Do you ever feel the same again?

[ChinnyChin22]

I was in a coma due to chest and throat infection and had the most terrifying vivid twisted but realistic dream while I was under for a month and honestly part of me never woke up.

Does this feeling pass

[Sepsur]

a lot of people will relate to what you’ve written - I will never be the same - life changes you - not always for the worse.

[beardy_chris]

Perhaps you could compare your experience to a bereavement. One is never the same after the loss of a loved one but, over time, you learn to live with it and get on with life.

If you are having trouble, seek help from a counsellor or whatever source of support you feel will help (except avoid relying on alcohol or drugs, of course).

[Signingfun]

How long have you been awake? When I first woke up from a three-month coma, I felt weird too. I had a jumble of real memories and dream memories. I couldn't tell which memory was real and which memory was dreamed. Waking from a coma is not like in the movies - one minute you're in a coma and the next moment you're wide awake. I can't tell you the exact day I woke up. It took weeks to finally feel awake again and my mind to clear. Even then I was so tired all the time, I slept a lot. Remember your body has been fighting an infection. It takes time for your body to recover from such a serious illness.

Anne

[ChinnyChin22 in reply to Signingfun]

It's been two years since i've been Awake and for me it was I don't actually remember waking up. It was if so in the were waiting for police to turn up to handle a situation. That happened in hospital and it was night time and I was just waiting in my bed, I'm just waiting all through the night until it was morning and yeah, somehow the dream had transitioned into reality, that was still the skewed to be honest. However, the Lord was told that the first time they tried to wake me up, which was about a week prior I refuse to speak in English and only spoke in French Italian neither if which my mother tongue, frantically tried to escape and removed my lines.

[Lux95]

Completely understandable. It does get better the more time passes since your ICU stay. After 2 years, I still remember several of my nightmares better than the first couple of weeks after I woke up, and still don't remember much of anything from the 2 weeks before I went into the ICU. It's just part of how our brains handle memories. Dreams can be vivid enough to remember for years (I still remember two from my childhood), but if for some reason we can't focus on real events, they can be harder to recall.

As others have said, sedation and trauma can and often does change us, though usually only in some subtle ways that others might not really notice. I have found it helpful to spend time on physical activities that connect me with the real world - gardening, woodworking, etc. We live in a very disconnected world, and that can inhibit separating the dream-world from the reality of what has happened to us.

[ChinnyChin22 in reply to Lux95]

Yeah i've always been by dreams and have some that from my childhood, but I've never experienced anything as vivid as to one I had when I'm in a coma. I'm using piano as an outlet when possible which has helped a little with relieving emotional pressure. X

[Gurberly]

For me the it has passed quite slowly. It has been about two years since I left ICU. I remember the delirium/dreams as if they were yesterday..... However whilst I can remember them, I don't live or dream them anymore. That passed quite quickly.

If you Google ICU delirium you will see many hospitals and organisations such as ICU Steps produce quite good guides.

I was reading one the other day that suggested a lot of delirium/dreams were based around water due to the softness of the gel/water mattresses used in ICU. Certainly several of my "dreams" were very focussed on water, being on capsizing super yachts etc. Though I'm not really sure why Princesses Eugenie and Beatrice were there with me on the boat?

Take care of yourself 😀

[ChinnyChin22 in reply to Gurberly]

Thank you, I'll definitely have a look. X

[Wilbs in reply to Gurberly]

Ok, that makes huge sense, about the water beds. I could work out for the life of me why I was riding a huge inflatable pink unicorn!! Maybe that’s why. 🦄

[NellD2023]

hello. I’m sorry for what you went through. Your post caught my eye because I was in a 2 week coma which was full of nightmares! I’m left with some issues but the nightmares I can never get rid of. I heard after that they were dillusions because of the many drugs I had. One year on they have faded a bit but I’m not sure if they ever go completely. I was told to write them all down which I have. Possibly helps to work it all out. Good luck with recovery.

[Gurberly in reply to NellD2023]

I too wrote most of them down... it turned into a lengthy 18 page document! I did however find it very cathartic. Though I do wonder if that in itself reinforced the remembering of those dreams/delusions.

[ChinnyChin22 in reply to NellD2023]

Thank you for your reply, I'm in the process of writing them out. Hopefully it will help x

[ChinnyChin22]

Thank you all for your lovely and kind responses, it's been 2 years since it happened. Initially I'd experience moments of complete distressed displacement when hearing certain sounds or 2 specific songs that, this took time to get under control. But still to this day it almost feels as if part of me character hasn't come back yet, and the aspects of me that present today almost exist as different identities/faces of my personality which each have their own vivd memories of the dream.

I've spoken to some people about the dream and despite not being the most religious person, the idea of a devil figure cropped up a few times. Has anyone had something similar?

Thank you again for the kindness I've experienced on here, its been reassuring to learn I'm not alone in this. Xx

[Sepsur in reply to ChinnyChin22]

funny enough, and there are plenty of people who offer up advice about what you should do after being snatched from the jaws of death, one person advised me to ‘go to church to gives thanks for your life’ my response was that my near death experience & delirium confirmed the absence of god but there was plenty of evidence of the other fella.

[ChinnyChin22 in reply to Sepsur]

I share the same sentiment in regards to the absence of the fella upstairs. It definitely if anything it confirmed presence of the less favourable individual. However, there was someone who somewhat guided me through nightmarish moments but their presence & influence paled immensely in comparison and there were others who were on the same level undermining their efforts in the dream.

[Lux95 in reply to ChinnyChin22]

Most of my nightmares were related to events happening that I wasn't aware of, but a few were not. In one, I was in a tower, seemingly suspended or floating, and could see on one side an image in the purest white light imaginable which I knew (in my dream) to be Christ and His Church (Kingdom in heaven and on earth), and on the other, the deepest darkness, which I knew at that moment to be Satan and his earthly kingdom. I could sense my soul was in the balance between the two, not yet fully committed to either. This dream had no correlation to anything else I experienced before, during or after the ICU. There were others that had aspects of good or evil, and one that seemed like a Hell I never imagined - a web where humans and all things were part of the web, unable to move, speak, live or die, for all of eternity.

We have a choice. Suffering is not an indication there is no God, but rather a part of being fallen human beings. This life is not the end, but just a trial of sorts. Where we end up is our choice. It isn't how little or how much we suffer that matters, but the strength of our faith and obedience to God, despite suffering or lack thereof.

That is my experience as a Catholic, knowing there is a heaven, purgatory and Hell. Evil does not exist alone, and only because it is the opposite of pure good - God. I've also seen the effect of demons in the real world in years prior to becoming ill. They took the form of shadows that move where there is no light to cast a shadow - only happened a few times, but I was terrified, and I don't scare easily. I am also not fooled by tricks of light or vision.

Several nurses said it was a miracle I survived. Most in the ICU at the same time did not. Many people prayed, and a priest came to give me a blessing for either God's grace in death, or his mercy to live. I attribute surviving to prayer, God's grace, and the compassion of physicians and nurses. When hope was fading, they did what they believed in my best interests to survive, and I did. I am eternally grateful to God, my family, friends who prayed for me, our priests, and the ICU team that is amazing in many ways beyond their medical skill.

I didn't come away with a shaken faith, but quite the opposite - renewed, reinforced and unshakable.

[Signingfun in reply to Lux95]

Lux95,

My situation in the coma was helped, because my husband played my favorite worship music on a boom box. (He only played it loud enough for me to hear, but not so loud to disturb others.) People from my church would come and read the Bible to me and pray. Most of my dreams in the coma were about people helping me get better and going to rehab. My dream rehab was not as hard as real rehab.

I woke up feeling blessed for my friends, family and hospital staff that helped me to survive. Also, with a deeper faith and love for God. I survived when most people die, Knowing God has more for me to do in this life helped me get through some hard days of recovery and losing my job because of my illness.

Anne

[Jimmy20000]

After six years I still remember many things that happened while I was out. It does get better, at least for me. I don’t know if it will ever leave me, but I came to terms with my experience.

[BigH63]

Hi

I’m just coming up to 1 yr out of ICU. The delirium was horrific being chased/ Murdered/ escaping/ poisoning people with food / horrifying clowns coming coming out of the walls/ being in India in hospital and 13 nightmares I can remember and still all clear. I don’t have many nightmares now thank his, as Sepsur has said about the fella above, I said to my partner had I passed during my stay I would never have known or suffered, but these are hard to forget.

It will get less but completely disappear I can’t say. But fingers crossed for you

[ZanderB]

Hi ChinnyChin22

It took me about 2 1/2 years to feel better in my head and actually enjoying being alive. But the mental and physical scars are still there and will probably always be. I know it's a cliché but the passage of time and keeping busy have really helped. I lost count of the time people said to me after leaving ICU "You must be so happy to be alive!" but it didn't feel like it for a long time.

[downthemoor in reply to ZanderB]

That's spot on!! If anyone else says that to me about being happy to be alive I will scream!! Also 'think how far you've come from this time last year' . Yes ok I'm walking around 14 months on and pottering ... but they have NO idea how jumbled my head is, how tiring cooking a meal is, how much I yearn for the old me ....I'm missing out on getting together with family too as the travelling, being in a group etc all just too much .....☹️....all made so much worse by getting covid this Xmas which has knocked me back considerably

[ZanderB]

Yes physical and mental fatigue is a big thing for me. I have quite an academic job in law and work can be really difficult figuring out complex arguments. I doubt that I was ever the sharpest knife in the draw but I'm definitely one of the blunter ones now. It knocks one's confidence a lot.

One thing that I have found difficult is that I have a hyperactive wife and I kind of feel guilty if I'm not up and "grabbing life with both hands" - probably her favourite words of encouragement. And she's right but it's not quite for all people all the time. Take it slowly. I've gone from barely being able to stand up (and even that was with the support of two physios) 3 years ago to cycling 110 kms in under 4 hours yesterday. But it's been hard work getting there and, of course, I'm exhausted today.

I think lots of small, regular steps have worked best for me, whether work or play, and then I look back 6 months later and see great improvement.

I can imagine that covid was quite a blow given what one hears of the symptoms. It's been a few months now, are you recovering from it okay?

[Tedsdad]

of course things will never be the same. They never are after any experience, It is about learning to live with the changes. I am four years on now and am not the same person I was thee day before my operation. But in that four years many other things could have happened that would have changed me as well. The vividness fades but the conclusions you come to as a result of it don’t really. And neither should they. We learn from experiences. ICU is an experience so we can learn from it, but learning from something does not mean it needs to,totally dominate your life. If you need therapy to work it through it is worth pursuing this option. I was handled well enough that I didn’t need it but I could have seen it being different had the staff not been so firm with me. Definitely supportive but definitely uncompromising

[Misterpaulwood]

With the correct help from a clinical sycologist yes, get help.