I have been formally diagnosed with PTSD following the sudden death of my father this year. He was aged 70. He had Parkinson’s with Lewy bodies. He had a painful and difficult death and he had covid which did not help.
I still get flashbacks to seeing him dying. I also have flashbacks when he was ill. All happening in lockdown
I lost my nana to covid in 2020
I didn’t get to see Nana and my visits to dad in hospital were not allowed until his final hours. I’m so devastated
I have been referred for CBT - has anyone else had this?
I am sorry to hear of the loss of your father. Lockdown certainly has a lot to answer for having made it difficult to see our loved ones in hospital.
There are a few CBT support groups on social media which may be of help and you could join and connect with their members. You could check to see if there are any local groups in your area (your profile does not give an area, so I could not look for you).
Not having been through CBT myself I apologise I cannot be of much help. I do hope you can connect with someone here or outside of this forum. Good luck with the CBT and keep reaching out here, we are all here for you.
I have gone through quite a few therapies since my husband had a heart attack in front of me. He died a month later. I found I did all this too soon. My advice is you have to go through all the emotions and feelings and cry. Go hour by hour and don’t beat yourself up for the devastating sadness anxiety and constant fear. You have to go through all this before you feel any sense of control. Even then it is so hard. I am sixteen months in and although I tend to hold on to my emotions a little better the tears are always just under the surface. CBT is alright in its place but by no means a game changer. With time I have learned to live with the grief but it isn’t any less painful. There are times when I just cry because I don’t know what else to do. It’s a life I didn’t think or expect to have. Life is very different and I don’t feel I will ever get used to. I feel lost x
Thank you for sharing your story. My dad had Lewy bodies with Parkinson’s. Prior to this he was calm and fiercely independent. During the second lockdown we noticed something was not right. He was confused, not sleeping and wandering at night. I was calling doctors reporting concerns and he was given sleeping tablets which seemed to make things worse. He was agitated, he threw a kitchen chair at me which was his aggression and a symptom of the condition. One night I saw him standing in the corner of my bedroom at 3am lost. The final straw came when he tried to put a pillow over my mum during the night. He was so confused and would hear voices and see things which were not there. I was constantly on high alert.
Then his death came on so suddenly. Restrictions to visits with covid but I saw him in his final hours. I cannot get that image out of my mind.
I’m reliving a lot of this. The nightmares and flashbacks. Then panic attacks. It’s horrible I hate it all