Grieving is a process that we all go through when we lose someone we love. But how we experience grief, and how we handle it, is very individual.
Symptoms of grief after pet loss
Grieving doesn’t happen according to a schedule, but often comes in waves with various emotional and physical symptoms, some more dominant than others. Below is a list of symptoms you might experience or recognize from your own grieving:
- Sorrow
- Overwhelming sadness
- Yearning
- Emptiness
- Loneliness
- Guilt
- Anger
- Helplessness
- Trouble sleeping
- Trouble concentrating.
Besides the symptoms listed above, many people also dream of their deceased pets, and some see or hear them.
Nowadays most people’s lives are so busy that there is hardly any time to grieve. We are more or less expected to function normally shortly after our loss. Or we might push the feelings of grief aside, because they are too painful and difficult to handle. Needless to say, neither of these is healthy in the long run.
You have just lost someone you love deeply – your animal companion, your best friend – and the love you had for him or her might have been as deep – or even deeper – than the love you have felt for another human being, so it not only ok but completely natural to grieve. I suggest you start by doing the following little exercise:
Exercise – Acknowledging your grief
Grief is a very powerful emotion, so when you feel overwhelmed by grief after the death of your pet it is crucial to acknowledge the grief. Accept and embrace the grief. Allow the feelings to be there and cry if you need to, but don’t feed the grief with your mind by thinking about what you should or shouldn’t have done. Simply allow the feeling of grief to be there.
