2 years on and I can't move on.

[Roger1965]

Hi everyone. I am new to this forum but have attended three ICU steps meetings, which were great.

I was in an induced coma for 10 days and a total of one month in the ICU ward, April 2017. (actually ctccu for heart patients). I had a very bizarre experience, ICU psychosis etc, Hallucinations that I am still not convinced were actually so. Convinced I was being treated very badly etc. Have thought about little else since. I have up to eight - half a second flash backs every day and I feel like I am in 'The Matrix!' Since leaving I seem to see ICU related 'coincidences' everywhere. Went to visit the ward yesterday for the first time in 2 years which was a very bad idea. Triggered it off again.

I am now stuck between a (real) world which has nothing at all to offer and a desperate desire to return to the ICU including all the horrors which is very confusing. You would think I would be glad to get away. And no, it is not because I was being looked after when I was in there, as far as I was concerned I wasn't believe me.

Would be interested in sharing with others or advice.

[hansbandu]

Check out the ARDS fb group....I've found it to be very helpful to share experiences with fellow ARDS survivors. ALso, dealing with trying to separate real from delusion is common...Although I've only been home since late January, I've also struggled with trying to figure out what really did happen during the 11 days I was in my drug induced coma.

The Facebook group is titled: ARDS Support Page for Survivors and Families of Victims-Information Page.

[diana1234]

Hi - i totally feel for you. i was in an induced coma in and out for 6 weeks - last year march - and got out of hospital in may. at first i thought the nurses had treated me badly and had all these hallucinations that i thought were real too. i realized that likely most of that was when i was likely at the point of being so sick and on so many drugs probably at the point i was going to die. i'm not saying this will work for you (and i still do time to time think about it) - but i went back to the ICU units and visited every doctor and asked questions and i had one memory of this one particular nurse who was so nice to me. so going back there and they remembered me and seeing how much they had cared about me made me realize that it wasn't true. i still have a few thoughts that i think were, but i think i survived so i do lots of yoga and spend time with friends, and for me, let myself have certain times to talk about it and then think to myself let's put it aside now. i'm not saying any of this will work for you as it's all our own personal feelings and experiences - i also saw skulls everytime i blinked at first for the longest time - but that went away and i realized that was the drugs. give yourself lots of time don't think of it's two years etc. just take your own time to feel better. here to chat if you ever need to! lots of love!

[Dgrytter]

I was in ICU for 5 weeks in a medically induced coma. The hallucinations I had were horrendous. After getting out of the coma it took a few weeks to process what was real and not real. The memories still haunt me 3 years later but after a full recovery I know much of the bad memories were due to the medications I was on.

[stevet11753]

Interesting about wanting to return to the ICU. I have no explanation. In my own case, despite all the horrible delirium dreams, there was one aspect that is a fond, almost nostalgic memory. I was in a wonderful sunny hospital in beautiful grounds on a wooded Belgian hillside; I was actually in Liverpool, England, but this was so real to me. I can still see it all in my mind. It's my belief that my struggling brain took me there to help me and my body to heal.

[Sepsur in reply to stevet11753]

🤣🤣🤣 - although there was a note on the glass door which read -‘you are in the intensive care unit of Countess of Chester Hospital’ - I knew this was bullshit because I was in a Hebrew hospital on the Welsh coast near Caernarfon, run by midget South American nurses under attack from nurses wielding Kalashnikovs and obviously ISIS supporters. I’m not sure my brain was trying to find a safe haven but rather, in free fall, trying to make sense of the assault my body was suffering in ICU.

[SamwiseG]

During my coma I had hallucinations of most of the staff Dr and Nurses and family members but what’s strange is some of the Drs and Nurses I dreamt about were real and some weren’t I think. I had some of the most amazing hallucinations like falling in love and then some of the most scary like having my organs removed and seeing my sister killed. I still think about them a lot every night pretty much and have flash backs and try and make sense of them. I completely lost sight of where I was thought I was ten mins from home in a clinic and but in reality I was 200 miles away in hospital ICU. When I came too and since I feel so angry and my family was told I wouldn’t make it so it is huge second chance for me and coming to terms with that is tough like what should I do now..

[Lymphomasurvivor92]

Sounds like you had a very traumatic time, i wasn’t put to sleep so I cannot relate to being woken up and psychosis relating to that but I was very abusive to ICU staff when they were handling me and I wanted to be independent with personal things like toileting and washing etc but they wouldn’t let me. I get flashbacks everyday too and feel as though I’m in some sort of different reality to everyone else, the only people who even try to understand or accept that I’m feeling anything less than blessed to be here are the people who actually visited me in ICU, my parents and the medics who saw me. I find it just helps to talk to someone daily who will validate my experience and not try to brush it off as something too awkward to talk about or ‘something I should move on from’...I also have the feeling of wanting to return to ICU..i walk past it every time I have a check up for my cancer (reason I was in icu) and I can’t help but stare and try to peer in as I walk past...I know this is weird behaviour...but to me it feels like it was home for a while

[Sepsur]

Have a look at ICUsteps pdf on delirium - good advice in it.

Hope the symptoms subside for you soon, if they don’t - seek help

icusteps.org/assets/files/b...