Susanna’s story

 

I went in to hospital to have a life-changing operation on my spine. When I came round, the anaesthetist was standing at the end of my bed smiling at me: You gave us a nasty fright. We had to revive you four times , he said. They hadn't operated and I had to wait three months for a very successful operation. Unfortunately, the anaesthetist began to haunt me - wherever I went I could see and hear him telling me I'd died.

Every day I became more afraid, I didn't feel safe leaving home and lost all my confidence. I also needed to keep checking that my husband and our dog were still alive when they went to sleep.

Sometimes I couldn't stop crying and had a terrible sense of dread, despair and failure, so eventually I wrote to my doctor. She talked me through the original event and my current fears, diagnosed Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and recommended cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT).  It was a long wait but when I had my first appointment with the Wellbeing service my CBT session took me by surprise as I actually felt better afterwards.

Over the weeks, telling my story, hearing it recorded and reading it transcribed made me stop and think. Re-thinking gave me insights into my own issues and clues as to how people like the anaesthetist might have felt when he had to tell me that I'd died. Bit by bit I realised that not only had I NOT died but I wasn't a failure; I had had a successful life and I could look myself in the mirror and like what I saw. The final step in my cure was to make a trip to London on the train by myself - I did it, nothing bad happened and I came home safely. At last I had peace of mind.