V
vash88
Guest
(Part 1 of 2)
My family is not religious. I sort of ventured out into the spiritual life on my own when I was a teenager (I’m 30 now) and started considering Catholicism when I was in my mid/late 20s. The reason I bring that up is to point out that I have no family connections within the Catholic Church, which is important to keep in mind as I say what I’m about to say.
I’ve had depression off and on throughout my life (which is ultimately what led me to seek out God years ago even though no family members were religious). And that depression has flared up again in recent years, and it was made worse about 9 months ago when my cat died. I felt guilty about putting him down because I felt like there was more I could’ve done for him (It was definitely the right thing to do to put him down when I did, don’t get me wrong, but I just generally feel like I could’ve taken better care of him before it got to that point; I think of little moments here and there throughout his life where, for example, he’d meow to say he needed water or just wanted my to open the fridge so he could look inside, but I’d be in a bad mood for whatever reason and get annoyed and tell him to hush (Don’t worry, I’d give him water if he really needed it, but my heart felt uncharitable and impatient at times, and I feel like our relationship sorta got colder over time as a result)). And now whenever I think of him I just get bitter and self-loathing, so in a lot of ways I don’t like to think about him even though I want to think about him (if that makes sense). And, without realizing these internal struggles that I’m having, my brother got me this great framed picture of my cat for Christmas. I want to feel appreciative but it just makes me sad. I started talking to a psychiatrist about the cat a while back, and she said some feelings of guilt are normal when someone who’s in your care passes away, and it just takes time.
So I tried not to worry too much about it, and for about a month or so I’ve slowly started to feel better, but then just a few days ago I got a call from my mom saying that her cat (who used to also be my cat, but I could only take one pet with me when I moved out and the cat I took with me was a loner whereas the other cat and the dog were inseparable) got really sick and had to be put down. There weren’t really guilt feelings associated with her passing since I wasn’t the one taking care of her, but obviously to hear that my OTHER childhood pet had passed away so soon after the one before, renewed all that sadness I had just started to get through.
My family is not religious. I sort of ventured out into the spiritual life on my own when I was a teenager (I’m 30 now) and started considering Catholicism when I was in my mid/late 20s. The reason I bring that up is to point out that I have no family connections within the Catholic Church, which is important to keep in mind as I say what I’m about to say.
I’ve had depression off and on throughout my life (which is ultimately what led me to seek out God years ago even though no family members were religious). And that depression has flared up again in recent years, and it was made worse about 9 months ago when my cat died. I felt guilty about putting him down because I felt like there was more I could’ve done for him (It was definitely the right thing to do to put him down when I did, don’t get me wrong, but I just generally feel like I could’ve taken better care of him before it got to that point; I think of little moments here and there throughout his life where, for example, he’d meow to say he needed water or just wanted my to open the fridge so he could look inside, but I’d be in a bad mood for whatever reason and get annoyed and tell him to hush (Don’t worry, I’d give him water if he really needed it, but my heart felt uncharitable and impatient at times, and I feel like our relationship sorta got colder over time as a result)). And now whenever I think of him I just get bitter and self-loathing, so in a lot of ways I don’t like to think about him even though I want to think about him (if that makes sense). And, without realizing these internal struggles that I’m having, my brother got me this great framed picture of my cat for Christmas. I want to feel appreciative but it just makes me sad. I started talking to a psychiatrist about the cat a while back, and she said some feelings of guilt are normal when someone who’s in your care passes away, and it just takes time.
So I tried not to worry too much about it, and for about a month or so I’ve slowly started to feel better, but then just a few days ago I got a call from my mom saying that her cat (who used to also be my cat, but I could only take one pet with me when I moved out and the cat I took with me was a loner whereas the other cat and the dog were inseparable) got really sick and had to be put down. There weren’t really guilt feelings associated with her passing since I wasn’t the one taking care of her, but obviously to hear that my OTHER childhood pet had passed away so soon after the one before, renewed all that sadness I had just started to get through.
