Freeing Myself Of Cats

[jefferd18]

My friend, I feel as though you might be considering re-homing your cats because you feel like they would be better off without you, and animals don't think that way. They don't need fancy things to be happy, they just need someone who cares about them, as you do and have in the past. Just remember, once they've been given up, you cannot take it back or change your mind. This is a big decision to make. And not to be made on emotions alone. I wish you nothing but the best

Thank you so much, 1 bruce 1. I had beloved animal companions who have died in the past but none has knocked me on the ground like Jeff's passing has.

When I speak of re-homing my cats, I speak of the younger ones. The ones who are on the end going out will stay with me.

I won't make any decision in haste, I promise you that, nor will I make it feeling as distressed as I feel at this moment.

 

[jefferd18]

My feelings are your heart hurts so badly for Jeff. It’s a known thought to not make any important decisions until a year after the death of a loved one.
Can you try ?

Its been six months now and I am not feeling any better- but what you suggested makes perfect sense, thank you.

 

[1 bruce 1]

Thank you so much, 1 bruce 1. I had beloved animal companions who have died in the past but none has knocked me on the ground like Jeff's passing has.

When I speak of re-homing my cats, I speak of the younger ones. The ones who are on the end going out will stay with me.

I won't make any decision in haste, I promise you that, nor will I make it feeling as distressed as I feel at this moment.

I'll hold you to that promise, but I feel like I won't have to really.
I am unhappy that you're feeling distressed. If you'd like to talk, my PM box is always open.
Please take care of yourself my friend.

 

[jefferd18]

I believe your feelings stem from deep depression. There's probably a lot more to it than just losing Jeff.

Please see a psychiatrist now. They can prescribe medication and counseling that will make life immeasurably better for both you and your cats. If you're already on medication, it may need to be changed or the dosage changed. Either way, your life can be made a lot better. I promise.

Do it now, before you sink any further or do things you'll later regret. You CAN feel better and you'll see life in a very different way.

Thank you,

You are correct, I do suffer from deep depression and Jeff's death was the straw that broke the camel's back.

Jeff herself was in a dark place when I met her and while she wasn't exactly skin and bones, she was awfully timid and looked like she was fed up with life. Being loved gave her the confidence she needed. It's funny, she always made me feel like everything was going to be alright.

I am on medication, my friend, but I think it may be time to see a grief therapist.

 

[1 bruce 1]

Thank you,

You are correct, I do suffer from deep depression and Jeff's death was the straw that broke the camel's back.

Jeff herself was in a dark place when I met her and while she wasn't exactly skin and bones, she was awfully timid and looked like she was fed up with life. Being loved gave her the confidence she needed. It's funny, she always made me feel like everything was going to be alright.

I am on medication, my friend, but I think it may be time to see a grief therapist.

I know you know Jeff would hate what is going on, so I won't repeat what you're probably thinking. But think of how she was when you found her and how all she needed was a friend to come out of that.
It's maybe not 'the same' as friends you see every day face to face, but you have friends here who care

 

[jefferd18]

I know you know Jeff would hate what is going on, so I won't repeat what you're probably thinking. But think of how she was when you found her and how all she needed was a friend to come out of that.


It's maybe not 'the same' as friends you see every day face to face, but you have friends here who care

Yes, I agree with you. I know that Jeff would want me to be a kind person to all living creatures.

Thank you, that is really nice of you to say.

 

[Mother Dragon]

Thank you,

You are correct, I do suffer from deep depression and Jeff's death was the straw that broke the camel's back.

Jeff herself was in a dark place when I met her and while she wasn't exactly skin and bones, she was awfully timid and looked like she was fed up with life. Being loved gave her the confidence she needed. It's funny, she always made me feel like everything was going to be alright.

I am on medication, my friend, but I think it may be time to see a grief therapist.

Believe it or not, there are pet grief counselors and pet grief therapy groups. Some are even online.

I, too, fell into deep depression when Feather died. She was my soulmate. The psych I was seeing at the time didn't understand, although he had two pugs running around his office. I changed back to my old doctor, who changed my meds. I also found out the cholesterol med I was taking heavily contributed to my depression. I got a lot better, and fairly quickly.

Do I still feel Feather's loss after 10 years? Yes. But it's not the crushing loss like you're feeling now. Believe it or not, it will get better as happy memories replace the sad ones.

If you get the help you need, life won't seem nearly as bleak as it does now. Please don't make big decisions while you're in this state. Get better and then take a look at how you feel.

You can always PM me if you want to talk.

 

[Mamanyt1953]

There are, as Mother Dragon says, some wonderful support groups and pet grief therapists online. And sweetie, you should talk with SOMEONE who has the proper training to help you with this. Not a therapist, but a grief therapist. And don't make any big decisions about how you are going to live your life for a solid year after suffering a devastating loss, no matter what kind of loss that is. A very wise therapist once told me that, and kept me from making a decision I'd have regretted until my dying breath.

Now, you can most certainly use us as a sounding board (and like Mother Dragon, I am available to PM...AND I am up until between 3-4 AM Eastern time, which means I'm here in the Deep Darks, when the world look its most bleak to most folks, but even as much as we care, and we do, we can't do for you what someone with real training and experience can do.

Those furry little souls are counting on you to do what is best for them...just don't be in too big a rush to decide what "best" is. This is still too raw for you to make real, measured, rational decisions about.

 

[Mother Dragon]

Mamanyt1953 offered sound advice.I'd recommend both a good psychiatrist AND pet grief counseling. One will supplement the other. I don't think either one is enough by itself. You're in too deep. With help, you can find life is good again.

 

[Mia6]

Please keep writing and seek a grief therapist. Wherever Jeff is she wants you to be well anad strong.

 

[Maria Bayote]

You are in deep, deep pain. Please do not allow yourself to sink down any further. As what others said, you need help. And you need it now.

As for your cats, I kindly suggest that you look for somebody you trust right now to take care of them temporarily while you are trying to get back the pieces. But stop there. Do not try to hand-over your cats even temporarily and then resume or start with helping other cats as you have planned. IMO, you need to help yourself first before you go around helping strays and ferals. You have to get the root of your depression and deal with it first. Once you know you are going back on track, you can also get back your cats. It may destroy you completely if you get rid of them, then realize later on that you made a huge mistake. Then you may find yourself down there again because of guilt that you may feel.

Your cats need you. Since for now you cannot help them, the least you can do for them is have someone take over your place temporarily if that is what you really need to do. Do not give up on them, as they won't ever give up on you. One way of honoring Jeff is continue living. Right now you seem to have given up on everything, including your remaining cats.

Please seek help. Hang in there. Be strong for yourself. For life and love. For your cats. For Jeff.

 

[denice]

Please do keep posting and seek a grief therapist. I think you are stuck in a dark place. We all grieve in different ways and there is no timetable for going through the grief process. I don't think it would be good to make a decision like rehoming your cats while you are in this dark place. I think you can get through this and come out the other side you may just need a little help to get through.

 

[Mia6]

Of course I sought out help- from friends and a medical expert. Why is it totally acceptable to be in deep dark distraught over the death of a loved person but not a loved cat? Somebody has got to sit me down someday and explain that one to me.

It is acceptable to be in a dark place over the loss of a cat. My Vincie girl passed on 26 August of this year. I could barely eat nor sleep. We had a very special bond for 19 years. After about 10 days of barely eating and going on very little sleep, I called my psychiatrist and told him what was going on. I confessed to him that I was grieving more than when my parents died. He said that was very normal and I needed to grieve, let the tears flow, but I needed to eat and sleep, so he prescribed a sleeping med that is non-addictive and told me to drink Ensure, bananas and cashews till I got my appetite back. I am still having dark days but I'm getting through it and so will you. I became a member here when I lost my Kirsten in 2016. There are many amazing, caring, loving people here.

Mia xxx

 

[Leomc123]

I think jefferd18 is in deep depression from loosing jeff and combineing eveything else that is going on in life. Your cats that you have with you are not jeff, because each cats have their own personalities, they all have one thing in comon is that they need love and to be cared for by you, if you give them a chance you might notice something about them that makes them unique in a way that jeff was unique and even though you dont see it now, rehoming them will not make you feel better. And i understand you also want to help the stray cats as well, i say if you are really wanting to help stray cats then do so help at a shelter or something similar, but dont give your cats up unless it is because financially you are not able to give them a better life.

I think what you are wanting to do is give your current cats away because they are healthy to someone who will look after them, so you have the ability to look after the strays who are injured ,homeless and miss treated, so you can nurture them back to being healthy again like jeff did, to give other cats a chance of being rehomed or be rehomable.

I understand how you feel about the way people treat cats and animals in australia and around the world it makes me feel sick that there are people out there that dispose pets like they are trash or even worse abuse them etc.

 

[Leomc123]

Why is it totally acceptable to be in deep dark distraught over the death of a loved person but not a loved cat? It isnt acceptable , a person and a cat are both living beings, both suffer pain, able to love, be kind and both can die when their heart stops beating.
The only difference between them to some people is the food chain factor and IQ level that Humans are considered superior beings to anything that isnt "human" because we humans can create technology that basically destroys the earth and everything around them.

To others like you and me and other people on this site and around the world we view animals as a living being , which has a brain, heart, breathes, can suffer pain, has emotions can trust, distrust, have fear and suffers sadness and depression and can talk, but we dont understand what the cat or animal is trying to say to us, but cats and animals certianly talk to each other.

But we understand that a cat is a living being that many people around the world is able to make a bond with such as a friendship, or as a family member and even sees a cat or an animal more superior than a human, cats are as equally complex like a human in fact all animals and humans are complex, and have some sort of inteligence .

To greive a human you would have needed to create a strong bond with that human, some people do create a bond with 1 or more people in their lives and some dont. Some people create a stronger bond with a pet and some dont. Some people understand animals are living beings like us humans, but some humans cant see that at all.

 

[di and bob]

Don't do something like this that you will regret for the rest of your life. I feel the pain and anguish of losing my little girl 7 years later. You will never 'get over' losing your Jeff. But you CAN learn to live with it and change it into something positive instead of sinking deeper and deeper into misery. But it takes commitment and work on your behalf. Throw yoruself into helping those ferals in any way you can. Anything to keep your mind off of the darkness. You are in the denial and anger stage of your grieving. You are only 6 months into your grief. After a lifetime of loving that sweet girl. Time is the only thing that helps. You have to take it one day at a time, don't look at the future at all right now and think it is an unending sea of loss and pain. You have to try to purposely avoid those feelings of hopelessness and loss right now too. Find something, anything to fill the empty void in your soul. If it is helping ferals, throw yourself into it. But remember, just like with anything in life, there will be sadness there too, you already have a good foundation on which how to cope with it. But it takes time, and lots of it to build into something you can accept and live with.
Don't think you HAVE to love those babies in your care right now, you already do. Just enjoy them right now, and know they love you back in their own way. Don't do something in haste that you will regret later, and being the loving cat person you are, I know it will. No, it's not the same, it can't be, but they can bring you distraction and comfort right now, and that is what you need more than anything. I resented the fact that my remaining little ones were alive and my soul mate was not. It took time to let thwm help me, to realize their simple love was always there. They cared and they distracted me from my pain through the simple routine of caring for them, they wormed their way into my grief and they replaced a lot of teh emptiness. Yours will too if you actively try.
It helped me a lot, and this was several YEARS later that I finally realized it was impossible to change the past, and my beloved little one would never want me to be so sad because of her. That just as I would want for her if i was the first one to go, so she wants only happiness and joy in living for me once more too. That I had to celebrate her sharing her life with me, not dwell on her death and make myself a changed person over it. You have to purposely seek joy to posses it, not find dispair and darkness in living, that is easy to do. Purposely turn your thoughts to other things in life, avoid the darkness, it has already taken one life, don't let it continue on to take your own away from you.
Your little girl's love is spiritual. It will never die, or be taken from you, "Death cannot take that which never dies". She will always be as close to you as a thought and a prayer. Give her peace by knowing you are strong, that you will go on and she will live on through you now. Spreading and sharing her legacy of love and allowing it to spread and be shared. Not hidden in a cold, dark herat and drowned in tears.
Come here whenever you need to, there is strength in sharing your burden to others. You are NOT alone, there is a legion who share exactly what you are going through. Love is personal, no one else in the whole world loved Jeff like you do. Your grief is just as strong and personal. No one can love Jeff as you do. And no one ever will. People who have gone through what you are going through now can empathize because of their own experiences.Those who cannot are to be pitied, because what you have experienced and gained is one of life's treasures, to be loved and returning that love fully and willingly. Take care of yourself. You are loved more than you know, just take one day at a time and try to find joy in life again, not for your sake, but for Jeff's. May God be with you......

 

[CatLover49]

My goal is to help my cats not to harm them.

Well dont rehome them...Do like other members have said...Dont make a decision u WILL REGRET...U talking about rehoming ure own KITTIES...and feeding ferals n strays..That dont MAKE NO SENSE...Keep ure KITTIES n STILL feed ferals ..strays etc...U ARE NOT THINKING CLEARLY...U R N A DEPRESSION FROM LOOSING JEFF...

 

[CatLover49]

It is acceptable to be in a dark place over the loss of a cat. My Vincie girl passed on 26 August of this year. I could barely eat nor sleep. We had a very special bond for 19 years. After about 10 days of barely eating and going on very little sleep, I called my psychiatrist and told him what was going on. I confessed to him that I was grieving more than when my parents died. He said that was very normal and I needed to grieve, let the tears flow, but I needed to eat and sleep, so he prescribed a sleeping med that is non-addictive and told me to drink Ensure, bananas and cashews till I got my appetite back. I am still having dark days but I'm getting through it and so will you. I became a member here when I lost my Kirsten in 2016. There are many amazing, caring, loving people here.

Mia xxx

 

[1 bruce 1]

It is acceptable to be in a dark place over the loss of a cat. My Vincie girl passed on 26 August of this year. I could barely eat nor sleep. We had a very special bond for 19 years. After about 10 days of barely eating and going on very little sleep, I called my psychiatrist and told him what was going on. I confessed to him that I was grieving more than when my parents died. He said that was very normal and I needed to grieve, let the tears flow, but I needed to eat and sleep, so he prescribed a sleeping med that is non-addictive and told me to drink Ensure, bananas and cashews till I got my appetite back. I am still having dark days but I'm getting through it and so will you. I became a member here when I lost my Kirsten in 2016. There are many amazing, caring, loving people here.

Mia xxx

When a human we love dies, we grieve that but there's so much to do involving lawyers, estates, taxes, legal mumbo-jumbo, funeral arrangements, that our grief gets pushed aside because we're kept so busy. It can be good, but it can be not good too.
When an animal dies, there's no lawyers or legalities or funeral parlors (usually), so that grief hits us square in the face with little other there to distract us. I think it would be ABNORMAL not to feel that kind of grief and loss without distractions to keep our thoughts elsewhere part of the time.

 

[zed xyzed]

I am sorry that you are suffering so much. I am glad you reached out to us, but like many others have mentioned please consider going to see a medical professional. The illness and the loss of your dearest friend is piling on you. You have helped your boy and saved him. There are many other ones out there that need a kind soul to help them and ease their suffering and to show them love. I hope that you are able to control this insidious illness.