was so scare I would die and so scared my kids would lose me and not have their mummy. I'm not sure where to start to get over this as I am a worrier at the best of times but never to an extent I couldn't control. Any advice or support welcome. Thank you.

Hi, I had an experience about 18months ago when expecting DS. I quite suddenly became ill with something unrelated to the pregnancy at 39 weeks and had to be hospitalised. While being treated, they lost DS heartbeat and for about 5 minutes I though I had lost him. I had to be monitored pretty much continuously until he was born a few days later. He was completely healthy, so I tried not to think to much about the experience and move on. I now realise, however, that I haven't really dealt with the experience. I didn't want to talk about it at the time because it had been so horrible. I have health anxiety as a result, which basically means I imagine I have serious illnesses when I have something minor wrong with me. I really want another DC but I think I would be too anxious to go through another pregnancy. I am only just starting to realise all these things are connected and I really wish I had sought counselling at the time. My advice would be to find someone to talk to about what you have been through. I know I would be in a much better place emotionally if I had spoken more about my experience at the time. CBT can be an effective way to challenge negative or anxious thoughts and you can get referred through your GP. I find mindfulness is a good way to reduce anxiety generally and you can download free apps with guided meditation to help get started. Good luck, I hope you start to feel better soon.

Thank you for your reply, I really appreciate it. I've actually managed to get an appointment for Wednesday night. It's a clinic that has both CBT and longer term therapy practitioners so I'm meeting the director for the consultation. I've been always anxious about health to a degree but this has sent me over the edge. I really hope you start to feel better soon .

Thanks. I've had experience with CBT before and found it really helpful. You have to stick with it to feel the benefit but it's worth it. Good luck.