Our son died in front us on 1/3/13

On 1/3/13 our only son Jason, 27, died of a heroin overdose at home. It was about 7:45 we had just heard him in the shower. A friend he was going out with called to check on him. My husband knocked on his door and didn't get an answer. He broke the door down and we found him on the floor very blue and unconscious. After call 911 we started CPR. My Husband did compressions I did breaths. I kept getting up a lot of vomit. I kept clearing and doing more breaths.
The paramedics worked on him for a long time but pronounced him dead.

Later with his body still here the minster did last rights with us there. He was all purple. I watch my only child leave in a body bag.

I think I am having PTSD symptoms. Flashbacks, not being able to get the pictures of his death out of my head. Worsening depression. Numbness to the whole thing.

I don't know what to do.

How often are you seeing your T and pdoc now? After the death of my BF I saw both my T and pdoc once a week and scheduled them a few days apart. I would look at the calendar and say if I can just make it two more days, if I can just make it one more day...

I imagine you are having some pretty horrific PTSD after that. I have read that Zoloft is often helpful when given early after PTSD symptoms begin. What meds do you take? But no med is going to fix you. It may help but you your life is forever changed. You need to learn what to do to make it through each day. Sometimes each hour.

Do you have any pets or would you want one? When my PTSD was really bad I would go to the barn and sit in my chair and feed my horse, Dusty, some grain and I would look at his calm eyes and I tried to emulate him. Sometimes I would hug him and bury my face in his neck. Other times I would pick up kittens when we had them. I would take a couple of young kittens and lay down in bed and placed the kittens beside my legs and I would focus on their soft furry touch.

Nobody told me until a couple of years later (or perhaps I couldn't hear them) but there is a technique called grounding for PTSD flashbacks. When your head starts rolling that tape again and it is real as it was the day it happened you cannot say it is not real because it is real but it is now over. That is a hard step to make when your head is still seeing 'that day'. You use grounding to divert your thinking to something different than what you experience during flashbacks. Touch is a big help. Touch the fabric of your chair and focus on what the sensation feels like. My pdoc gave me a stuffed dog and I would hold the dog and touch his ears.

You are still in a state of shock and will be for a very long time, I imagine. But it is not hopeless. You won't ever forget the pain but it becomes less frequent. Instead of every minute, every hour on your mind it someday will be thoughts just parts of the day. My trauma was in 2000 and it has only been in the past two years that I feel I am really coping now. Now I only think of the trauma a few times a week or so.

Have you talked about when to know when you need to be inpatient? I was inpatient for five weeks at first, then ten days or so a couple times a year then just at the anniversary of the death for awhile. Then I did an outpatient program for five hours per day on three to five days per week. I learned some things in outpatient and got some support but having a place to be and something to do helped me.

How is your sleep? I slept twelve to sixteen hours a day for a very long time to stop thinking.

Yoda is right on with her advice. I do think it is crucial that you have grief counciling, and a presence there you can talk to. You are struggling to process this because it is so tramatic. It is very important that you are "not alone" and this is tramatic for both you and your husband so you both need help, and don't isolate by yourselves, you need help. Yoda is right, you will need some medication to help you "relax" and reduce the challenge your brain is having from all the confusing emotions you are having with this.

I didn't realize that this loss was so recent in your other thread. Now that I see it is recent, yes, you do need help.

I am soooooo sorry, this "is" a huge loss.

What are you and your husband doing now, are you getting help? You both need to reach out for help, Yoda is right this is going to take time to find your way to make peace with, it is often moment by moment for a while. You are at the point where the shock is retreating and you are trying to "process" it all, you cannot do this all by yourself, it is very important to get help.

Please know that you are not alone, other parents have experienced this, had to understand there was nothing they could do, had to work on accepting it slowly and be able to talk about it as much as they needed to so they could get past the very difficult challenges you are discribing to us here. Being able to "talk" as much as you need and having a validating presence is very important.

You have our support here, but you also need a physical presence that you can talk to as much as you need.

(((Very gentle caring hugs)))

Thanks for responding,
I have seen a grief counselor twice. She diid some kind of technique for one of the images, but it has worn off. My PDOC of thirteen years for whatever reason hasn't been very involved. The week after the funeral I went inpatient for 24 hrs.
They weren't being very helpful so my husband and I decide I should leave. He said ok but don't expect for us to let you back for at least a month. I have only talked to him on the phone once since then to refill a prescription. I have bipolar 1 disorder, so I take seroquel which helps some with the flashbacks. I also stared Effexor, I usually don't take AD's because they can cause mania or increased cycling. I have had two reiki sessions, I don't think they worked as well as they should because I am so shut down.

Yes I take Seroquel to calm my mind then sleep a lot so I don't have to think about it.

Even before my son died I had become very reclusive having bad panic attacks which made it difficult to leave the house. I am on disability so I am home alone.
We are going to the Compassionate Friends Group.

Thanks

I think you need to find a therapist that specializes in PTSD to help you work through this.

I am sorry that you didn't get the support you needed in the hospital, I had that experience myself. I am sorry you didn't get the help you needed there, some places are better than others.

I think you need to find a new psychiatrist that you can have more contact with. It is important that you have someone more engaging that is paying attention to your needs right now.

I am glad to see you have access to a support group. Are any of these people getting therapy as well? Maybe you can get the name of a good therapist there. I really feel that is important for you right now to also have "therapy".