Recovery is just the beginning…..

When I wrote my last blog post about my recovery journey, I had just finished a course of EMDR therapy.

Having returned to ICU to see where I’d spent so much time, it ‘felt’ as though the chapter was beginning to close. I’d been through so much; my family had been through so much….it was time to move on. After a period of time, people stop asking how you are, if you need anything….because the assumption is you’re home, therefore you must be ok…..right?

Only I couldn’t move on…. I couldn’t forget what had happened, I began to think more and more about my family and the impact my journey had had on them. It was my fault that they had gone through what they had. Except…it wasn’t my fault was it! But it felt like it…..

As time moved on, my experience became less of a talking point. As a family, we would recall things, particularly amusing things I’d said or done. I began to recognise gaps in my memory, forgetting things that had happened pre-icu. I already knew that I had lost a period of 3 weeks from ICU to step down onto the ward but I began to notice other things that I had completely forgotten or I couldn’t remember as well. I remember one evening having a conversation about a WW2 plane’s propeller that had been found by a fishing boat in Plymouth sound. It happened after discharge from ICU but I had no recollection of the story. It was the same when i heard on the news about an investigation into drones at Heathrow airport and thousands of people being stranded. I didn’t have a clue!

My point is, is that someone who goes through a traumatic experience never really moves on or forgets. We put it to the back of our minds, we ‘try’ to forget. Everyone will assume you have forgotten, everyone will think you’re fine and dandy. But the reality is that you spend your time wondering. Trying to figure out stuff, trying to understand why things happened in the way they did. Every now and then something will come back to you. Something will jog a memory; you’ll have a flash back, or worse still (for me anyway), something will feel familiar but you won’t know why.

The journey from recovery is not a straight line – it’s wiggly with knots and massive humps!

For me, my recovery as such, is ongoing. For how long….I don’t know, but I do know that I am going in the right direction. I’ve shared my journey with you and now we’ve reached the point where the next chapter begins. After all…… I have to try to move on…..