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Complicated Grief, PTSD?


moondiamond

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Hello everyone,

Long post here - I thank you in advance if you take the time to read this.  I am just not sure where to turn right at the moment and I thought it best to write all my thoughts in one place.  If you have the time and energy to help me, I would be very grateful.

On August 25th, my husband and I lost our precious Siamese cat, Ninja, to heart disease.  We were and still are, absolutely devastated.  We miss him dearly still now, it has been almost 2 months. A couple of weeks ago, we decided to adopt a new kitten; we went and picked him up and he has been home with us.  We love him dearly already, and he has brought so much needed happiness and joy to our empty house since Ninja left us.  We called him Dexter.  It was truly a bittersweet adoption - we miss Ninja more than anything, but this new little guy has really helped us cope by providing us with a lot of fun and laughter.  I will always love and miss Ninja so much but Dexter has really saved my broken soul in so many ways.

Fast forward to this weekend.  I am starting to have an extreme phobia/fear that something will happen to Dexter :( I am compulsively checking on him and safeguarding things in my house to ensure that no harm will come to him.  Two nights ago, Dexter was asleep under the couch.  I called him out to come and see me, and when he came out he lied down on the carpet.  This is relevant because when Ninja left us, he had a blood clot which disabled him from being able to walk.  He had lied down on the carpet under the coffee table and I discovered that he could not walk.  When Dex came out from under the couch the other night, he lied down under the coffee table, I am guessing because he was still a little sleepy.  Anyways, this sent me into sheer PANIC mode, my brain almost reverted back to what had happened to Ninja and I was immediately convinced that Dex couldn't walk for some reason :(  I screamed for my Hubby who ran into the room and looked astonished at me - Dex was 100% fine, there was nothing wrong with him at all, but for some reason I just freaked and thought something was wrong with his legs??? Then a few hours later I was dozing off watching TV - someone in the TV show screamed and it woke me up very startled and immediately I thought it was my husband screaming for me that something was wrong with Dexter.  Dex was actually sound asleep right next to me.  Am I experiencing PTSD???

Next thing was that I accidentally found out that our neighbour's outdoor kitten was hit by a car this weekend also.  To complicate everything, I am feeling extreme guilt over this.  Our neighbor had initially said we could adopt this little kitten before we got Dexter.  During this time though I was still very fragile in my grief with Ninja having passed away.  This kitten eventually bonded with the neighbour's kids and their family and spent all of his time in their yard.  I considered him to be their kitten, so hubby and I of course went on to adopt our own baby, and we got Dexter.  But now I feel guilty that we did not take him in and that he was hit by a car :(  I feel so sick over everything that has happened and it has really stirred up some awful emotions for me.  I am thinking of seeking counseling to help me deal with all of this.

Thank you for anyone who read all of this.  Writing it out helps.

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I am so very sorry for the loss of your Ninja. I have found that writing helps in dealing with our grief. I do not know about someone experiencing PTSD but I do know that grief sometimes makes us think we are going "crazy." We are not. We are grieving. I think it is always wise to seek grief counseling. Whether it be losing a loved one or a precious pet it all hurts. 

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I am sorry for what you have been through, and yes it does affect us in the days or years to come.  I wouldn't necessarily call it PTSD, but it is a grief reaction, seeing something you've been through before can trigger those same emotions, I think all of us that are grieving have experienced that.

I know what it is to worry about losing a pet after experiencing loss...just last night I had nightmares all night that my dog was dying.

It is also common to feel guilt emotions when we've lost a pet because we feel responsible for them...and even though this was a neighbor's kitten, because you'd considered adopting it, you're feeling guilt.  These feelings may or may not have merit, but the truth is, this kitten could have died even if you'd adopted it.  

I hope these links can be of help to you.

http://media.wix.com/ugd/0dd4a5_e934e7f92d104d31bcb334d6c6d63974.pdf

http://www.pet-loss.net/guilt.shtml

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My dear, I agree with everything both Anne and Kay have said to you ~ and I think you would be wise to schedule a session or two with a grief counselor who could help you sort all of this out ~ ideally a counselor who is familiar with and sensitive to the grief that accompanies pet loss. While the reactions you describe sound normal to us (given the circumstances you've experienced these last few weeks), they may not feel normal to you, and it can be quite comforting to sit with a qualified counselor face-to-face ~ so you can share your story and get the support, the positive feedback and the reassurance you need and deserve. I hope you will think of it as a gift you can give yourself, and I think it will be very helpful for you. 

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Thank you to each of you for your kind responses. The support and reassurance truly helps. I am feeling a little better today. My new baby Dexter is always very closeby to me, we have bonded well since I brought him home and having him nearby is helpful. It is almost as though he knows that I am hurting and need him right now! 

Kay - your comment about the neighbour's kitten gave me a perspective I hadn't even considered! It is true that had we adopted him, he may have died anyways. We would have kept him indoors as we always have with cats, but I suppose regardless, there is never a guarantee. 

Do people in the grief community believe that everything happens for a reason? I have been clinging to this notion lately as a means of reassuring myself I guess. 

 

 

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My dear, I don't believe that everything happens for a reason. I do believe, however, that one of the healthy ways we can deal with significant loss is to look for and find some meaning in the loss, so we can make it matter and count for something. That takes time, reflection, and some very serious thought. 

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 Thanks Marty. I am just so upset about what happened to this poor kitten from the neighbour's, I really just can't get over it and I feel just sick to my stomach :( I love animals and always have, and I have always taken it really hard if I hear of them being sick or hurt. Right now I feel even more hypersensitive in this way because of what has happened to my precious Ninja. I thought I was doing a little better in my grief until I heard about this little kitten being hit by a car. Now I just feel so crushed all over again. This has honestly been such a terrible past 6 weeks for me. I know grief and sadness are part of life and I am sure there are so many people who have experienced much worse. But nonetheless this has been a struggle for me and I just wish I could go back to when I felt happier in my life :( When Ninja was still here with me and at the stray kitten from the neighbour's was still here. The only light I have right now is my new kitten Dexter and I am so stricken with fear that something will happen to him it's just like I have constant stress and sadness. Dexter seems to really like me and I just don't want him to feel my negative energy from all of this that I'm dealing with internally. Sorry for rambling...

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One thing I would suggest, my dear, is that energy goes both ways. What would happen if you tried to feel and accept the positive, loving, innocent energy that is coming from your precious little kitten Dexter? If he is the only light you have right now, just make sure that you don't have the shades drawn so tight that his light cannot get in 

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I, along with Marty, also do not believe everything happens for a reason.  Sometimes people exhaust themselves looking for that reason, when perhaps there is none.  Sometimes maybe there is, but a lot of the time there isn't.  I do think that when we go through something, we can usually learn something through the process.  I believe just as we are born, we die, and we aren't given a guarantee of a long life, which is something we seem to assume in our culture, which makes it more of a shock when it doesn't go that way.  Realizing that, has made me appreciate each day I am given all the more, knowing I can't take anything for granted.

Being a cat owner myself, I know that cats can be very stubborn and independent, and we can do our best to keep them indoors, yet if they have a strong will we can find them managing to get outside all the same.  Even if we caged them, which I wouldn't, they would dart out the moment we opened it to feed them.  They are curious by nature and not always cognizant of the world around them, so they can get themselves into dangerous situations without realizing it.  We can try our best to keep them safe, but things can and do happen in spite of our good care.  And the same is true for dogs.

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Marty, Good article.  I think we try so hard to make sense of things that there is no answer to and it can practically drive us nuts if we let it!  

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