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Dear ABC01,
Firstly, I want to acknowledge the deep love and care you have for your beloved cats, and the cherished memories you’ve shared with them over the years. It’s completely understandable that you’re struggling with the idea of parting with items that hold such significant sentimental value.
Grief and loss take many forms, and it’s essential to be gentle with yourself as you navigate these complex emotions. The process of letting go of physical items is surely challenging, but remember that the memories and love attached to these items live on within you.
One approach that might help is to consider the items as a form of tribute to your cats. Rather than viewing their disposal as a final act, think of it as a way to honor the joy they brought into your life. You might even wish to hold a small ceremony or take some time to reflect on your memories with each item before letting it go.
It’s also okay to take your time with this process. There’s no right or wrong way to grieve, and holding onto these items for as long as you need is perfectly acceptable. Sometimes, the passage of time can help us find ways to cope with the painful feelings associated with loss.
If and when you do decide to part with these items, it is sometimes helpful to find ways to repurpose them or give them a second life, such as donating to animal shelters, community centers, or even finding a craftsperson who could repurpose the materials into keepsakes. This way, the love and care infused into these items can continue to be shared.
Finally, remember that the love you shared with your cats, the joy they brought into your life, and the cherished memories you created together are the most important and lasting aspects of the bond you shared. No matter what you choose to do with these special items, the love between you and your cats endures.
Take care of yourself during this difficult time, and don’t hesitate to seek support from friends, family, a counsellor or check in with our Helpline if you find any of those things helpful.Dear Kayjayenn,
As someone who has also lost a young cat to outside forces I can only say one thing.
I regret not assessing the changed circumstances in my neighbourhood when I got my cat as a kitten. I too have had previous cats that have been able to spend time outside and lived to an old age. So I assumed he would be safe too.He never left the backyard once.
However the circumstances of my neighbourhood had changed since my previous cats. I had new neighbours with different dogs to the last neighbours who lived there. And they were not well behaved or trained. My cat was very good looking and I couldn’t be sure someone wouldn’t steal him. My street has also gotten busier over the years and people often don’t drive the speed limit and it is now part of a bus route.My kitten grew up with big dogs(Who were so loving and gentle with him), so he wasn’t used to being scared of any dog. And unfortunately this ended his life at the young age of three and a half.
I now know in hindsight that I have absolutely no control over what happens outside of the doors of my house. Or control of my cat when they walk out those doors. And if I ever get another cat again, I will never let it outside. End of story. It is a lesson I had to learn in the cruelest way. And one I never pictured would ever happen to me or my poor boys life. No one did.
So while it is a personal preference about inside vs. outside, you never intentionally wanted or intended for your cat to get hurt or pass away. But I guess the reflection is now, if you know what can happen to them, will you let it possibly happen again by letting them outside? Because you can control inside your own home. But not outside. And you never will. So is the anxiety worth it? Is the risk worth it?
I am very sorry you have lost your cat. I empathise with missing them at night and cuddles. And I truly hope you are travelling well.
ABC01
Dear All,
I am coming up against this question.
How do people ever get rid of favourite things, the ones they love have left behind when they pass?I have a few big items left behind after the passing of my soul cat and after seeing them today, I burst into tears. There are so many memories attached to them.
I can’t ever possibly imagine dismantling any of my cats items that they have lived on and loved for many years. I have loved them too. How am I ever supposed to strip them down, dismantle them into pieces and throw them in a skip? Even if I don’t put them in the skip myself, I will know they are in a trash dump somewhere.
And if I move them onto someone else, will that person ever love and respect them, the way I have? And then end up in a bin one day too. It hurts my heart to picture them whole, in a dump somewhere surrounded by rubbish.
The cat post I helped build with my own two hands, and has 17 years and two lives attached to it.
The box I had built for my last boy, had two years of fun in it, just for him. To replace the cardboard boxes he would run through as a kitten. And I can’t see another cat in this box.
The cat stairs for the bed, I also helped build with my own two hands. And have seen 5+ years of use and 3 lives use them.
Their fur is still on all these pieces.How am I supposed to chuck these things in the bin? And be okay with it? At the moment I just can’t see how.
So my question at the beginning of this post is what I am asking opinions or experiences on.
Any reply or advice would be much appreciated and welcome.
Thank you.
ABC01Hi zanderdee,
Thanks for reaching out, it sounds like you’re experiencing a “living loss”, as you are grieving the end of the relationship even as you are worrying about your ex-partner and her ability to cope in the world without you.
From what you have shared it seems you have qualities and strengths in being able to be there for someone else. And what you have shared also indicates strength by being willing to do what you need to do for yourself, even when it is difficult.
It’s very usual to feel guilt about ending a relationship, even if you know that ending it is the right thing for you to do. It sounds like it was a relationship that was very caring, but also took a lot from you.
As you said, you tried to “help her fly”, but ultimately there’s only so much you were or are able to do. It seems like your relationship has taught you that it really is true that we can’t guarantee another person’s happiness. From what you describe you’ve tried very hard to help your ex-partner emotionally and practically, and set up everything to you can to ensure that she will be okay in the future. Now you need to trust that you’ve done everything you can, and she will be able to find other support networks.
I hope that you have enough support available to you. You could also call our caring Helpline on 1300 845 745 between the hours of 8am – 8pm (AEST). Here you can openly discuss your concerns with a friendly Volunteer. There also some articles available on our website which may be helpful. One such article is about relationship loss, which you can find here https://griefline.org.au/resources/relationship-loss/.
It’s good that you recognise that this was the right decision for you, and I’m glad you have your new partner supporting you in trying to process the emotions left over from your decision and move forward. Sometimes it can take time for your emotions to catch up with your head. Good luck building your new life and finding peace with the decisions you needed to make for your own wellbeing. You are always welcome to share on these forums, we are happy to be here for you as you navigate this process.
- This reply was modified 4 days, 9 hours ago by .
- This reply was modified 4 days, 9 hours ago by .
My story may not fit in here but I need some advice, or maybe just to be heard. U don’t know. It’s not about death or anything like that, but more about separating from my ex-partner and feeling such intense guilt for it.
My ex is honestly one of the nicest people i’ve ever met.. And everyone sees how sweet and innocent she is in general. That’s what is making this process so damn hard. She’s very limited in her ability to work or understand the complexities of the world, gets overwhelmed easily, and doesn’t really know how to take care of herself. Everyone has always put her down as ‘dumb’ or even thought she may have a learning disability – but it turns out she’s likely lived her entire life with Inattentive ADHD and it wasn’t even noticed until I spoke with her psychologist who sent her for an assessment which I paid for after the separation (I wanted her to get help). They came back to say there’s a very strong likelihood of her having it but weren’t able to give an official diagnosis because she was too mentally unstable from the separation. It crushed me and intensified my guilt because she has tried one of my pills and the difference was like night-and-day. I just want her to be able to quiet her mind, focus on getting back on her feet, and being seen as reliable for her daughter/grandchild’s sake.
We separated about a year ago now after many years (8-years) of feeling beaten and broken (figuratively – no history of DV at all) from ongoing melodrama and stress centered around her ethnic family and over-thinking that led her to intense bouts of anxiety and major depression. I just felt defeated trying endlessly to reassure her that all will be well. But she couldn’t truly see me through the noise of her endless worries. I myself woke up to feeling like I wasn’t seen, or didn’t even rate, against all her stressors and her focus on her intensely dramatic daughter and her other family’s dramas after I myself got diagnosed with ADHD.
My history of trauma is neglect from childhood – and I felt like I had lost myself as a people-pleaser because all I did was put out fires that caused her to spiral and realized I was enabling her co-dependency by trying to wrap her in bubble-wrap and protect her from the world. I felt like I had to wave my arms to get attention, and the only time I felt like I had that attention was when I would mentally break-down from stress over trying, endlessly, to make her happy. But getting a diagnosis really cleared up my mindset, and through psychology, i’ve come to realize the only reason I got together with her was because I was lonely, enormously over-weight at the time (215kg – now 104kg), and that I was desperate to find someone who could potentially love me. I ignored all the red-flags in lieu of not being alone for the rest of my life and now i’m paying for that mistake.
She is also rabid over-thinker who stressed over the tiniest of things – from money (despite me paying our way the entire relationship), to her limitations of job prospects and that she wasn’t academic enough to find better employment. It didn’t help that her ethnic family and community see wealth as a social status, and as someone who grew up poor myself, I didn’t care much about gaining wealth – just enough to get by and have our bills paid is fine by me. I maintained our budget so well that we were always 6-months ahead in credit for everything so the endless worry about not having more money was just so perplexing. She also barely took care of herself, as she’s a type 2 diabetic I used to beg her to take her medication which resulted in her (now) having to take 74 units of insulin a day. But now the inattentive ADHD diagnosis makes a hell of a lot of sense and is likely the cause of her life-long behaviour. She is incredibly naive, had been scammed online countless times for money and even had our ID documents stolen when her e-mail was hacked, or just had the worst luck which resulted in many car-crashes, accidents at work, or forgetting things explained to her. Her obsessive nature with social media also left no attention for me and it felt like I would struggle to have an engaging conversation. Her daughter kept her in endless spirals by bemoaning the ins-and-outs of her partner’s close-knit family, resulting in more endless worry – but her daughter has a long history of lieing or exaggerating truths. In all of this, she had no time to focus on me and despite being with her, I felt even lonelier than when I was alone and overweight and felt like a social outcast. But I don’t mean to rag on her – it’s just a brief explanation for the cause of the break-up to give some context.
What is really getting to me is.. we’ve separated and i’m paying her out to take over the house (200k) and mortgage (she could never work enough to afford to take it over unfortunately). She is due to move out once the settlement is sorted (in about 9-days) but I feel this intense sense of guilt for… casting her out into the world.. like sending Bambi back into the forest to be hunted. She is so co-dependent and despite me trying to teach her budgeting, paying bills, or even how to use basic technology besides a smartphone over the years, she’s just not able to remember any of it. Her family are also not willing to take her in due to her mental illnesses as she has a long history of stressing them out – despite them having ample rooms and houses. Not even her daughter will take her in (from her prev. marriage) because she has stressed out her partner’s family to no-end over the years and, I suspect, has painted her as incapable or ‘dumb’ as well. They won’t even let her spend time alone with her own grand-child because they see her as a risk to the child’s safety – but she was honestly brought onto this earth to nurture children with all her heart. She was a stay-at-home mother for 15-years so it breaks my heart that this even happened.
I feel so…. disgusted in myself for taking steps to find my own true happiness. To be free of stress and endless sadness that plagued our relationship due to her always being upset at one thing or another. I understand that what i’m doing is right for me, and I don’t regret leaving despite how hard it has been with lawyers and real-estate agents and brokers to get her the most I can for the house. I just feel like such a terrible person who took this sweet person under my wing, tried to help her fly herself, before realizing that I wasn’t happy due to numerous factors, and now she’s moving into a share-house in a few weeks. She still has a job, is on the Disability Support Pension, and will get a 200k lump-sum so she can get back on her feet.
So why do I feel like i’m an absolute piece of s**t for my actions? I’m not sleeping. These thoughts are always in my mind unless I work intently to drown them out. I even have a new partner who is absolutely amazing and the complete opposite of dramatic, who simply adores me, but is seeing my spiral from worry over someone who really isn’t (or shouldn’t be) my problem anymore. My new partner is so understanding at the situation and is a complete comfort – reassuring me that my ex-partner will be okay. But I know she won’t.. and it’s really killing me inside.
Losing my dog was heartbreaking. The silence at home felt unbearable. I found some comfort in caring for his sibling—Calming Dog Treats helped ease her anxiety too. It’s tough grieving a pet, but small steps like this made the pain a bit more manageable.
I recently lost my Poppa and my Cat, both the same morning… My Poppa we had our chances to spend his last weeks with him and spend time with him which I am forever grateful for.
He was on Dialysis for 7 and a half years and had a pacemaker put in before christmas and we thought we were gonna loose him then but we got one last christmas with him. It was his choice to stop Dialysis and exactly 7 days later he passed peacefully in his sleep. The night before he passed away I was sitting by his bedside and holding his hand listening to the death rattle and watching him struggle to breathe in his sleep. I will never forget that noise. It hasn’t even been a month yet and it feels like it hasn’t hit me yet. I suffer with mental health issues already and can feel myself in a depressive episode and getting angry and placing blame on other family members for things that were missed out on and for some of my family members who only started to be nice after his funeral. I had to put my cat down only maybe 5 hours later after getting the news about my Poppa and my cat was so sick and had been for days even after numerous vet visits he had less than a 50% chance even with surgery and they didn’t think he would make it anyway. My partner wasn’t very supportive and couldn’t show empathy during all this and I feel so incredibly alone. I feel like I can’t talk to my family as I was the only one holding my house together for my family and my house is all doom and gloom and I can’t even bring anything up without having to support them and getting nothing in return. I feel like the adult to my own parents right now. I don’t know where to go or how to even begin to process all of this. I can’t even see my psychologist more frequently because of the sessions for a care plan and they don’t charge out of pocket plus I have a great therapeutic relationship and he knows my history to be able to help me more than any other professional. Everyone commends me for being so strong but that’s because I don’t let anyone see the truth as I’ve always had to be the strong person and I don’t have someone to be my strong person. Yes I have a partner but he has only made things so much harder with everything going on even after speaking with him. Just don’t know where to start my grieving process and how to let myself feel what it is I feel.Dear holdinghope25,
I’m really glad to hear that your puppy is home with you again, and improving. It must be a great relief. Experiencing anxiety must make it that much more difficult for you when you suspect something is wrong with your new friend. Good on you for getting everything checked out and well done for responding to the situation. If phone conversations are challenging for you, I’m very glad that the forum is here as a safe channel for you to express your feelings and seek support.
