Late at night and once again I’m going over and over why and how my man passed , I feel I should have acted sooner , they say it would have made no difference , 5 years on and I just can’t deal with the pain I feel when I’m alone at night ,so empty !
3 Likes
Hi Julie20
sorry for your loss , and missing them , not being able to see them, touch them talk to them is all awful enough, but I have found it is the guilt that really rips into you the worst. The feeling it’s your fault, you are to blame, I hear my brain shouting at me if you had done this or not done that he would be alive today. So many questions,I had to do CPR , was it that, should I have done it better. It’s just trying to find a reason for the madness of it all.
Guilt is just part of it but if after 5 years you are still blaming yourself I think you need some counselling to deal with it. We just do our best at the time that’s all we can do, we might not have done everything exactly right , but it probably would not have made much difference in the end . we did what we thought was the right thing at the time with the information we had. We can’t tell the future, we are not doctors or superhuman and we loved them, so of course we did our best.
If it was the other way around would you be wanting him to be beating himself up forever if he had failed when he would have tried his best for you to? That’s the way I try to look at it for myself. It still overwhelms me sometimes but I am getting there. Be kind to yourself. Jss x
Be kind to yourself, the mind plays tricks and grief takes no prisoners, we’re never going to get over it losing our other half, our soulmate, such a mixture of emotion so unpredictable but think you did the best you could in such terrible circumstances and look after yourself hugs to everyone xx
I’m a qualified nurse of far too many years and a cardiac arrest still upsets the whole team. There’s a solomon feeling of failure. Failure not only to the patient but also to their family.
A friend and I were sat one evening discussing CPR and feeling afraid of misjudging the pressure to use when her husband who happens to be a doctor said, you cannot do any harm. The harm would be to do nothing. The reward is the patient lives. The difficulty is if the person dies, the feeling that you could have done more or done something differently will stay with you forever. I suppose what I mean is, you have had to do something for a loved one that professionals find difficult. You will carry those thoughts forever but you did everything you could. I hope if need be, I would find the courage to behave as you.
2 Likes