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    A Different Grief: Coping with Pet Loss

Are you anticipating or mourning the loss of your pet, and surprised and even overwhelmed at the depth of your grief? The lessons in this course are designed both to help you understand and cope with the grief of losing your pet, and to guide you towards meaningful growth, healing and inspiration. Come to a better understanding of the emotional upheaval caused by the shock, disbelief, anger, guilt and sorrow that are commonly experienced when a beloved pet is lost. Learn meaningful ways to memorialize your faithful friend. You deserve to feel comforted, understood and acknowledged as a person in grief, and reassurance that you are normal and healthy in loving your faithful animal friend so deeply. [Course Overview] [Enroll Now]

Dear Marty: Coping with Loss of Pet and Parental Loss during the Holidays
Q & A by Bereavement Counselor Marty Tousley

Question: It's been three weeks since I had to have my cat Smokey put to sleep. She was 22 years old. It's been very hard dealing with her loss. I'm still depressed about it, and with the holidays coming I just feel like crying all the time. I lost both my parents around the holidays - my mom died four years ago on November 29 (her birthday), and my dad passed six years ago, on December 30th. So now, having lost my life-long kitty, I'm finding it very hard to be upbeat. I don't expect everyone to know what it's like losing both parents and now my cat around the holidays, but it irritates me when others say to get together with family and friends and do something fun. I'm not much for getting together with other people anyway, and when you're single it makes it even more lonely.

Going to work helps some, but when I get home at the end of the day, I start feeling bad all over again. I have all these emotions still going on since losing Smokey, and there are days I just want to end my life to stop the pain. I feel like I'm going crazy sometimes, grieving like this over a cat. But she was my cat for 22 years, ever since she was 8 weeks old. So I think I have a right to be sad, even though I know my friends are growing impatient with me. If I sound mad it's because I am! I get mad at myself for feeling like this, but I still can't help it. Do those support groups really help? I've debated about calling a pet loss grief number. The idea of sitting in a group with total strangers does not appeal to me at all, and reading a book about pet loss makes me even more depressed. Please, what else can I do? Is there anything else that would help?

Answer: I'm so very sorry to learn of the death of your precious kitty Smokey, who's been your faithful companion for more than two decades, and you have my deepest sympathy for the loss of your dear parents as well. You say that with the onset of the holidays, your bad days outnumber the good ones, you want to cry all the time, and there are "days I just want to end my life to stop the pain." While work offers you some respite, your grief is still waiting for you when you get home at the end of the day. Your friends are growing impatient with your grief, the idea of sitting in a group with total strangers doesn't appeal to you, and reading a book about pet loss makes you even more depressed. As if all that weren't enough, along comes the holiday season with its traditions and customs of family togetherness and its expectations of warmth and good cheer - which only serves as a painful reminder of what once was but never will be again.

Grief Work
You asked, "Please what else can I do?" I am reminded of the old adage that a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. Much as you may want to do so, there is no way to avoid this grief of yours. You cannot wait it out; you won't "get over it" quickly, and nobody else can do it for you. It's called grief work because finding your way through grief is hard work, and if you put it off, like a sink full of dirty dishes in your kitchen, it will just sit there, waiting to be done. And the longer it waits, the harder it becomes.

In addition to what you've already tried or thought about trying, there is a great deal "else" that you can "do" with this grief of yours. If you find that one thing you've already tried doesn't work for you right now, you can keep trying it anyway, you can leave it alone for now and try it again later on, or you can move on and try something else. Don't make the mistake of telling yourself that you "don't feel like trying it." If you wait until you feel like doing something, you will wait forever, because you'll never feel like doing any of this! Grief work is very hard, it takes enormous energy, and it shouldn't be done alone. It is an active process, not a passive one, and recovery is a choice.

Remember that since the beginning of time, people have survived the most devastating losses. Whatever loss confronts you, know that you can survive. You will get through this experience, and you will not feel this way forever. Like all the rest of us struggling to cope with our own losses, given the proper information, comfort and support, you can learn how to use this grieving time to help you heal yourself.

As I have said elsewhere, to make the process of mourning a healing one, you must go through it actively, which means moving through it thoughtfully and working with it deliberately. Expressed grief can be worked with and released, but suppressed and unexpressed grief will continue to torment you in ways you cannot control. Healthy, normal grieving is a process of honestly facing the reality of your loss, coming to terms with its impact on your life, learning to access all available resources for recovery, finding meaning in your loss, and continuing to live productively in the years that follow.

Grief Work and the Holidays
You say you lost both your parents around the holidays and especially at this time of year, you find it hard to be "upbeat." I invite you to read my articles:
Handling the Holidays When You're Feeling Blue
Including Your Absent Loved One in Family Celebrations
How Do We Deal with The Empty Chair at the Holidays?


You ask "Do those support groups really help?"
I can tell you unequivocally that the answer is "Yes!" I am repeatedly amazed at the healing power of these groups, and that alone is what has inspired me to facilitate a grief support group for Hospice of the Valley and to volunteer my time with the Companion Animal Association of Arizona, Inc. as the facilitator for our Pet Grief Support Group here in Phoenix AZ.

For further information on support groups, see my articles:
Managing Your Grief
Finding Support in a Pet Loss Group

You've also stated that you "don't have extra money for private counseling." I encourage you to read Peggy Haymes' insightful article Top Ten Reasons for Avoiding Counseling.

If you cannot bring yourself to attend an "in person" support group or to seek private counseling, another (less costly) alternative is to subscribe to an online grief support course I've authored: A Different Grief: Coping with Pet Loss.

Every loss is a challenge to grow, my friend.
But growth requires change, and change is often painful. When your Smokey died, everything changed, including you. Nothing will ever be the same again, and it may feel as if you've lost control of everything. But you will find that in fact you do have some control, especially over the choices you will make. You alone will decide whether the changes you face will be positive or negative ones. You can choose how you will respond to this loss of Smokey and how you will let it affect you. You can keep both your memories of the past and your dreams for the future, and you can decide not to give up on yourself and the rest of your life.

Since you have access to the Internet, you really do have a world of support at your fingertips. There are all kinds of resources "out there" - you just have to make the effort to find them and to reach out and ask for the help that you need. If one of the many suggestions I've made doesn't work for you, keep looking for one that feels right to you. As overwhelmed as you feel, you are in need of support, comfort and understanding, and you've taken that first difficult step by writing to me. I hope you will continue taking more of those steps as you continue on this long journey, one step at a time, and that you will think of each step as a gift you can give to yourself.

Wishing you a peaceful and healing holiday season,

Marty Tousley, Bereavement Counselor


Marty Tousley is the creator and instructor of these popular Self-Healing Expressions courses. Click these links to learn more about Marty and her online grief support courses.
A Different Grief: Coping with Pet Loss
A Different Grief: Helping You and Your Children with Pet Loss
The First Year of Grief: Help for the Journey.


Copyright © 2006 Marty Tousley, CNS-BC, CT. All rights reserved. If you are interested in publishing this article, please email .