12 days ago my dog died suddenly in my bed.
I know that everyone grieves differently and I also know that all forms of grief are acceptable. 4 days after losing my pup I was already being told to move on, or that I shouldn’t think sad thoughts and (my personal favorite) that you just need to get out more.
What no one knows, except my husband and I, is that the day we left his lifeless body behind at the vet's office the first thing I did when I came home was taking out all of our bullets and cartridges and giving them to my husband in a box.
Another thing most people don’t know is that my dog saved my life almost every day for a month. I do not exaggerate. Everyday. This is why I gave the box of bullets and cartridges to my husband.
So I am what ‘they’ call an MDD. Major Depressive Disorder. I also suffer from anxiety and insomnia. I average from 4-5 hours a sleep a night over the course of a month. That includes making myself take naps. I am treated. I take my medicine. I go through every day; good and bad. Its nothing exciting to have depression and I’ve accepted that the odds are that I will always be medicated.
There was a point where I became suicidal. I was obsessed with how I could or should die. Where we were living at the time had a glass front door. One day I tried to go out to the store and my dog started clawing at the front door and barking like crazy. We were renting at the time and this was in no way acceptable. I had no choice but to either not go or to take him with me.
Every time I drove my car I always had this little voice encouraging me to steer off the road. It sounded so easy. It made me think that people would think it was an accident so that my family wouldn’t be embarrassed. While thinking this normal thought on a drive, a wet nose hit my arm demanding my attention and I remembered that my dog was with me. I loved him so much that there was no way that I could hurt him.
Everywhere I went… he was always by my side. He was even in the car the day I went to the doctors and talked about my suicidal thoughts. He was the only reason I wasn’t sent for a stay at the hospital and a psych evaluation. I couldn’t go because my dog was in the car. He needed me.
My medication was changed. My doctors visits became more frequent and I started having fewer thoughts of suicide. I knew that I was finally better when my dog stopped freaking out when I would leave to run errands. He saved my life. It was a life I no longer wanted. I had no reason to want to die. I also didn’t think I had a reason to live. It took a big, black, wet nose and dark brown eyes full of love that reminding me that I did have one reason. I had him and he had me.
He was my constant reminder of the value my life had.
The day he left my world it didn’t matter that I had a family. It didn’t matter that I was happy. All that mattered was that the one thing in my life that always made me feel loved and valued was gone.
With his passing went a giant part of my heart. He saved my life over and over again. I couldn’t save his. I watched him die. At the time, I didn’t know he was dying. We thought it was just a seizure and that it would be over soon. Hell, I even have his last breaths on camera. We wanted to be able to show the vet how strangely he was breathing during this episode. I have it on video the last time he looked up at me and knew who I was.
Each and every moment of the last 12 days I have spent trying to feel better. Feel normal. Or, at least, pretend to everyone else that I was ok.
For 12 days I have tried to come to an ok place with the loss of my baby… I fear that there is no ok place. It concerns me that everyone around me acts fine or say that they are ok with it. They are comforted by the thought that it was his time to go.
Today is a particularly hard day. Today I will hopefully not have to drive anywhere.
Sometimes I think that I hear the clinking of his collar. Most the time there is a silence in our home that is deafening. The emptiness in my home and in my heart is vast and bottomless like a sinkhole.
He was only 9 years and 5 months old. He saved my life and now he’s gone. 13 days ago he kept waking me up in bed demanding to be pet and held. Now I’m sure he was saying goodbye. He was giving a couple more moments to hold him close, to breathe him in and to feel all of his love.
12 days ago I lost him. I held his lifeless body and cried like I never thought was possible before. And 12 days ago I welcomed an uninvited guest back into my house. That voice that had been gone for such a long time.
pixelskylines
yousharknotpass
baratheonpilled
discoholicmusic
romaincrisis