The last two or three minutes before my dad died were really upsetting traumatic even. He had been in and out of consciousness all day but as he was going he sat up and struggled in what seemed to be panic. I thinking this all the time. I can’t get away from the way he looked, so scared and I did nothing just stood there watching the nurses try to soothe him. Every memory I have now reverts back to the end. I have had three counselling sessions, with the last on Friday. They have helped in other ways but I am still very distressed by the way Dad was at the end eleven months on.
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Hi Choccyface,
I’m sorry to hear you’re having these horrible flashbacks, that sounds very distressing. You aren’t alone in feeling like this - here is one recent conversation where Pattoa and some other users discuss struggling with difficult memories: https://support.sueryder.org/community/life-after-bereavement/blocking-out-past
There is some information from the Loss Foundation about traumatic flashbacks, and why they happen, which you might find helpful: http://www.thelossfoundation.org/nightmares-and-flashbacks/
Do you have more counselling sessions planned? It sounds as though it may be worth sticking with it, if it is helping with some aspects of your grief.
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I’m so sorry to hear this. I don’t think you knew what to do. You were probably shocked. The nurses were more used to it. He knew you loved him.
Reading your comments and others recalling the last moments of the death of a loved one it makes me realise that this is quite a common theme. Like you I go over and over the last days and hours of my husbands death 9 months ago and feel totally inadequate. I ask myself why I didn’t do more, say more hold him and tell him I loved him. And yet, like so many of us I must have been in shock and totally unprepared for the speed that things happened. I try to believe that I did the best I could under the circumstances but it is so hard not to feel guilt and wish I could have the time back again to do things differently. If only
Best wished
Allison