The Unique Pain of Losing a Pet

When my vet broke the news that my cat, Purralta, was living on limited time due to an enlarged mass on his heart, I knew I had to let my manager know what was going on.

I knew how much Purralta meant to me, and that the situation was going to result in a distracted employee who was frequently logging into her pet camera remotely from her desk just so she could sit, watch, and count the breaths my cat took as he slept on the bed.

But when I walked into my manager’s office to speak, I felt suddenly awkward and unsure.

I was saying what needed to be said, yes, but I couldn’t help the caveat that I rushed to add at the end – "sorry, this is so embarrassing."

That’s the thing about losing pets; it’s a unique pain that people either understand, or they don’t.

The reactions when you speak about the grief will either be sympathy or a sense of bemusement, an edge of "… it’s just a pet?"

It becomes a gamble when you talk – will this person be empathetic or will they roll their eyes?

I’ve found myself constantly adding self-deprecating addendums – “so silly, I know…” and “sorry, I’m being ridiculous.”

It’s frustrating and I hate every time the words leave my mouth because openly trying to diminish my pain feels like a betrayal to the cat that had unconditionally loved me for the past three years.

It’s like I’m deeming him “less important” by telling people I’m being “dramatic” in my upset.

Navigating grief is already a tricky thing.

Unfortunately, it was a path well-trodden for me having only lost my grandma six months ago.

Already I was familiar with how sadness makes people uncomfortable.

People don’t want to hear about sad things, and, look, I get it.

In society, sadness is viewed as a "bad emotion," like anger, hatred, and jealousy.

One of those all-encompassing emotions that you feel in your entire body – the aching heart, the constriction of your lungs, the heaviness of your limbs.

We will often take pain-staking steps to avoid feeling grief.

This intense avoidance of sadness has led to grief being a private thing.

To perform grief in public is to be labelled performative and attention-seeking.

Crying needs to be done behind doors, under blankets, and speaking about the pain is shit only your therapist needs to hear, okay?

So, grief is already complex and hard to go through.

Then we add the complication of grieving something that isn’t a human.

My cat did pass, not two weeks after the vet visit.

As is often the case with pets, the owner can be faced with a difficult decision when said animal no longer has quality of life.

I was alone when I had to face this decision.

I called my parents.

It was close to midnight by this time, and they lived 45 minutes away.

They told me they would get dressed and be there as soon as they could to be with me.

I told them no.

It was a knee-jerk reaction. It felt like to ask for someone to be there was to be demanding.

Again, there was this sense that I needed to underplay how much this was affecting me.

It’s just a pet, insidious voices whispered in my brain, it’s just a pet, stop being dramatic, it’s just a pet.

My parents came anyway.

Of course they did, because they knew how much Purralta meant to me, and how tough the decision I was facing was.

And that is another thing that makes losing a pet so unique.

The guilt.

The questions afterwards.

Would he have had more time?

Maybe he had months left in him?

Did I make the right choice?

It’s a spiral of questioning that has no answers and leads nowhere good.

I sent a message that night to my manager saying I wouldn’t be in the next day and explaining the circumstances.

I added – "sorry, I know I’m being silly…"

I couldn’t spend the next day in my apartment, and instead holed up in my partner’s, despite him being away for work.

The thing about losing a pet is how irrevocably it changes the landscape of your home.

I have always adored my apartment; I’ve dedicated many hours to curating it into a place that reflects my soul.

It’s normally my happy place, my safe place.

But now when I walk through my door, all that I notice is the absence.

Where once I was greeted with loud, demanding meows, now I enter through the door to silence.

The couch I sit on used to be cramped, because Purralta would demand to cuddle close to me, and we would end up spooning as we both napped or watched television.

Now there’s too much space.

No one knocks the laptop off my lap.

No one twines around my legs as I make dinner.

No one lies next to me in bed and purrs a machine-gun-loud purr that once drowned out the vet’s stethoscope when they were trying to listen to his breathing.

I’ve never really minded living alone.

I’ve found it quite freeing in the past.

But I realise now that I was never alone, not really, because Purralta was a constant presence, even if he wasn’t next to me or near me.

He was a solid, reliable comforting thing that meant I wasn’t alone.

When you lose a pet, your house is filled with reminders.

Not just the physical ones – the water bowl, the litter box, the toy mouse – but memories attached to the mundane aspects of existence.

I won’t remember Purralta on birthdays or Christmases where he is missing, like I do my grandma, I remember him the quiet moments that would have been filled with his purrs and in the unconscious movement I made for days after to fill up his water bowl, even though it wasn’t there anymore.

Pets, like humans, become embedded into our lives and routines.

When we lose them, everything feels just that little bit out-of-step.

It’s been two weeks and I’m still tearing up every second day, and I’m still apologising like I should have moved on from this by now.

I’m still thinking people will judge me for crying about my cat weeks on.

And I think part of why losing a pet becomes so hard is because we feel like we must hide it.

We aren’t allowed to indulge this grief fully, and it becomes prolonged because we can only let it out in small doses and behind hidden doors.

We’re also expected to get over it quickly.

The other day at work someone asked if I was going to get another cat.

I’d like to remind you; it’s only been two weeks.

People view pets as replaceable – just go to the rescue centre and get another one.

But – there are people who understand.

The co-worker who left a block of chocolate on my desk to cheer me up.

My sister-in-law, who’s never had pets but still has enough empathy to know my love for Purralta and send me flowers in the days after.

The friends who hug me extra when they see me.

The one’s who send me memes, so I don’t wallow.

Oh, and that boss – the one I kept apologising too, dismissing my emotions as silly – who sent me a text message saying, "Don’t apologise, it’s not silly to mourn the loss of a beloved pet. Take some comfort that any suffering has ended now. Hope you’re okay."

Moments like that catch me off guard, but they exist.

We’re not alone in our pain and, dammit, we’re allowed to cry as much as we need.

I give us permission to.

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Australia Becomes First Country To Offer Self-Collection Kits For Cervical Cancer Screenings

From July 1st, people across Australia will be able access self-collection kits for cervical cancer.

Health experts believe this initiative will encourage people to get tested for cervical cancer more frequently.

The at-home tests are less invasive than cervical exams performed by doctors, and do not require patients to reach the cervix when they swab their vaginas.

Executive director of the Australian Centre for Prevention of Cervical Cancer, Professor Marion Saville, says this initiative could potentially eliminate cervical cancer in Australia "within the next five or six years."

"This is a real breakthrough, giving autonomy and agency to women, who are now in control of how that test is taken," says Professor Saville.

Get Papped founder Katie Norbury says this initiative is “going to break down so many barriers to screenings.”

"Up to 90% of people who die from cervical cancer are either not up to date with their screening or have never had a cervical screening before," she says, "self collection is likely to increase participation rates particularly among people living in remote or rural areas, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women, linguistically diverse groups, those facing social or economic disadvantage and victims of sexual trauma or violence."

The National Cervical Screening Program recommends people with a cervix get tested for cervical cancer when they turn 25 years of age.

It’s recommended people continue to get tested every 5 years.

The self-collection kits will be available at your GP from next month.

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The Unexpected Challenges Of Sobriety

When I first became sober almost six months ago, I immediately got my hands on every piece of "quit lit" I could find.

"Quit lit" if you don’t know, is the name given to books that focus on quitting drinking and navigating life without alcohol.

Whilst this isn’t my first time embarking on sobriety (alcohol can be a tricky habit to kick), I was determined that this would be the time that stuck.

I wanted to be equipped with every bit of information available to prepare myself for any challenges the sober life might throw at me.

And here’s the thing; sobriety can throw quite a few challenges at you.

I’m talking challenges that aren’t just “not drinking” (although, to be fair, that is a big one).

What I’ve found is that there are other struggles that arise, some of which lie outside the scope of the mainstream sobriety literature.

These are the unexpectedly challenging things I’ve found:

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1. Identity Crisis

There’s this weird sort of "rebirth" when you become sober, especially if it’s the first time you’ve found yourself alcohol-free in a while.

It can often be the first time you’ve ever sat with yourself free from the haze of alcohol.

It can be the first time you’ve tapped into your emotions the real ones, not the artificially enhanced ones – and looked deep inside to who you are.

I spent much of my teenage years – the time when you’re supposed to be figuring out who you are - basically drunk off my face.

This meant that a lot of who I thought I was (i.e. party girl, extroverted, wine girl) was tied up with alcohol.

When I became sober, it felt like I had only created half of an identity and filled the gaps with booze (side note, that’s a hot tip; if you’ve ever found yourself making “alcohol” a part of your personality… it might be time to revaluate).

One of the unexpected challenges of sobriety that I found was that I had to reconstruct who I was.

For anyone else who might be in the same boat, I know there’s this sense of, "but I’m in my twenties/thirties/forties/whatever, I can’t be changing who I am now, it’s too late."

Listen, it’s never too late.

And while it’s been challenging as hell and therapy has been holding my hand throughout the process, it’s also been incredibly rewarding to figure who I am and what I actually like.

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2. Drunk Me vs Sober Me

All that being said, when you do start figuring out who you are without alcohol, there is another challenge – the divide between you who are – which, sans alcohol, always feels so, so great – and who you were starts becoming obvious.

Especially when you think about who you were when you were drunk.

When you start becoming this amazing sober person doing all the things and in general not being a drunken flake, it becomes hard to face your old alcohol-soaked self.

In the beginning, I created this sort of cognitive dissonance towards 'Drunk Me' and told myself it was the alcohol that made me do things like ditch my friends for strangers, spend $600 in a single night and start fights with loved ones.

In a way, this did help the early days of sobriety.

But, my friends, I’m sorry to say, it’s not healthy or sustainable.

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One of the challenges of sobriety is confronting who you were and accepting that.

Yes of course alcohol does make us do stupid things, but it also amplifies certain aspects of our personality that were already there in the first place.

So, a lot of 'Drunk Me' was… well, still me.

Addressing those parts of yourself can be terribly difficult.

But think about how the reconciling of the two “versions” yourself is so hard – it’s hard because, guess what, you’ve changed for the better in leaps and bounds.

It’s a marker of our sobriety success.

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3. Lack of Positive Side Effects

It’s time we talk about the supposed side effects of giving up alcohol.

Quit lit loves to tell us we’ll have more energy, sleep better, our skin will clear, the literal whites of our eyes will brighten, birds will sing to us and somehow, we’ll also bring about world peace.

Or maybe those last ones were an exaggeration.

In any case, the books, articles, and websites basically tell us that going sober will transform us into health machines.

Oh yes, and, of course, they tell us we will lose weight.

I’m sure hearing about the health side effects of sobriety is helpful to a lot of people, and it is good to realise, by comparison, the detrimental effects of alcohol – but here’s the thing, what if literally none of those things happen to you?

I gave up drinking almost six months ago and I’m still tired, sleep terribly and right now there’s a pimple breakout across my chin.

Sure, I feel better not having hangovers all the time – but aside from that?

I feel the same.

And let’s touch up on the weight loss thing – it irks me that "losing weight" is highlighted so frequently and with such adulation and excitement in quit lit.

I did not lose weight when I gave up drinking.

I felt like this side effect was guaranteed to me.

So when it didn’t happen, I felt like I was doing something wrong.

I started blaming my eating habits, my exercise schedule; I lost sight of what the actual goal was – to stop drinking.

It wasn’t to lose weight or magically acquire any of the side effects - it was to cut something from my life that was ruining me.

If you don’t get any of the “promised” health benefits of sobriety, it can be really easy to feel cheated and develop a sense of, “well, what is the point then?”

And that’s when you need to take a step back and remember, the point is not to have hangovers every weekend.

Or maybe the point is not to wallow in hangxiety.

Whatever it is, just remember to keep that as your goal, not a side effect that buys into the toxic diet and wellness culture of society.

4. Non-alcoholic drinks

Now onto the more fun stuff! Say you’ve slogged through the identity crisis, shaken free of toxic health culture and now you’re ready to socialise in bars and clubs again with your pals.

Great! Except; another challenge.

Navigating the world of non-alcoholic drinks.

Soda water with lime is only nice for the first few drinks before it gets boring.

Mocktails are just expensive juice.

I can handle about two diet cokes before I feel gassy and sick.

If you’re lucky however, you will have lots of options.

The sober-curious movement is gaining traction and there are now many non-alcoholic beers, wines and spirits emerging on the market.

This makes things a lot of more fun and easier when you go out.

5. The Cost of Rituals

When I got good news back in the day, I celebrated with a glass of champagne.

When I got bad news, I drowned my sorrows in red wine.

On self-care nights, I poured a glass of white wine.

All these rituals and celebrations were, for a long time, intrinsically tied up with alcohol.

It can be difficult, when you become sober, to feel like you’re properly celebrating or mourning when you don’t complete the ritual you’ve followed for so long.

You can end up feeling at a loss.

When I got my first article published this year, the lack of a sparkling drink in my hand to toast to my success made me feel, in an odd way, bereft.

What sobriety forces us to do is create new routines and rituals around celebrating, commiserating and, yes, even self-care – and this can be challenging.

It can feel a little like filling a void.

I had to keep trying things until they fit, and it was hard, yes, but also rewarding to create these new little rituals around the key moments in my life.

Self-care is now a mindful crafting afternoon making clay earrings.

Celebrating is buying a treat for myself.

Sadness is combatted with a walk in the nearby park.

6. Other people

There are a variety of reactions you commonly get when telling people you’re sober.

"I can just have one drink and stop!" (Good for you)

"I could never give up drinking!" (I literally didn’t ask you to)

"So what?" (Exactly, thank you; so friggen what?)

What I wish for in the future is for my sobriety to be met with ambivalence.

Actually, what I really want, is for it to never be mentioned at all.

When I was sober the first time, a drunk person told me they don’t like sober people because “all they do is talk about not drinking.”

For context, I’d said it once, after declining a wine.

From my experience, sober people don’t talk about not drinking. In fact, we try very much not to talk about it because we don’t like having to answer a million questions or be treated to stories about how so-and-so’s drinking isn’t that bad, and they don’t need to stop drinking.

That’s great, Chad, I literally don’t care.

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That’s the thing; for most sober people, we literally don’t care if you drink.

But the challenging thing about sobriety is that so many people around you think that you are bothered that they drink.

It becomes hard to get across to people that our decision not to drink is, in no way, a reflection on their decision to drink.

It can be exhausting to deal with this, and I’m sorry to say, it doesn’t appear to ease off in my experience.

Not even two weeks ago my news of an upcoming holiday was met with, “gosh I could never go on holiday where I couldn’t drink” and whilst it is super tempting to respond with snark (“gee, you must be incredibly boring then to not be able to handle entertaining yourself in a literal foreign place without altering your mindset with beverages”) my go-to response is to… change the subject.

Honestly, it works, and once the person realises you aren’t going to engage with them on talk of sobriety or drinking (look, a lot of people are just looking to debate you and justify their drinking, even though you literally didn’t ask), the chances are that they’ll give up.

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Given I am still in the early days of sobriety, I know these won’t be the only challenges I have to face as I navigate the world without alcohol.

But each challenge I overcome leaves me better equipped the handle the next, so for those who are struggling, I can say with confidence from my own experiences – it gets easier.

We get stronger and we get more secure in the knowledge that we got this.

Sobriety is a challenge, yes, but it is a worthwhile one nonetheless.

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If this post brought up any issues for you, please contact The Alcohol and Drug Support Line - a confidential, non-judgmental telephone counselling, information and referral service for anyone seeking help for their own or another person’s alcohol or drug use. Call (08) 9442 5000 for assistance.

For more from Shaeden Berry, you can find her on Instagram @berrywellthanks