breakthrough in understanding

[Blueberry]

I'm not quite sure if this is the correct place for my post. I'll see.

Today in therapy I mentioned my terrible gut-wrenching and heart-wrenching pain at the deaths of my Little Furries. The last occasion of this was so bad that I decided to stop keeping Little Furries, at least take a longish break. Recently I was considering getting some again, but then I thought of that pain... Combined with this pain there was almost always the feeling that I'd failed in not managing to keep Little Furry alive and then the feeling that I was a failure because of that.

Logically, you can't simply keep people or pets alive by sheer will-power. But when did logic ever play a role in getting over effects of CPTSD? People or pets can sometimes keep themselves alive way beyond medical prognosis by sheer will-power. One of my Little Furries did that. She just kept going inspite of everything. Hers was the first death where I didn't feel like a failure. I like to talk and think about her and her amazing will-power. 

My T's comment on this topic: Sounds like the pain is actually due to my FOO failing me. I didn't literally die as a child, but parts of me died psychologically-speaking and with that a lot of potential. Lightbulb! It's like the shame and/or blame we take on for FOO. I took on the failure too. It was their failure! They failed to protect me, they failed to make the best out of me. Apparently good parents see the strengths in their children and build on that while helping them get over / deal with weaknesses in a constructive manner. That so did not happen in my FOO. They failed to look at their own weaknesses and how these were playing a role in the family dysfunction etc etc.  Heart-wrenching pain at parents' complete and utter failure to protect me and my life energy.

Then I remembered I used to have kind of a affinity for death and dying. The topic kind of drew me always.

My Little Furries - for a long time they were a reason for me to keep going, to not get too involved thought-wise in giving up, throwing in the towel. No, the Little Furries needed me. I read that dogs and cats take on a kind of child role, Little Furries like rabbits and guinea pigs take on more of a baby role, for their owners that is. With the amount of energy that I put into my Little Furries it was as if I was putting it into myself. I looked after them where I couldn't really look after myself. Internally "allowed" to look after Little Furries and treat them halfway decent, but not self.

Once on a weekend therapy retreat I was distraught because a Little Furry had recently died. At first there were others who couldn't understand that at all and said so. Like, "how can this be such a problem?? If you had kids, you couldn't possible see it this way. "

But later on when it was my time to do individual work, the sentence I was working with (repeating and letting the emotions flow) was "Keep on going, Little Furry, you've almost made it" which mutated spontaneously into "Keep on going Blueberry, you've almost made it". The therapist suggested I look around the circle at that point. Everybody got it, they all had tears in their eyes. All the Little Furries including that one who'd rather tragically died, way too young, were stand-ins for me, for my inner children.

This breakthrough in my understanding is more the opposite of SI, the other side of the coin so to speak. But also detailing my years of struggling to keep going, to want to keep going. Keeping my Little Furries going, looking after them - which gave a lot of meaning to my life, my adult life (!) - was a method of keeping my thoughts and impulses away from SI. I couldn't - my Little Furries needed me!

I'll look at this again tomorrow when less tired. Maybe even condense it a bit. (or discover it should be in a different sub-forum).

[DecimalRocket]

It's interesting how we project so much of ourselves in other people, or even pets. I heard in some theories of psychology that our love and hate for other people has to do with how we love and hate part of ourselves. In others, qualities also in ourselves may not be shown at the extremes or expressed in certain ways, but it's there.

I've worried about letting down people in a similar way that my parents let me down. I hated people who were too distant because on some level, I was distant myself. So were my parents, and who knows how far back that cycle has gone. I still get this way sometimes.

I've heard of people with mental health problems who wanted to stay alive because of their pets. I'm no animal abuser but I'm no animal lover either, though I can see how connecting to someone keeps them alive. It's a precious thing to love someone, whether human being or animal, and it's a joy to see.

Hope you'll enjoy your little furries, Berry. 

[sanmagic7]

o, sweetie, what a grand realization.  how immense on so many levels.

my d recently mentioned to me (she has a cat, wants a dog after we move) that i didn't seem to be the 'pet type', that i didn't seem to want to really get involved with a pet.  actually, my hub and i had about 8 pets, both dogs and cats, while i was in mexico, and our house had cats while my d's were growing up.

i told her that the pain of losing all of them had been so bad that i just didn't want to take the chance anymore.  they really can be like our children and give us a reason to get up in the morning.  the responsibility toward them can be just as intense.  then, to think of projecting care of self onto care of them - whoa, that's huge.  i'd never thought of that.   quite insightful.

i remember with our last cat, as it was laying in my lap one night, about 4 yrs. ago, that suddenly i could actually feel love toward him like i'd never been able to feel with my own children.  that was a first in my life, to feel it that strongly, feel it within and without me,  and i cried becuz i'd never been able to feel it before, yet this animal brought this wonderful feeling out of me.  it felt quite miraculous.

your little furries sound like they were an extension of you in ways you didn't realize.  how wonderful for you.  perhaps some day it will happen again.  love and hugs, blueberry.

[Cyd]

Hi Blueberry,

Thank you for sharing that. I resonate with what you're saying, and I actually had tears in my eyes reading.

That idea of projecting onto your pets, and your realisation was so powerful. The failure of FOO is palpable.

I hope you get the opportunity to have the joy of more furries in your life.

Cyd