Rosie wasn’t feeling well this week. I emailed the vet on Tuesday night and asked if I could bring her in this weekend. They wrote back on Wednesday morning saying they’d prefer to see her as soon as possible with her symptoms and they had an opening for that afternoon. I took it and told my boss I was taking a half day (actually my coworker told him which is another annoying story), but nonetheless. I told my class that I was leaving early to take my sick dog to the vet, and this one kid who exhibits a lot of behavioral problems shouted out, “Ha ha! They’re going to put her to sleep!” Cue me being triggered. I had to fight hard not to cry. I disassociated for an hour. This wasn’t my life, I was just there but the world around me wasn’t happening to me. So I decided to take the full half day and not wait until lunch.
As soon as I got in my car, I started crying. I was scared. Rosie being sick and me having to take her to the vet triggers me deeply. I got home and was so happy to see her sitting in her cage, tail wagging and looking at me. I felt a huge sense of relief. I let her and Joey out of their kennels and snuggled with them for the next few hours until it was time to take Rosie to the vet.
We pulled up to the vet and sat and waited for the vet tech to get us from my car. She was nice and loving to Rosie and brought us inside the clinic. As I walked through the front doors, a huge sense of panic and fear filled me. I was sure I was going to cry in front of the vet. I was terrified.
The vet did her exam and prescribed Rosie some probiotics to ease her stomach. We talked about how Rosie licking her front paws could be allergies or could be anxiety. Trigger. She looked at Rosie’s teeth and again commented on how bad her tartar is and that I need to brush her teeth to help combat that. Trigger. But other than that, Rosie was okay and they sent us home with some moist food for her. I felt such relief, like intense relief knowing she was ok.
The next night, I had therapy, and it was much needed. We did EMDR, my first time with this new therapist. I started tearing up as I was telling her what I needed to reprocess. And then we began. My intense fear of losing Rosie. Of me causing her death, or being at fault for it, for not caring well enough for her. My feeling of helplessness. And then it was the grief. I began crying uncontrollably as we went through EMDR. During the “take a deep breath, what came up?” part, my therapist put a name to the reason I was crying so much: Grief. I told her these things with Rosie, even the vet telling me that she has tartar on her teeth and that it’s genetic, the fact that I took Rosie to her 1 year check-up, bringing Rosie to the vet when she’s not feeling well, triggers intense grief. Because I never got to do this with Daisy. I never got to take her to her 1 year check-up because Mat killed her. I never got to know if she also had tartar on her teeth. I never got the chance to take care of her and brush her teeth. And I never got to grieve Daisy properly right after she died. Mat began horrifically abusing me again the morning after her death. The week of her death was marred with so much trauma and abuse and fear, I never got to properly grieve. And so I still feel intense feelings of grief. And I was telling my therapist as we did therapy that I’m ok with that; I embrace it. Because I told her, the deep and profound and overwhelming grief that I feel for Daisy is pure evidence of the love I had, have, for her. It’s the last thing I still have for her in my present life. It hurts, it’s a deep, DEEP, loss and hurt. A suffering that doesn’t go away. And that’s ok. I’m ok with grieving. I’m ok with feeling sad and crying. Because it comes from love. And the pain I feel is INTENSE. I miss her a lot. I look at pictures of Kirby and Daisy and tell them that I would do anything to bring them back. I know that’s the bargaining part of grief but it’s true. They should be here with me. It’s an intense pain that they aren’t.
I told my therapist that I also feel intense fear when I take Rosie to the vet because I have this fear of her dying. I explained that for 8 months after Daisy died, I only knew that the vet had said she died from a freak internal thing. That her organs had torn and there was no way to know about it. And then in January, the forensic veterinarian did her report and said that 100%, absolutely no question, Mat had kicked Daisy and killed her. And I remembered hearing Daisy yelp that day, just once, when she was in my bedroom with Mat. And I know that’s the truth, that he kicked her. But my reality for 8 months was that it was this internal thing, and so I have a fear of that being true, of it happening to Rosie. I told my therapist that my logical brain knows that Rosie is safe and Mat isn’t here, but my body and subconscious mind react and make me feel that paralyzing fear.
In therapy, we reprocessed the fear and feeling of helplessness of the day that Mat killed Daisy. I’ve done it before but I think the grief of that day is so intense, it’s always a trigger for me. My therapist brought up that there’s a natural feeling of helplessness that we all feel and maybe that’s what I was feeling. And I think that’s true. We reprocessed that Mat was the evil that caused this harm to Daisy. Mat forced me to ignore my instincts to take Daisy to the vet. And oh, if I could go back to that day and do it all over, I would and I would bring Daisy to the vet right away. But I couldn’t, because I was being abused. And I trusted Mat that he was a medical expert and caring for Daisy. But really, the sick fuck was ensuring that my baby suffered and endured the torture he inflicted upon her. I told my therapist that the grief came from not being there when Daisy died. That Mat dropped her off and immediately drove us home. And in fact, he got angry that I was texting my family about Daisy on the way home. God, it’s a miracle that I survived him. But I feel grief that I wasn’t there. And we worked on that in therapy, with the helplessness. We worked on the fact that I had finally been able to convince Mat to take Daisy to the vet. That when Daisy died, she was being cared for and treated by medical professionals. That I truly did everything I could have for her, to save her. And Mat is the reason she’s dead; not by any fault of my own. And I realized that as I took Rosie to the vet on Wednesday, I was taking her to the place of medical experts to treat her and care for her. And that was what I could do. I told my therapist that even me taking her to the vet, when she had symptoms that probably could have and would have alleviated on their own, I took precaution and brought her to the vet. And that’s what I do. I care for my pets, my babies, and do everything I can to care for them and their well-being. I have a very good, strong, intuition. Mat didn’t change that in me. He is a weak, pathetic existence that only brings pain and suffering to this world.
I get to feel grief. I suffer the loss of my beloved baby Daisy because of what she meant to me, the intense bond of love we shared. Mat will forever be alone. He knows that the world hates him. He has further isolated himself by his cruelty. And the world loves me. The world loves me and my babies. They mourn with us. They grieve with us. They extend their hearts and love to us. As I grieve, my babies and I are enveloped in a bright yellow light. We are loved. Mat only has dark, black energy around him because all he feels, deserves, and suffers is the pain that is his reality, his existence. And so I lean into the fact that around me is this yellow, white light. This bright energy. The good. I am the good. I am doing good onto others. I am sharing love and my strength and power. I’m a survivor. And I suffer the pain and grief because of that white, yellow light. Because of the good. Because it’s love. And I lean into that. It’s love.
Sarah's Story 