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.

[CheriAnn]

Thank you SO much for sharing this.
I am so glad that you were able to seek help. We have been very worried about you.
It sounds like he understood what you were feeling. I hope you take time to forgive yourself and stop blaming yourself. Until then, I hope you continue to seek help and find answers. Please continue to share your experiences, they really do help me too.

Cheri

[SJ J & S]

Well done,

Not many people take the step of getting therapy choosing instead to struggle on and all the while thinking that they are abnormal when they are not.

I think as long as you show your baby constant love and listen, so many people just dont listen to their children.

I hope you have found some peace

love Sue

[Ann H]

I am glad that you have someone to help your work through you grief and guilt. Maybe a lot of people would feel better going and talking to someone in person. Maybe he will say something that will help us all to find peace.
Ann

[DJ - Edgar, Jess...]

An additional factor when grieving a lost pet is this..

We spend out lives growing in and out of relationships. Friend grow up and move away, elderly relatives pass on, our children grow up and move out to build lives of our own. We get used to others going their own way and relying mostly on ourselves (and our spouses, in many cases) being the only constants in our daily routine.

Until we get a pet.

Those of us who get pets as "adults" or lose one at that time can often feel a more profound feeling of loss. We don't expect the pet to ever leave. They aren't supposed to grow up or move away or get married and move out. They are supposed to be with us always. We often forget about their short lifespan - I believe many of us (myself as an example) never truly realize how short their time with us will be - until it is over.

It is, within our minds and hearts, a bond that we build with the expectation that it will never be broken. That bond wraps around our hearts and when it breaks it breaks our heart along with it.

I am glad to see you are speaking with such a wonderful counsellor.

[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

[Pamela]

Thank you for sharing. I am looking forward to more. Pamela

[J T]

A lot of us are more affected by the loss of a pet than the loss of others in our lives. I gave that a lot of thought in the days just before Christmas. My thoughts echo a lot of what's been said here. From a post I made on Christmas Eve...

... I also was more affected by Misty's death than, for example, my father's. I think there are several reasons we (or at least I) feel this way when a very close pet dies.

First, we don't expect the "little ones" to die before us; we tend to group our pets in with our children, I think, and expect them to outlive us. We expect our grandparents and our parents to die before us. With spouses and siblings, we realize that it could be either way, us first or them first.

Secondly, the other loved ones in our lives have independence, self-sufficiency, self-reliance. Our parents raised us. Our siblings and spouses are peers; even our children grow into adolescence, then adulthood. Only our pets remain dependent on us throughout their lives, depending on us for every basic need: food, water, shelter, comfort, medical care. Those of us who take that lifelong commitment seriously feel responsible for everything that happens in their lives, and even though, logically, we should expect them to die before us, when that time comes, we feel as though somehow we've failed in that responsibility, that we could/should have done something more or differently.

And third, the relationships we have with our animals is somehow different than the relationships we have with people. Their love is truer, totally honest, non-judgemental. We can tell them anything, and trust that they will accept us as we are.

[KayKay]

Thank you for sharing that with us. I'm going to see if there's a pet loss group in my area. I talked to the vet school in our state, and they gave me the number the one in their area. I think that talking with other people who understand how I feel will help me. I've always been a person who wants the face-to-face contact, so this should help. I think we've both made good decisions about this.

Take care of yourself and your family.

[Caroline]

Thank you so much for sharing your insights and the advice from the therapist. I think it shows a great amount of strength and power on your part to seek the help. You do not have to do it alone, and sometimes friends and family cannot help us in the same way that therapists can. I was comforted by what you shared. I am starting to realize that other people love their animals as much as I do, and take their lives and loss just as seriously. That makes me feel good, like it is okay to grieve.

[Rusty's Mom]

Dear Hegel's Mom,

I'm glad to hear that you talked to a counselor and that he was very kind and understanding. I hope that you feel better as you talk to him (or an associate) more and find peace in the near future. Thank you, Hegel's Mom, Caroline, Karen, JT, Pamela, Jilly, DJ, Ann, Sue and Cheri for sharing your thoughts. Reading all of your posts has been very comforting for me.

Lynn

[pjlpjl7]

Thank you so much for writing this. The doctor hit it right on the head for me. I lost my Cinnamon so fast to illness and I have felt so much guilt, she was staying at the vets so we weren't even there for her when she went that night. This site is a godsend.