When I unexpectedly had to make the choice to put down my kitten, Ziggy, a month ago, I didn’t know how to deal with all the grief I felt. Ziggy was my everything. I was paralyzed by the shock of illness taking his otherwise healthy life after a mere nine months on this Earth. No time with him would have felt long enough, but the tragedy felt paralyzing.
What made it worse, however, was my own self-talk. Although I knew I was justified in my sadness, I also had a feeling that I was being dramatic. A part of me felt like it was “just a cat,” and that my crippling sadness was unreasonable. Why wasn’t I being productive still? Now, a little time has afforded me some perspective, and the reality of my grief has become real for me. Now, I can give myself the grace needed to move forward.
Animal Companionship: Part of a Mental Health Treatment Plan
When I hear college students like myself talk about registering their pets as Emotional Support Animals through sites such as Pettable, they act like it’s a means of tricking their landlords instead of a real designation for their furry friends. However, I don’t think that gives our animals enough credit. Everyone goes through some kind of mental or physical turmoil that a pet can assist with. Just because it could be worse doesn’t mean that your pet can’t be a necessary part of self care.
Although ESAs aren’t trained for specific tasks like service animals, they can have tangible impacts on your mental health. I have dealt with clinical anxiety and depression my whole life, and nothing has worked as well to treat it as having a pet raised as an ESA. The biggest problem I have is getting out of bed in a timely manner in the morning. Having a little hungry friend that needs me to feed him helped more than I even thought it could. Picking up my little friend during an anxiety attack and feeling the constant vibrations of his purrs brought me back down to Earth every time.
Keeping this in mind, it makes sense why losing a pet is so profoundly hard for so many of us. Grief is a unique pain, and dealing with it without your full support system makes it only harder. It makes your home a painful reminder of all the good times. You may feel at a loss for how to move forward. Although no words can make a loss like mine better, hopefully these tips from my experience can make the idea of moving on a little less daunting.
How To Begin Handling the Pain
Do What You Feel Is Best at the Beginning
Grief is hard. It confronts you with times that you have to push yourself to do things that feel impossible. The day that your pet passes is not that day. In order to make it through, I had to be extremely gentle with myself at the beginning. I leaned heavily on my boyfriend and best friends to help me through. When I lost Ziggy, we immediately came home and packed up all his stuff so I could put it out of sight, then I went and drowned my sorrows with unhealthy coping mechanisms. Avoidance is not the way to healing, but allowing myself a few days of full pity party helped me to move on when it was time.
Be Open With People in Your Life
As a busy, high-achieving college student, I assumed that nobody would care that my cat died. I feel extremely lucky that this wasn’t the case. I worked up the courage to use my university’s resources to help me reach out to my professors. It was pleasantly surprising that I had no problem getting grace on assignments and attendance. Losing a pet is a very human experience, and people are very understanding, especially if you can articulate the support behaviors that you lost with your companion.
Although my byline at Just N Life had to take a hiatus so I could take care of myself and my schoolwork, this team never treated me as out of office. I received a lot of support from editors and colleagues, and lots of grace allowing me to get back to writing when it was feasible for my life. You should assume that the people around you want to help you through the hard times in life. You should also surround yourself with people who prove that that’s the truth.
Push Yourself, With Grace
Feeling your feelings is a very important part of the grief process. However, there comes a point where wallowing won’t help you anymore. Just because your pet’s life ended doesn’t mean that yours has to, and that’s not what your pet would want. You deserve happiness and success, which doesn’t come overnight. I’ve had several days of dragging myself out of bed late, crying in the bathroom between classes, and working through negative self talk. It feels terrible, but you have to remind yourself that moving through your pain is the only way through the other side.
Find Happiness in Painful Memories
Anyone grieving would tell you that for the first little bit, every memory of your lost loved one is painful. You’ll find yourself missing the cat hair stuck in everything, and you may cry when you vacuum. However, it will eventually become more sweet than bitter. A therapist once described a grief box to me. Your capacity for grief is like a box with a button inside. When you lose someone, there’s a big ball in the box. It’s always jostling around, too big to avoid hitting the button, which brings forth the intense emotions you feel. Over time, the ball gets smaller and smaller, hitting the button less and less, and you can begin to feel happiness when the button is pushed and you remember the good times with your pet. When you’re ready, a physical reminder of your pet will keep them alive in your heart and memory forever.
Allow Yourself To Move On
After Ziggy passed, I felt really guilty about how fast I began thinking about getting another cat. However, I don’t think it’s unreasonable to crave all the emotional support that Ziggy provided me and to miss having a cat, which is something that made my life feel complete. I became comfortable with the fact that I wanted another cat, but I decided to wait until the timing was a little better and I was more financially stable.
That’s when Goose came along. A neighbor had found a stray orange tabby kitten on the side of the road and had been taking care of him outside, since she couldn’t bring him in for the health of her other two cats. My roommate and I met him outside of our building and I fell in love. He immediately trusted us to cuddle and feed him. He even cried and followed us when we went to walk away. It became clear that this little guy needed me as much as I needed him, and I wanted to give him the life he deserved even under imperfect circumstances.
One flea bath later, my apartment came back to life with a sweet kitty. Ziggy could never be replaced or forgotten, but giving a kitten in need the comfortable life that he had seemed like the best way to honor my sweet boy’s memory. As my long, hard winter defrosts to Spring, I finally feel my pain melting into a manageable feeling, and I’m grateful for all the help I’ve had getting to this point. Ziggy and Goose will both live in my heart forever, along with the strength they’ve given me.
N’Crowd, share your memories of pets over the rainbow bridge, or how you were able to deal with their passing.
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