Emerg Services Seeing Paitients In My Dreams...

[CatInTree]

I've had those kind of dreams. I'm not a firefighter, but I was a volunteer in another position where I tried helping people. I still haven't decided how open to be on this forum.

I'm usually completely paralysed and cornered somewhere and get asked why I didn't do this or that and why I'd get to be alive.

My goal is to do a place and time check when I wake up. My ideal one would go something like "It's (month) of (year). I'm in my apartment. Yesterday I did X and had Y to eat. Tomorrow I'm doing Z to relax. There's a plastic raven on my table. I have my books on the chair next to my bed." and then either read something or curl up hugging my stuffed fox. I don't always manage to do all that, but it's my goal.

 

[FragileGlass]

I'm a firefighter and I keep getting this dream about the people I have tried to save on scene t...

Are they identifiable patients and is it the same people that keep showing up in your dreams?

 

[teneighty]

similar shit here. been a conscript disaster relief field rescuer and field dispatcher for over 10 years, "pulled" a good & close friend out of a completely totalled car wreck, had a few friends "take that last step", etc.
(field dispatch means we went to large disaster as recon, started to dispatch on location with mobile HQ.)

your not alone. I keep seeing stuff like that in dreams, wake up sweating, i sometimes even "daydream" them. those moments when i notice the gap in the radio music while showering or eating with the mind wandering off.

It`s been over a decade, stuff got worse after my ex gf's new ex went mad over her leaving and I was one of the persons he thought where guilty, so i suddenly became a target. the first shrink i had after that dropped the assignment because i burnt her out with my stories.

you can`t save everyone. I know, even not saving one hurts. Thats why e.g. Baby Emergency is so devastating. I`ve seen people go out 5-6 times a day, they forget their own safety and safety rules when that code comes up. they get 6 most of the time. the day they get one less is heartbreaking everytime. I know there where 50% days.
We had people who couldnt BBQ if their life depended on it 10 years after having to deal with "vehicle on fire" calls.
my first assignment was a mass car crash with a logging tractor on an highway in europe (try not to think about it - no speed limits).

from what i live with, even with therapy, it didnt go away. it just became less intense. my reactions became better.
on the other hand: I count the lives i saved, I have them on the wall next to my bed.
If my bad sleep was the price for those lives, it`s been a pretty good deal.
and thats a damn good motivation when you jerked awake again in the dead of night.

Stop thinking about it as your duty and seeing only the fails. start counting just how many people you got out of misery in your lifetime. count the good ones. that helps with the feeling of guilt.
Next time you see the ghosts, call on the survivors energy to help you :)

depending on what smartphone you have - ptsd coach and daylio are cool apps. might help you.

 

[Freida]

Stop thinking about it as your duty and seeing only the fails. start counting just how many people you got out of misery in your lifetime. count the good ones. that helps with the feeling of guilt.

Wow. My T just said this same thing to me today! I'm stuck on 2 kid calls and one officer suicide and it's triggering what I'm actually in there to work on! Annoying. Especially since I thought I had left those behind

 

[FragileGlass]

Wow. My T just said this same thing to me today! I'm stuck on 2 kid calls and one officer suicide and...

I often find that many events that are seemingly routine (routine by our standards) park themselves unknowingly into mental compartments until I have a similar event and the most obscure of past events come back. I don't know if it's because I hit the PTSD marker on a few events and it's more apparent now because of the PTSD or if it's common to our industry. PTSD is one thing, repetitive injury is another in this line of work. While I do try to focus on positive events, so many negatives hide unknown.

Sadly I did try to focus on the positives! I gave up when negatives were running 10 for every 1! I'm always hopeful! I'm not the personality type to thrive on negativity!

 

[CatInTree]

Stop thinking about it as your duty and seeing only the fails. start counting just how many people you got out of misery in your lifetime. count the good ones.

If anyone has any clue how to do that when you don't know the outcome most of the time I'm all ears.

 

[Freida]

So here's some randomness to add to the mess! T and I are finally figuring out that one of my kid calls is tying into one of my PTSD events. It's not the actual call itself, but a sound that is running during the call. T says it's a double whammy. The call on its own was bad but then there was the trigger. So once we get thru this one she wants to revisit the other ones and look for triggers. Oh joy.