What I wish someone had told me...?

What is the one single piece of practical advice or information you wish someone had told you about recovering from injury and getting back to living?

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What I wish someone had told me...?

by karimbrohi » Mon Jan 26, 2015 7:27 am

All. I'm wondering what is the one single piece of practical advice or information you wish someone had told you about recovering from injury and getting back to living? What would have made a big difference if you had known earlier, or didn't have to find out for yourself?
Karim
 
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Re: What I wish someone had told me...?

by Jo Bloggs » Mon Jan 26, 2015 2:17 pm

This is very difficult. Acceptance that you will never be as you once was and just to accept how you are now. do the best you can and do not be scared to tell people if you can't do something or need help. Most of us are proud and don't like to lean on others. I still have pains, aches etc after nearly 4 years and sometimes put on supports and people forget and say "oh what have you done" and you have to admit nothing it's from the accident. I accept that my concentration is bad, my multi tasking is practically non-existent now but you need to look on the positive side of everything. You are alive so keep fighting and you will get there, but be realistic don't push yourself too much.

To summarise, realistic aims, think positive and keep going as your new amended self.
 
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Re: What I wish someone had told me...?

by PaulTerrell » Mon Feb 02, 2015 2:02 pm

I am sure there are other things as well but you are asking for one single practical piece of advice or support. What first comes to mind is that it would have been easier for me to prepare for coming off painkillers if I had known the nature of the withdrawal symptoms in advance so that they didn't come as a shock. I got absolutely no advice about Tramadol from the hospital or the two doctors who prescribed it for me afterwards. One was tentative, the other signed me up for several months worth. I was a bit shocked when i googled it to find so many people all over the world had big withdrawal and addiction problems. Perhaps the doctors don't know because they don't get enough feedback from the clients or not enough is in the professional literature. In any case, I would have liked more information and support in this respect.
 
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Re: What I wish someone had told me...?

by nicole_s » Tue Feb 03, 2015 10:11 am

Hi Paul, yes I hear you. I was prescribed Oxycontin after surgery, was on it for weeks, then just went cold turkey when the prescription ran out. I went through what I now realise were heroin-type withdrawal symptoms for several days, pure horror, didn't know what was happening, never want to go through that again! But it did give me new empathy for what people addicted to opiates have to struggle with.
 
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Re: What I wish someone had told me...?

by Tall Kate » Sun Feb 08, 2015 1:35 pm

I wish someone had told me that when they said 'it will take time to recover from this' they meant a really long time, not just a few days or weeks. I didn't understand for the longest time what 'time' really means when doctors say it. And it doesn't help that the rest of the world goes on thinking it'll be just a few days or weeks.

Somehow I managed to convince myself that I'd had a sort of low level, small scale, minor scrape; that I was in the trauma ward a bit randomly; that I wasn't like everyone else in there with real traumas to deal with. I kept expecting myself to be all sorted in a couple of weeks - for months. And so did everyone non-medical around me (ie everyone) so I kept crashing into expectations of my own and other people's and it became more and more confusing. And more and more disappointing. Why wasn't I sorted? Was it my fault?

6 months in bits of me are still mending, bits of me will never be the same again, and bits are still broken. I have a different outpatients appointment every week and a brand new diagnosis of PTSD to marvel at (so that's what the weird weeping thing is all about!). I get it. But it might have been handy to have an inkling at the start.


PS And yes I completely agree about the meds/withdrawal. Why on earth doesn't anybody say?!
 
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Re: What I wish someone had told me...?

by DuncanBuckley » Tue Jul 05, 2016 7:36 am

Tall Kate wrote:I wish someone had told me that when they said 'it will take time to recover from this' they meant a really long time, not just a few days or weeks. I didn't understand for the longest time what 'time' really means when doctors say it. And it doesn't help that the rest of the world goes on thinking it'll be just a few days or weeks.

6 months in bits of me are still mending, bits of me will never be the same again, and bits are still broken. I have a different outpatients appointment every week and a brand new diagnosis of PTSD to marvel at (so that's what the weird weeping thing is all about!). I get it. But it might have been handy to have an inkling at the start.



Totally agree with Tall Kate here. Nothing really prepares you or your relatives around you that the time taken for a serious trauma can take years.

When I suffered my trauma, many of relatives around me were hoping that "all will be well" in a short space of time. Even my own parents thought and said "In 3 months everyone will be wondering what all the fuss was about." It wasn't that they didn't care or didn't comprehend the injuries, just that it was their way of dealing with it. Well, it wasn't three months! Try almost 6 years.

The one thing I would want to tell myself going through it is to not lose heart, set yourself goals to keep breaking, then set new ones and constantly think about what you're going to be doing when you get out of there. You'll be going through every emotion you can think of while confined to a hospital environment; sadness, guilt, anger, pain, hope, happiness, loss and grieving; the list is endless. Nothing can prepare you for it, you have to acknowledge it and try to cope with it as best you can.
 
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Re: What I wish someone had told me...?

by DuncanBuckley » Mon Oct 31, 2016 8:55 am

I don't think any trauma survivor would tell you that experiencing changes in your personality or psychology doesn't happen. It is a well documented situation that can have different results for different people as your mind attempts to cope and deal with the new life it has suddenly been thrust into.

Seeing such changes in myself over time, and noticeable changes in my personality by my close family, coming to terms with the trauma is the only way forward. I noticed the following document on a Psychology page recently and thought it a very apt read for survivors:

https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/think-act-be/201610/7-ways-survivors-can-grow-after-trauma

For me, since the trauma, my direction has been all about finding purpose and justification and I have become involved in many different research projects to help me mentally adjust and contribute to easing other victims traumatic experiences. The seven points listed in the editorial seem rather relevant and can occur in stages or simultaneously.
 
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