When it comes to pet loss, pet parents often have to make hard decisions on behalf of their pets. It’s a heavy weight to carry, and it can get messy — really messy.
When faced with treatment options, know that whatever treatment path you choose, you will almost always second-guess your decisions when your pet is gone. Maybe you feel you did too much, and your pet suffered as a result, or perhaps you feel you didn’t do enough. There is no winning here, so try your best to avoid that shame mine. Trust that you did what you thought was best at the time, and keep in mind if you had made a different decision, there is no guarantee that path would have resulted in a better outcome. Similar to the paths we take in life, there will always be ghost outcomes, and guilt and regret are part of the grief experience.
After a loss in which you feel guilt or regret, it is common to experience that grief as anger toward yourself, as you convince yourself if only you had done something differently, your pet would still be here. Our minds have a fantastic ability to concoct stories with happier endings.
After Tovi (my soul dog) died, I became fixated on imagining every single ‘other’ outcome that might have happened had I chosen — or not chosen — different interventions. Of course you feel angry, this situation is awful and there’s no way around that fact. However, looking back, I can see that the intense, overwhelming anger toward myself complicated my grief. Now, of course, grief is complicated, but by punishing myself, I was preventing myself from processing — and accepting — the reality that Tovi was no longer alive. The memories of our relationship became tainted because I was laser-focused on auditing the abrupt ending rather than remembering the beautiful life we shared. Try not to let the ending to be the primary thing that defines your relationship.
Don’t get me wrong, it is okay (and healthy) to feel anger, guilt, regret, shame…fill in your blank. You loved so much, so of course you feel so much, and all emotions are valid and should be experienced. Something went wrong — either subjectively or objectively — so it is appropriate to feel big emotions toward the situation. With that said, be careful not to get stuck there. At some point, you must make peace with the circumstances of your pet’s death so you can be whole again and begin to move forward. No matter how much you beat yourself up, it won’t change what happened.
Even in cases where you were objectively at “fault,” at some point, you have to offer yourself the compassion and forgiveness you might offer a friend in similar circumstances. No amount of love can safeguard against accidents and mistakes.
It is so, so, so important to keep in mind that your intentions were never to harm your pet, but sometimes terrible things happen, and our grief is a reflection of our love.
Your present self will look back and audit every decision you made, but remember:
You did what you thought was best at the time with the information you had.
You made those decisions from the mental space you were in then.
You have no evidence that an alternative action would have resulted in a different outcome.
You don’t have to like what happened, but you must make peace with it. Give yourself the compassion you would give something else.
Caveat: There is no timeline for this one — you can’t will yourself into acceptance, but know that it’s too heavy of a load to carry forever (and your pet would not want you to). Just plant this seed in the back of your mind — it may not grow for a long time, but plant it.
Forgive yourself for any perceived misgivings or mistakes — you never set out to harm your pet.
Sending hugs from Baltimore… Liz
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