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.