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Would counselling help after my partner’s sudden hospitalisation left me anxious?

1 reply

Anxiously9865 · Today 14:02

About a month ago my partner was hospitalised after collapsing at home. It was very traumatic. One minute he was fine the next extremely unwell. I managed to get him to the hospital and he was treated and is back home and doing well. He was very lucky to survive. Although he seems to be recovering quickly I am completely traumatised. I am constantly in a state of high anxiety. It's very generalised so I'm not worried specifically about him I just feel extremely agitated and anxious. Part of it I'm sure stems from a dislike of hospitals, so every time I visited him I had to deep breathe before I could even get out of the car. Part of it maybe because I had no real support, he has no family and my family are a long way away. I'm wondering whether counselling may be helpful? In a sense it seems silly because he didn't die and he's doing ok, it wasn't me that was sick and I'm wondering if I'm just overthinking things. Any advice would be welcome.

OP posts:
Eyesopenwideawake · Today 14:30

Trauma happens when there's a significant event (your partner's collapse) and no satisfactory resolution to prevent it happening again – this can apply to a wide range of issues from childhood abuse to random accidents.

Your mind is a prediction machine; it tries to avoid bad things by working out what went wrong in the past. That's fine if we can say that the car crashed because we didn't have it serviced, or that the dog bit you because you startled it; but some things in life just can't be foreseen or prepared for – such as your partner collapsing. Accepting that we can't control anything outside of our own responses and actions is a good way of calming anxiety.

TLDR : Life happens. We cope.

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