Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) Support Group
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So this is going to have all manners of TW's related to pet loss, death, abuse, and human trafficking (so read at your own discretion).
I am going to try to keep this short because I am so depressed right now it hurts:
We had to put our dog to sleep last night (not the tiny abused one we took in a few weeks ago; this one was a huge lab that had been with us for just over four years). A year ago we discovered he was sick but the doctors thought they could treat it. He had to have periodic vet visits and prescription food. He was doing great. We had been with him in the morning yesterday but had to leave for part of the day. When we got home he was bloated and wouldn't urinate. We took him to an animal ER clinic and his kidneys had been damaged in the time we were gone from his inability to use the restroom. They could operate but it wouldn't have helped and the vet recommended putting him to sleep (keeping him alive would have been torture). My husband could barely bring himself to touch the dog and so I was the one who held him while they injected all the drugs and I held him until his the vet said he was gone. I sobbed like a baby. He wasn't a pet, he was our family (which I am sure you all understand). I had literally just bought him supplies three days ago to custom make him a bed because he was so big (healthy sized but over 100 pounds; he wasn't fat just muscular and large). He was only five years old.
When I was a little girl in the trafficking ring I watched a young girl get shot point-blank. I held her in my arms until she died from blood loss. I was covered in it, and that memory still haunts me. When I was holding Rascal last night it triggered that memory (and those memories are eidetic in nature, so I got all my senses and emotions). I am "tore up from the floor up" emotionally. I feel battered around the edges and while I am not depressed enough to stop functioning, I feel depressed and apathetic. I want to crawl into my bed for a week and not come out of it.
The world is busy turning but the loss in our family is so big he might as well have been a person. We live in the house we live in because we got a bigger house just so he'd have room to run and play. He basically had his own bedroom. :P We also got him birthday presents every year and he had his own Christmas stocking we filled with goodies and treats during the holiday season.
While I know we made the right decision, I just kinda want to crawl into a hole and die. You know?
I am going to try to keep this short because I am so depressed right now it hurts:
We had to put our dog to sleep last night (not the tiny abused one we took in a few weeks ago; this one was a huge lab that had been with us for just over four years). A year ago we discovered he was sick but the doctors thought they could treat it. He had to have periodic vet visits and prescription food. He was doing great. We had been with him in the morning yesterday but had to leave for part of the day. When we got home he was bloated and wouldn't urinate. We took him to an animal ER clinic and his kidneys had been damaged in the time we were gone from his inability to use the restroom. They could operate but it wouldn't have helped and the vet recommended putting him to sleep (keeping him alive would have been torture). My husband could barely bring himself to touch the dog and so I was the one who held him while they injected all the drugs and I held him until his the vet said he was gone. I sobbed like a baby. He wasn't a pet, he was our family (which I am sure you all understand). I had literally just bought him supplies three days ago to custom make him a bed because he was so big (healthy sized but over 100 pounds; he wasn't fat just muscular and large). He was only five years old.
When I was a little girl in the trafficking ring I watched a young girl get shot point-blank. I held her in my arms until she died from blood loss. I was covered in it, and that memory still haunts me. When I was holding Rascal last night it triggered that memory (and those memories are eidetic in nature, so I got all my senses and emotions). I am "tore up from the floor up" emotionally. I feel battered around the edges and while I am not depressed enough to stop functioning, I feel depressed and apathetic. I want to crawl into my bed for a week and not come out of it.
The world is busy turning but the loss in our family is so big he might as well have been a person. We live in the house we live in because we got a bigger house just so he'd have room to run and play. He basically had his own bedroom. :P We also got him birthday presents every year and he had his own Christmas stocking we filled with goodies and treats during the holiday season.
While I know we made the right decision, I just kinda want to crawl into a hole and die. You know?
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Hey All...I hope that you have a lovely, peaceful beginning of your weekI have a bunch of chores that need doing but may put them off til tomorrow and just hang out with my landlord/roomie todayWhat about you?...Anything special going on?Have a great day and take good care of you!!..Xo
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Once again I've had a fever today. I'm not going to the hospital because that's a huge waste of time but I did schedule a dr appointment for Wednesday afternoon.
Which only gives me more reason to want to offer steadying support while you navigate your way through yours. Gentle test probes and small steps make the surest route through an emotional mine-field. Steady as she goes. Rest when you need to. Hydrate often.
Hope healing happens here. Gentle empathy.
Blessings and peace to you,
Leo
Thank you everyone for all of the love and support, I really needed it.
I detached from my emotions as a child as a means of surviving everything I have been through, and I find myself grieving now for both the loss of our dog and the little girl I held. It's an awful feeling, though I don't think grieving is ever supposed to be pleasant.
I also think you are right that he knew he was loved. I *knew* in my heart when we took him in that he wasn't going to be coming back home (although my husband remained overly optimistic). As a response to that I shoved my husband in our room for 10 minutes and asked our dog if I could make some paw prints with him. The poor guy tried to stand for me. I ended up doing painted paw prints with him before we took him in and once I think my husband and daughter have moved from active grieving to celebrating his life, I plan to dig them out and hang them.
I may not have been able to save him, but I can promise he will never be forgotten.
I still find myself breaking down and crying periodically today; I keep looking up expecting him to be there and he's not, but I did everything I could do yesterday (as hard as it felt) to help our family move forward. I gathered his possessions and put them in a box in the spare room (when I can sort through them I am going to make him a shadow box), and I moved his kennel out of our house so we wouldn't have to see it sitting there empty (my parents let us have it because it was bigger than the one Rascal moved in with so I took it back to my dad).
I am sure with time the hurt will lessen, and I have been trying to go as easily as possible on both myself and our family. Everyone grieves differently and I realize that (even if I haven't learned how to navigate grief yet).
... I really do appreciate all of your love and support. When I wrote that post yesterday it was my fifth attempt because I broke down during all the other ones. I stopped to cry several times just trying to squeak out those few paragraphs, so I really appreciate all of your willingess to bear with me, and be so supportive.
Arfie -- I am really sorry. I put TW on the majority of my posts because my past is unusually awful and I realize it. Statistically I know I shouldn't have survived my past and as someone who finds my posts emotionally triggering, I imagine you can say the same thing about yours too. That said, I am sorry I trigger you. I wouldn't wish that on anyone. If it would help I can speak less on the board about what I've been through, or create a custom TW tag so you know it's about the trafficking and not about general PTSD, and you can skip those posts entirely?
Please don't hesitate to let me know if there is some way I can help because I think everyone should feel safe here, and I don't want you to be put in a position to be triggered by me, especially if there is some way I can prevent it.
I (maybe many of us) have family members that I'd rather lose than to lose a dog.
May your grief be brief, but may your memories of him be sweet and everlasting.
be gentle with yourself, I have been through it and it just takes time. Hugs to you