How do you cope with guilt?

[Joan Pardo]

Hi,

Maybe I'll be ranting a bit, but my beloved Amy passed away today, and I have a terrible feeling of guilt.

She spent her last days in a vet hospital, and I'm sure that she was asking me to go home. Maybe she would still be alive if she hadn't been so stressed at hospitals.

But the vets told us that she was in critical condition. However, there was always hope that she was going to get better (they were treating her for that).

At times, I think she reached that stage because of the stress of being in that facility.

I feel so sad that I wasn't able to fulfill her desire to be home.

She loved every corner of the house, the garden, her bed, etc.

 

[KK300]

I had exactly the same experience, My Sammy suddenly deteriorated and we took him to the nearest vet hospital.

I never envisaged saying goodbye to my soul cat in a building in an industrial estate.

I miss him so much.

 

[Mamanyt1953]

Rest you gentIe, Amy, dream you deep. You waIk in someone's heart forever.

I so understand that horribIe second-guessing. "I shouId have," "Why did I," the Ianguage of guiIt is strong and insidious. Maybe if you had brought her home, she wouId have Iived a bit Ionger, but maybe not. What you did was to try to give her the best chance of Iife possibIe, and now, from her home in That PIace Where AII Things Are Known, she understands that choice, and she bIesses you for doing the very best you knew to do, she knows all you wanted for her, and she sends her love, translated and purified into Love, back to walk with you down through all of your days. Because Love abides. Always, forever, Love abides.

 

[Margot Lane]

I think love and communication with a cat can go beyond all cages & barriers—- so on some much deeper level she was not alone. You did what you thought would be best for you cat’s well-being, and it is so hard to predict what will happen. I know Amy would not want you to blame yourself. Your choices were made with the best intentions, with love in your heart.

 

[misty8723]

Hi,

Maybe I'll be ranting a bit, but my beloved Amy passed away today, and I have a terrible feeling of guilt.

She spent her last days in a vet hospital, and I'm sure that she was asking me to go home. Maybe she would still be alive if she hadn't been so stressed at hospitals.

But the vets told us that she was in critical condition. However, there was always hope that she was going to get better (they were treating her for that).

At times, I think she reached that stage because of the stress of being in that facility.

I feel so sad that I wasn't able to fulfill her desire to be home.

She loved every corner of the house, the garden, her bed, etc.

I'm so sorry for your loss. I had the same experience. I thought I would be able to take him home. I thought they were trying to help him. As for guilt, I know I'll never forgive myself. The pain does not get easier, and it's been several years.

 

[Bird]

I am so sorry, Joan, for the loss of your loved one. My brain is short-circuited right now with feelings of guilt and devastation. My beloved Mojo passed away on Tuesday. We chose in-home euthanasia to make it as peaceful as possible for Mojo. (And it was better than I expected.) Even though I know it was the right thing to do, I still feel horrible about it. I keep telling myself it was the last act of love for my baby’s sake, so that she would not suffer. I wish I knew what to tell you, to ease your pain. Even though Mojo’s passing was peaceful in her own home, surrounded by her loved ones, I still feel just horrible and guilty. I try to focus on all the love and joy that she brought to my life. I pull up specific good or funny memories about her. I guess only time will lessen the sharpness of these feelings.

 

[fionasmom]

I am very sorry for the loss of these beloved cats. Guilt is a very ambiguous emotion and it seems to modify itself to fit the situation. If a pet passes away at home, not talking about planned euthanasia, the first thought is that there was suffering. If I had taken him/her to the vet, they would have made sure that there was no pain. While I am sure that all pets want to be at home, it does not mean that there is an absence of discomfort.

If the owner makes the decision to let the pet go, there is always the thought that they might have had more time, even a few days or that there was one more medical intervention that could have been tried, one more vet, one more medication. Or maybe nothing even logical, but just something.

It seems that there is an inverse proportion with pet loss and guilt. Those who have tried the hardest to help their pet feel the most guilt which seems to stem from the huge investment in time and energy expended on their behalf. Those who do not try that hard, (and that does not mean a bad pet owner necessarily) seem to feel much less guilt.

 

[di and bob]

for some reason guilt ALWAYS accompanies grief. no matter how long they lived, or how peaceful the passing, there is something we wished we had done differently, sometime in the past. because not one of us is perfect. someone said to me once, to have true guilt you must have bad intentions. when the only intention is trying to help and being unable, there should be no guilt. but somehow there always is..... you did the best you could with what you had. there is absolutely no way to change the past. so try to just get through the present, let the future take care of itself. one day at a time.
your precious little one would never want you to suffer. try to go forward and live it like you would have wanted your beloved Amy to go on. finding happiness in life and perhaps more love to fill that gaping hole in your life. it can never replace that love you shared but it helps to concentrate on something else. do not let grief become your whole life. one day it will be a part of your life, but not so consuming as it is in the beginning. we are here on this site to help you through this, as survivors who know the pain of loss. you are not alone. one day, in time, you will replace that guilt with thankfulness to have shared something so special, Amy's love.......RIP precious Amy. you will never be forgotten, you will forever have a secure place in a loving heart. may the good Lord bless and keep you,until you meet again!

 

[Joan Pardo]

Thank you all for your messages. I have been reading them, but I did not have the strength to write back until now. Also, I think writing can help me a bit.

I came to this forum because I think it is a place where people can truly understand how it feels to lose a part of your family. I do not think everybody out there gets that.

I have been thinking a lot about the guilt and where it comes from, and I think I would be much more at peace if Amy had passed away at home, with her loved ones at ease… and not in some vet hospital.

To be honest, I never completely trusted that place (the hospital). There were some good doctors, but others always gave me a bad vibe. Nevertheless, I chose to trust the process, always hoping for a recovery.

Since Amy had cancer, I went to one of the few places that specialized in animal oncology in my city. They collaborated with this vet hospital. The oncology place did the surgery, but Amy was hospitalized in the vet hospital, just a few steps away from the vet oncology place.

I chose to trust the process and the oncology clinic because I had the feeling that it was the best place to get her healed. The surgery went great, but the post-surgery period was what killed her. She died four days after the surgery. Some days she was doing great, and I had hope. But well…

It’s weird that during the shifts of the doctors that gave me a good sensation she seemed to be recovering, but during the shifts of the doctors that gave me a bad vibe, she seemed to decay.

I don’t know, I just wish I could have had a clearer mind during those days to understand or “feel” that she wanted to be home. I feel in my heart that she partially died because she was stressed, sad, and depressed in the hospital. The poor thing did not want to pee much in that place. And when she died, she released all of her urine.

I think that I’m going to blame myself for not bringing her home for some time. I hope that I can get past that feeling, but today it does not seem possible. She died alone, they called me at 3am that she was not doing well. I panicked for a few minutes, and then I rushed to the hospital. When I got there…around 4am, she had already passed. I sat with her, I cried (I’m still crying). I petted her, I gave her my favorite necklace to accompany her in her passing… And I just sat with her there, petting her, cleaning her, talking to her until the cremation company arrived. Her ashes are now with me, in her altar.

 

[danteshuman]

Because they are so precious to us; no matter what we choose, we feel guilt. We torture ourselves with the “what if” game. It is our grief that drives us to question our actions when our beloved kitties die.

I sincerely wish you peace & hope over time you will remember all the good times.

 

[di and bob]

She did not die alone, your love surrounded her and always will. my heart breaks for you, time is the only thing that helps with matters of the heart. be gentle on yourself, your love is spiritual, so will go on forever. do not dwell on the bad, concentrate on the good memories, there are so many more......

 

[AGDonmez]

Hi,

Maybe I'll be ranting a bit, but my beloved Amy passed away today, and I have a terrible feeling of guilt.

She spent her last days in a vet hospital, and I'm sure that she was asking me to go home. Maybe she would still be alive if she hadn't been so stressed at hospitals.

But the vets told us that she was in critical condition. However, there was always hope that she was going to get better (they were treating her for that).

At times, I think she reached that stage because of the stress of being in that facility.

I feel so sad that I wasn't able to fulfill her desire to be home.

She loved every corner of the house, the garden, her bed, etc.

I am very sorry for your loss. There is no right answer with this. You'd probably blame yourself same way if she wasn't getting treated at the hospital, you tried the best and that's what matters in the end. If you hadn't tried, you could have thought that "maybe would have been better if she had received care". I am having a very difficult time myself of trying to decide everyday what is best for my senior cat, and for a long time, I debated whether getting an endoscopy was for her best interest as the vets pushed for a biopsy, but it requires general anesthesia. She would have probably been okay, but after a month of deliberating, I decided not to do it. There is no right decision here, both can be right, as we don't see the future.

 

[BellaBlue82]

My heart goes out to you. And I concur, grief and guilt are brother and sister during our pain of loss.
Your are with kin, we've all felt that pain and consider our furry loved ones family.
I empathize with losing a pet at an industrialized facility... Our first cat we owned as a married couple hated vets. But in the end, we knew something was really wrong and we rushed him to the vet hospital. We were told to leave him there, so that they could run a third set of tests. We got the call later... It ended up he had developed stomach cancer, and he only had a 10% chance of some semblance of a life IF we opted for surgery.
We fought with ourselves the whole ride back to the hospital... What if we would have taken him somewhere else when his symptoms started, what if they were able to find this earlier, what if we could find a specialist... But by the time we got there, really the only option we had was to help him over the rainbow bridge. I was mad and devastated, and horrified at how much his suffered over the weekend. I was mad that I had left him in the place he hated most. Worst of all, I hated myself for quite a while after that.
That was 8 years ago. I still get mad and cry around his birthday and the anniversary of his transition. But the positive side of that, is I reminisce. I go down memory lane with his photo book. And I realize, that time doesn't matter to him. Was it bad? Yes. But did he know how much we loved him those 13 years? Oh heck yeah!
This is my hope for you... That you allow yourself to feel. Feelings are not good or bad, they just are. Hopefully those feelings lead you remembering the absolutely beautiful life you shared together even more, and the pain less as time heals your heart.

 

[Mylittlepony]

Its been 5 years since Harry died, and I found this site. We called him My little Pony, because he ran and jumped over things like a pony. He died during an operation at the vets and the guilt I feel has never gone away. If we had just let him live his life without all the intrusions prior to making the op decision would he have been happier, I feel he would, hence the guilt. He was our 4th beloved cat and the guilt increased each time to the point where I can never go through it again, sadly, because they gave us so much. I live near the vet and moving soon and I'm glad I won't have to see it every day, never got over the sadness.

 

[Epolley]

I am so very sorry for your loss. I just went through loss of my own soulmate 16 year old cat a week and a half ago and the guilt and pain is still so hard. My cat was fine and then she wasn't in a matter of 2 days and I took her to the urgent care vet which turned into taking her to the ER vet and they told me she was in acute (total) kidney failure and wouldn't give her fluids due to other confounding issues they felt (I am still not sure about this) and in a very shocked state found myself agreeing with the vet to euthanasia which had never even crossed my mind that we were at that point until they were pushing it. I feel horrible that her last day and last hours were scared at vets and she was poked and prodded and stressed and it was ultimately done in an unfamiliar sterile vet room. I wish I had known about at-home euthanasia options (the vet told me I couldn't take her home and there were no other options... I kick myself I didn't google things but was just so in shock and so upset I wasn't thinking straight) so she could have said goodbye to my other cat and the rest of my family and been in one of her cozy comfortable spots with a cozy blanket. I am still kicking myself for that. But don't beat yourself up (I am trying not to). As everyone else here has said, it seems we would feel guilt no matter what happened or what decisions we made because we lost loves of our lives. I know my Maui loved me and knew I was with her at the end, as unpleasant of the environment as it was. All I keep telling myself is I did the best I could with the information I was given at the time, and I know you did the same. Hugs <3

 

[di and bob]

E Epolley , my heart goes out to you. you are in such pain, I can feel it. Please know your precious girl is at peace because she carries your love in her heart, and will for eternity.......