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Old 10-13-2014, 08:21 AM
  # 34 (permalink)  
LifeRecovery
Member
 
Join Date: Jun 2011
Location: Right here, right now!
Posts: 3,424
Dear Wanttobe-

Thank you so much for making this post.

I lost my LifeRecovery dog, Sassy on 9/17 after a short, unexpected illness. She was the reason for my tag name here.

She was nine and had all sorts of challenges in life. She was fear aggressive, she had some orthopedic challenges, etc. Early on she would particularly act out around me. Her illness had nothing to do with those things as they had all been worked out with a lot of dilegence, patience and her willingness to do the work involved in her own wellbeing.

With the help of a great trainer and some significant work on myself I discovered many things.

She was being my anger for me when she was young. She was acting out mostly when I was "pretending" it was all okay in the world but was seething inside. Her behavior "forced" me to start paying attention to my feelings. If I was being true to myself (regardless of what I was feeling) she was okay....it was when I was covering them up that I got into trouble.

She witnessed some hard situations between my husband and I. I did not realize until after he had left that she struggled around people that were intoxicated (and why). She was so intuned to when someone was "off" and the alcohol would cause them to be off.

Her loss has been hard (I anticipated that), but it has stirred up in me a lot of feelings that I was not able to be in touch with when I was in the survival mode just after my husband left, the divorce etc. In many ways her passing provides me with some freedome that I have not had before, but underneath some of that is some deep and dark anger, frustration etc at my ex, at the fact that I was the one that needed to be responsible for her challenges because he was not in a place that he could. Though really hard for me it has been very catartic.

I also had to decide if I should call him when I realized how sick she was. I did (which I am so glad I did). I then gave him the choice of what to do with it. In many ways I could not do this around his drinking, but I was able to around her.....just the last of many life lessons she has given me.

Thanks for posting and letting me see I am not alone in this. I am sorry for your loss, the hurt and all of the other pieces it is stirring up. I hope it is part of the process of making room for something else for us both.
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