BLOG: I’m a community nurse but avoided hospitals for 14 years following the birth of my daughter. But following an admission last year, I knew I needed help to overcome my post-traumatic stress disorder
By Nicola Zolnhofer, Head of Nursing and Quality for Cambridgeshire and Peterborough NHS Foundation Trust’s Older People and Adult Community directorate
It was June 2023 and I was standing next to the nurses’ station with my fingers in ears demanding to be discharged from hospital.
I’d been admitted after my pneumonia which had worsened to the point where it was now affecting my heart.
But being back in hospital with all the noises, the alarms, and the constant movement of staff and patients had triggered my post-traumatic stress disorder and all I could think of was to “escape” despite the risks to my health.
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I been a registered nurse for 18 years, and a proud one.
I became a Queen’s Nurse in 2013. I’ve worked for Cambridgeshire and Peterborough NHS Foundation Trust since 2015 and I love my job as head of nursing and quality for the division of the Trust which provides community nursing care for older people and those with long-term physical health conditions.My role involves supporting the many teams of nurses who treat people in their own homes.
Working for the NHS is hugely rewarding but for more than a decade I’d avoided acute hospitals. It wasn’t just that I am nurse who works in the community, it was because 14 years previously the birth of my first daughter had been incredibly traumatic.
These days she is well and a very normal teenager, but the impact of what happened had stayed with me. I’d tried to put it to the back of my mind, to somehow move on and pretend everything was fine, but it wasn’t and being admitted to hospital had brought it back to the surface.
I’d done everything I could to avoid an admission.
When I first became ill because of my pneumonia, I’d gone to A&E. I was given oral antibiotics and although there were concerns about the severity of my infection, I’d left against advice. I even worked from home the next day to silence my mind from the PTSD symptoms.
Two days later, I was called back to hospital because of concerns over the blood tests that had been carried out and admitted - and that put my anxiety levels off the scale.
For the first two nights I didn’t sleep. All my senses were heightened. I couldn’t even stand the smell of the bedding. My mind was constantly telling me I wasn’t safe.
I was having flashbacks relating to the traumatic birth of my daughter, and that’s when I found myself next to that nurses’ station with my fingers in my ears.
The staff treating me soon moved me to a side room on the ward for the remainder of my treatment. I was also given medication for my PTSD and after 10 long days I was discharged home.
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CPFT has a mental health service for staff and I contacted it, and following an initial assessment I was referred on to the NHS Cambridgeshire and Peterborough Talking Therapies team, which is also run by CPFT.
At the beginning of September my treatment began with Ilaria Meo, a high intensity cognitive behavioural therapist. I can’t say I wasn’t sceptical. I know about physical health, but mental health treatment seemed like a mystery to me.
She told me about EMDR - Eye Movement Desensitisation and Reprocessing – which is a psychological treatment that's been proven to treat the symptoms of PTSD.
But before we could begin that element of the treatment, we met to talk about what prompted my PTSD in the first place. Those weekly conversations which took place over the first four weeks were difficult and as well as my experiences during my daughter’s birth also revealed other traumatic memories.
We then began the EMDR stage which involved me making certain eye movements while following Ilaria’s finger.
I can’t pretend to understand the science behind it, but it has worked. After 13 weeks I was discharged. My PTSD symptoms have gone, and I couldn’t feel more relieved.
It has not been about making me feel “happy” about what happened to me during my daughter’s birth or taking away the feelings around it. For nearly a decade and a half it was so traumatic I couldn’t even talk about it, but now I can and know how to deal with the feelings around it.
There was one final goal to achieve and that was to visit the hospital where my PTSD had begun 14 years before.
Ilaria set up a meeting there, but I determined to show her I could do it. So before we met, I went in on my own and although the visitor policy meant I couldn’t actually go inside the maternity unit, I walked right up to the door, along every corridor, and up and down every staircase nearby. All of this would have been unthinkable just a few weeks before.
I’m a nurse and I look after people. For those few weeks last year I had become the patient, and I hope it proves that as NHS staff we’re not immune to needing to be looked after ourselves. I hope my experience will inspire others, from all walks of life, to seek support.
I would say to anyone to try talking therapies and if you do, jump in with both feet, experience it, and get fully involved.
For me, it has been life changing.
As told to Andy Burrows, Deputy Head of Communications, Cambridgeshire and Peterborough NHS Foundation Trust
*Nicola was treated by NHS Cambridgeshire and Peterborough Talking Therapies. For more information about the service, who is eligible, and the treatments available, contact them here.
