Sharing Advice From My Loss Counselor Options

[hegelsmom]

This morning, I went to see a man who counsels people after pet losses.
He was very kind, and understanding.

He was saying that a pet's death is often harder to deal with than any other family
members, because we have a different "contract" with our pet. They will give us
unconditional love, joy, happiness, in turn, we will give them food, water, love,
and protection. After all, they exchange a life in the "wild" to live with us.
When they get sick, or something bad happens to them, we feel responsible, as
though we broke our part of the bargain. It doesn't matter if it was a disease or
a tragic accident. It is a more intense feeling of responsibility than even what is
felt for a human child, because after all, the child can communicate with us more
directly. We fell as though we should be able to "know" our pet is ill. Nature doesn't tell our pet to tell us they are sick. They turn inward instead.

My problem now is guilt, on top of the loneliness and sadness. He was telling me,
(as many of you have) that I am taking on too much responsibility for things I
couldn't have controlled, and not giving myself enough credit for all the years of
care and love that I did give.

I will continue to try and struggle through this. I plan to go back, though it will
probably be with one of his associates. He also thinks the part about me being
an overwhelmed new mother is making this worse. I agree. I had been trying
to be "super mommy" and thought I had control of the baby, cat and dog. I can't
control everything, and one day my baby will become ill. (hopefully not seriously)
I won't be able to prevent falls, colds, cuts and scrapes.

I felt somewhat better after talking to him today. I liked that he was honest, and
told me upfront in the first five minutes, "Nothing I'm going to say to you today is
going to be able to take your pain away." He's right. Only time, hopefully, can
ease that.

i just miss my baby so much, as do all of you miss your babies.
Peace to all of us.

[jillybromley]

Thank you for telling us what your counsellor said to you, it was very enlightening for me.

I have never seen it written or explained in that way before as to why we feel such grief. It was a great insight into why we feel the way we do when our furbabies are taken from us. It all made such sense ... yes there is a great feeling of responsibility, much more so than there would be with a human who is more responsible for themselves.

There is a feeling of wanting to protect, and I suppose however our furbabies die we feel that in some way we have let them down or have not done quite enough to have saved or protected them from illness or accident.

I know with my first dog I wondered for months whether her flea collar had caused the leukemia so I never used them again, but still my animals always seemed to get some sort of cancer that they died from. When I had Ellie I used nothing chemical at all. No strong chemicals in the house or garden, organic food, everything I could think of to stop it happening again. And bless her heart she was a fit and strong little cat, but then she ran out in front of a car and died at 15 months old.

I then realised that no matter how hard you try it is impossible to cover every eventuality and to try to put guilt aside. I just try to remember that while they were alive I showered my babies with love, comfort, affection and everything else I could think of to make their lives as happy and natural as possible. I know that everyone on this site has done the same and I am sure that all our babies have gone to rainbow bridge knowing what it feels like to be truely loved.

With love
jilly