{Panic Attack} My Second Nervous Breakdown

My second nervous breakdown came about 1 month into being home. So after living in a hospital then rehab facility for 2 months, I moved him into my aunts house (she has dementia) where we have full time help. My initial assumption was he would be walking by the time we got home so all they would have to do is keep an eye on him.

Yea that didn't happen

He was an agitated and aggressive mess the first few weeks. For his safety I had to keep him restrained to his wheel chair which pissed him off. Despite a bed rail & bed alarm he managed to get out of bed and get semi-seriously hurt (not sure if this was the fault of the overnight caregiver) so then I had to start sleeping at my aunts on a couch in addition to be here all day every day.

I gave up my job, my hobbies, my friends - To care for this new hateful combative and physically abusive person who was so mentally incapacitated he didn't know any of this was going on.

One day, I'm sure again due to lack of sleep - I lost it.

He kept going on and on about my aunt needs to go to the bathroom.
We had just taken her, he saw her on the toilet (she uses a bedside commode) and kept pulling all her things off the table and pulling the table out from her (she's late stage dementia wheelchair bound) and after about 10 times telling him we just took her I just started screaming at him. I was enraged enough to scare my brother into calling half the family over. Prior to their arrival I ended up on the floor sobbing uncontrollable unable to catch my breath - All whilst my dad is still calling me stupid and trying to get my aunt to the bathroom (he's in a wheel chair too...)

My brother kicked me out of the room and took over with my dad. Amazingly he was able to calm him down, the family members got there, and my xanax kicked in. My aunt, the one who saved my ass the last time this happened, stayed the night so I could go home and get a good nights sleep - and then we resumed the normalcy which is my crazy life.

Lessons learned... Sleep is essential. I'm only 31, I've pulled plenty of all nighters, drunken nights out having to be up early the next day, but, none of those were in combination with the amount of stress, pressure, and depression of this new life. Staying up all night to make sure he doesn't fall out of bed was doing nothing but increasing the likely hood of me having some health disaster. Next, Sometimes you have to walk away. It's very hard for me to grasp that I'm talking to someone who's missing a good portion of their brain - Because he's cognizant and smart on so many other levels, I expect him to understand what I'm saying when I say "She just went to the bathroom" Tag team another family member in, it seems sometimes he's just plain ole' sick of listen to me all day long, and needs someone else to tell him to stop.

Finally, it's okay to loose it, you're human. Should I have been screaming at him at the top of my lungs, no probably not - But I did tell on myself to his psychologist who told me just that, you're only human, just try better next time and gave me some diversion/distraction tactics.

The next four months would yield less and less of these crazy events leading me to lose my shit, that or I've just learned to cope better....

{Panic Attack} My First Nervous Breakdown

Being the person I am, I slept in the hospital with my dad every night from day one. In fact, I rarely left at all. Because he was in ICU there were only two small chairs (to keep room for crash carts) so I slept by butting those up together and somehow managing to fit my overweight self into a sleeping position. Needless to say I didn't sleep.

He was required to be checked on every 2 hours by the nurses and perform their neurological assessment, squeeze my fingers, look into the light, etc. etc.

For the most part I had kept it together well. I had only cried when we were in the ER. It was night 3 or 4 that the lack of sleep combined with the weight of what was unfolding, trying to be the strongest one in the room, and what I'm sure was malnourished finally hit me.

It was around 2 or 3 AM and I naturally wasn't sleeping, so I got on google (big mistake) and started looking up bi-lateral thalamic strokes. To keep a long story short, basically what I was finding was my dad was going to be very messed up for the rest of his life and most likely looking at living his days out in a facility. I kept panning the articles looking for one simple positive story.

Then I had my first, what I assume was, a panic attack. I rocked back and fourth crying uncontrollably and unable to breath for about 3 hours straight until it was early enough to text a family member.

Somewhere in that waiting period, one of the doctors (who I wanted to kill for many other reasons) came in to check on my dad, whilst I'm in the middle of hyperventilating, and asked " Oh, Should I come back later" - Like really dude? Bedside manner much!

My aunt arrived, who as this story unfolds would be the one person who's provided me the most support through this whole ordeal, and sent me home with instructions to shut my phone off and go to sleep.

I was still sobbing the whole drive home, into the house, and to the bed, where I did eventually pass out. Only for about 4 hours, when I called a person who called a person and got me something to calm down.

The next day I went to the doctor and she wrote me a script for Xanax and Zoloft. I never took the Zoloft after reading the potential side effects. Didn't seem like now was a good time for me to be having chemically induced thoughts of suicide. But the Xanax help me keep it together when I knew something stressful was coming. , She of course told me this was a one time script and I need to deal with my shit and not cover it with medication. "It's okay to cry" they say.

I had very serious decision to make and a whole new host of responsibilities all which had to be done with my dads would be ex-wife had he not had a stroke breathing down my throat and in my way left and right - She'll get her whole own post one day..... So yes - I medicated. And I turned out fine.

Disclaimer

Clearly I'm not a doctor and can't/don't suggest you go out and do anything crazy or illegal to obtain pills that you don't know anything about, but on the slight chance you've stumbled on my post in the middle of your 2am googling because your scared, alone, and freaking out in a hospital room - It is, in fact, going to be okay - One way or another. And it is okay to ask for help, whether its asking a doctor to write prescribe you something, or finding someone to talk to. I'm not the talking type - Not my thing, don't share my feelings, am the strongest one in the room - I'm the listener, not the talker.