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Grief and eating

Losing a pet and being embarrassed about how hard it hit

Started 19 June 2025 · 18 replies · 186 hearts · read 3.2k times

NoraDublin, IE · 19 June 2025
about a year ago

Losing a pet and being embarrassed about how hard it hit — putting it in its own thread so it does not get lost in the check-in.

I have been sitting on this for a month.

What I would find most useful is not advice. It is somebody describing what their version of this was, and how long it went on for.

I have written down what has actually happened, in order, because I find that more useful than my summary of it.

I will report back either way, because I have been helped by other people's follow-ups more than by their questions.

62

BibiRabat, MA
#1

Two things that helped me, neither of them clever: small amounts more often, and drinking a lot more than felt necessary.

11

WrenFacilitatorLeeds, UK
#2

Noticing out loud that this conversation has drifted into comparison. That happens without anyone intending it and it does not help anyone. Let us come back to the person who asked.

13

BronwenBarry, UK
#3

the reply above — yes, and the bit that took me longest to accept was the next part.

Yes. All of this. I had the same in my third month and I remember thinking there was something specifically wrong with me, which there was not.

8

OsgarKillarney, IE
#4

Mine lasted about seven weeks and then lifted over a few days. I cannot tell you why. I can tell you it lifted.

4

MaudGhent, BE
#5

Gently disagreeing with the reply above, or rather adding the other half of it.

Similar here, and mine turned out to be a completely unrelated deficiency picked up on bloods.

12me too 5

NerysRhyl, UK
#6

I have been in this circle a year and this question comes round every few months. It is not a silly question. It is the question.

13

NúriaBarcelona, ES
#7

Please do not read the comments under news articles about this. I lost a fortnight to that.

8

NoraDublin, IE
#8

What the reply above described happened to me too, in a slightly different order.

I asked my nurse the same question and she said something I have repeated ever since: that the aim is to keep you on treatment, not to get you up the schedule.

10

BibiRabat, MA
#9

My experience was very boring, which I offer as data. Some of us just get a dull time of it.

7

TiborBratislava, SK
#10

Building on what the reply above wrote rather than answering the original question.

What helped was lowering my own expectations of the week rather than trying to hold the week together.

13me too 1

BronwenBarry, UK
#11

My pharmacist was more use than anyone. Ten minutes at the counter, no appointment, no charge.

4

OsgarKillarney, IE
#12

Can I gently push back on one thing? Not the substance, just the framing — you have written twice that you should be coping better. Who told you that?

8

MaudGhent, BE
#13

Yes to the burping. It is real, it is unbeautiful, and it does settle.

6

NerysRhyl, UK
#14

the reply above — yes, and the bit that took me longest to accept was the next part.

I am about four months behind you and I have been dreading exactly this, so thank you for writing it down before I got there.

11me too 8

NúriaBarcelona, ES
#15

Building on what the reply above wrote rather than answering the original question.

The phrase that unlocked my appointment was asking what specifically she wanted me to watch for. It moved us from reassurance to a plan in about thirty seconds.

10me too 4

NoraDublin, IE
#16

Different experience here, for balance. Mine did not improve and in the end I stopped, and that was the right call for me. Both outcomes exist.

10

TiborBratislava, SK
#18

No advice, just recognition. That sounds exhausting and I am sorry you are in it.

12