Struggling to return to normal as a relative

[applesandpears94]

Dear all,

Firstly, thanks for taking the time to read my post.

My father in law was admitted to ICU with sepsis in February 2023. He spent 5.5 weeks there; three of which he was in an induced coma. He was then stepped down to HDU and is now on a normal surgical ward awaiting transfer to a rehabilitation centre.

He's done exceptionally well so far in his recovery and is practically a walking miracle. We were, like many of you on here, called in to say our goodbyes, but he's pulled through and is doing amazingly.

The problem is, I used to work in healthcare and had experience with high dependency care, so was acting very much as my FIL's patient advocate and also explaining a lot of what was going on to my family in layman's terms, as FIL's care was incredibly complex at times and nobody else in our family has any kind of healthcare background. I also live abroad now so was travelling back and forth between my home and the UK where my in laws still are a lot, and then when I was back home, doing a hell of a lot over the phone to help the family.

During the time that I haven't been in the UK I've been working my normal shift pattern and 10 weeks after all this started I'm a mess. I'm not coping well with being one of the only members of the family who has had to work my normal full time schedule during all this and pick life back up in between visits as if everything is fine. I feel like I've not had that time to breathe, and grieve, and just generally come to terms with what's happened. I'm having various types of therapy, exercising etc to try and help myself but I still feel so lost and empty because I've either been doing things towards my FIL's care and/or working FT.

For a bit of extra context my in-laws are basically my parents - my own died many years ago and I'm now incredibly close to my husband's family, so I've been incredibly floored by all of this as much as they have.

If any of you have been in this situation, how did you take time to "grieve" for what has happened?

[Sepsur]

there is a great relatives drop in on Tues 20.00 on zoom - lovely people, some know exactly what you are feeling and have gone through

cc-sn.org/drop-in-meetings

[applesandpears94 in reply to Sepsur]

Thank you so much for this. I'll be sure to join some of the Tuesday sessions. It would just be nice to speak to some people who have felt very similar emotions.

[Sepsur in reply to applesandpears94]

I’ll DM you

[Copse77]

the relatives meeting will help you. I know how you feel as I have been there too when my brother was critically I’ll. there is good information about trauma on another website. I will send you the link.

[Copse77]

readingicusupport.co.uk/for...

Pl see the above link and I suggest you look at the presentation on trauma and anxiety. It was only when I looked at this I realised what we had experienced was a trauma. It’s really helpful.

[Ashfilm]

First of all I'm happy to hear that your relative is recovering after their stint in hospital. I was in the same position a month ago with my mother . I would say that when my relative was in hospital it was one of the most stressful experience of my life . I would say it sounds like after being under extreme stress , you are struggling to cope with adjusting to normality. After my experience I would say that the best thing to do is take some time out if you can to just have some time to yourself. Also you could in a nice way maybe reduce the amount of time you spend being a messenger for your family. I think you are doing a lot already to help yourself , I find going for walks, spending time with loved ones and doing things you love will also help .I wish you and your relative the best wishes in his further recovery.

[Clunk]

oh my gosh! I was in the same boat after my husband’s stint in ICU. We discharged him straight from ICU so he still needed a lot of help at home. His parents came for a couple of weeks which was a huge relief but when they left, and i’d just wrapped up a huge project at work, i literally crumbled mentally. After a couple of weeks of struggling to hold it together i realised that what i was going through was a sort of nervous system dysregulation - i had been on high alert, not eating well or sleeping for several weeks. Of course there was going to be a comedown. I also struggled because it felt like nothing mattered especially not work, my partner could have died.

What helped me recover was doing a lot of somatic practices to ground myself regularly throughout the day (e.g. progressive muscle relaxation, feldenkreis stretches, there’s anlot of good vids on youtube of yoga type flows to help shift out of a high stress state). I also did my best to reinstate a routine for myself - taking some time for myself int ge morning, going for a walk at lunchtime and doing light exercise (not heavy like before and making sure i did a cooldown and stretches at the end to again shift into a calmer state vs stay in high adrenaline). When you go through such a period of living in your head cobstantly, i think whatever you can do to help ‘be in your body’ will help. I felt so much better after just days of this and have ended up mostly recovering without even taking time off work (but setting strict boundaries re: when i would be working as opposed to working overtime). I hope this helps!