Coping With Traumatic Endings

So many “what-ifs.” So many “I shouldn’t haves.” So many wishes for do-overs.

"Charter" Photo by Scarlett Blackiston

If I had a superpower, it would be the ability to rewind time in two distinct ways. The first would be the ability to travel through a time machine and visit the different versions of myself I’ve tried on at any given time. I would savor ordinary moments spent with people who are no longer in my life, whether through death, breakups, or friends who were only meant for a season of my life. I would relive the moment I walked out of the shelter with Tovi, and the pure joy I felt knowing he was mine. I would experience the innocence of being a teenager, walking to Main Street after school, where I would guiltlessly eat a slice of pizza at John’s Boy, followed by a trip to CVS to check out the newest scents of Bonnie Bell lip gloss. I would be hiking with my ex-husband and the dogs who are no longer with us. In this fantasy, I would trust that everything was meant to unfold as it did, and I wouldn't be rewriting the script — just dropping in.

And then, there would be the ability to rewind time and take back a Moment that changed everything. In this fantasy, I rewrite the script. I beg some unknown entity to grant me a redo, and convince myself that if I wish hard enough, it could happen — as if I’m that powerful. But there is no rewind and re-record button on life, and I have to live with the great edits I’ll never be able to use.

Since we can’t time travel and alter the past, our work when coping with traumatic loss is to figure out how to live alongside That Moment, peacefully. Don’t get me wrong — we will never like it, but at some point, we need to reconcile with it so it becomes less emotionally charged. Otherwise, we get stuck in a perpetual cycle of retraumatizing ourselves.

After a trauma, being alone in our minds is not a safe place to be. Our minds will exaggerate situations, tell us lies, and convince us we are terrible people. It is very persuasive, but it cannot be trusted. Being alone with your thoughts is like sitting solo on a seesaw — you are gravitationally unable to move. But when you allow someone else’s Words to sit beside you on the bench, you can gain a more balanced perspective. This is my attempt at those Words.

The devastating reality is that accidents occur daily in the lives of loving pet parents in ways we could never have imagined. A dog spots a squirrel, and the leash slips out of the owner's hand while they are distracted by their phone. A cat escaped when a construction worker left a door propped open. An animal lover finds a stray dog that appears friendly and brings it home, only for it to attack their dog. A bag of Temptations was left out, and a beloved cat got its head stuck in the bag. A dog is stolen while alone in the yard.

Cue the assaults: Why wasn’t I paying more attention? How could I be so careless? I should have stayed home from work to supervise the construction.

All happened. And not one of them did so with ill intention; yet these owners condemned themselves as if they should have been able to predict the future and done something differently. Seeing the outcome and then hating what you did is like cheating on a test. It’s not fair.

I won’t sanitize it. The loss of your pet from your life may have objectively been caused by something you did — or didn’t—do. What happened, happened, and I won’t take that away from you.

But here’s the thing: Even with the best of intentions, tragedies still happen. No amount of love can shield us from accidents or protect us from making mistakes. The literal definition of an accident is “an unfortunate incident that happens unexpectedly and unintentionally, typically resulting in damage or injury.” (Oxford Languages Dictionary.)

Unintentionally and unexpectedly.

Yet, after a tragedy, we tend to assume a sense of over-responsibility as if we meant to harm our beloved pet. The Moment streams on auto-play in our minds with so many “if-only” happier endings, that we can’t even see straight anymore. We lose our emotional grounding and find ourselves consumed by shame.

Shame is an all-encompassing emotion. It’s terrifying, vindictive, and threatening. It will come in like a tidal wave and knock the breath out of you. The combination of its strength and your vulnerability makes it easy for it to break in and hijack your identity without you consciously noticing — it’s very sneaky. The other thing to know about shame, though, is that it is a commonly misunderstood emotion. We often group “shame” and “guilt” together without realizing that they are separate emotions, but knowing the difference between them empowers us to recognize when shame is dominating and reclaim some of our power.

To start, of course, you’re feeling guilty — you made a mistake, and that’s the emotion that appropriately follows. Guilt should not be an unwelcome emotion — it shows you have a conscience and care deeply about others. It is a normal response to something going wrong. Guilt says, “I did a bad thing.” (Maybe, maybe not — more on that later.) It involves a lot of “if onlys” and “I should haves,” and it is focused on a specific incident. It leaves us with insight into how we want to act in the future.

But shame, shame is like guilt on steroids. It’s no longer “I made a mistake,” or “a terrible thing happened under my watch,” but it becomes, “I am a terrible, worthless person because I did that bad thing.” We didn’t just make a mistake, we become a mistake.

When Mike’s dog died because of what he saw as his carelessness, he became consumed by the tragic accident. While his thoughts were going 100 miles/hour, he bypassed guilt and went directly into shame. He went from being a devoted, selfless dog dad to never trusting himself to own another pet. Shame transformed how he saw himself.

Mike’s story is a difficult one to hear, but it serves as a poignant example of the emotional consequences of a tragic accident. If you’re blaming yourself for an accident, you’ll likely find perspective in his experience. Although there are no explicit details, if hearing about a tragic accident feels too hard right now (you may be at your threshold for “sad”), I recommend skipping the next paragraph and picking up at the following one. It will still flow.

Mike had just come back from a trip to Starbucks drive-thru with his dog, Barkley, where he got him a Puppuccino on a hot summer day. When they arrived home, Mike was distracted by a mail carrier reaching out to hand him a package. He was caught off guard and awkwardly carried the large box into the house, forgetting that he hadn’t taken Barkley out of the car. It wasn’t until he was eating lunch that he realized no dog was patrolling the area under the table for fallen crumbs that it hit him. Barkely never came inside with him. At that moment, not only did his heart shatter into a million pieces, but he would save them and use the sharp pieces to hurt himself over and over again.

I will forever be heartbroken for Mike. I know how deeply he cared for Barkley and what a tremendous impact this accident had on his life. He not only lost the love of his life, but he also lost a piece of himself when shame permeated his life from that moment forward and transformed how he saw himself.

This is how I see it: Mike loved Barkley more than anyone and would have done anything for him, AND a mistake was made. The two can co-exist.

I have sat beside many loving pet parents who experienced horrific losses, and I have never felt anything but compassion, empathy, and genuine heartbreak as they shared their stories. I’m not going to sugarcoat it, though — not everyone will. There will always be people who will judge the Mikes of the world for allowing “tragedy x” to happen. We live in a world where people are quick to judge, vilify, and cancel, which only makes the shame feel that much more valid.

Here’s my advice: Let Them.

I learned about “Let Them” from Mel Robbin’s book, The Let Them Theory.

Pause and let those two words sink in. Let Them judge you. Let Them criticize you. Let Them gossip. Let Them attack you on social media.

Everyone has a right to their feelings, and it is not your job to change how someone feels about you, or something you did. Their feelings belong to them. But no one has the right to tell another person to be “ashamed of themselves.” Don’t they know we are all shaming ourselves enough already?

I know how painfully hard it can feel to live beside others’ opinions of you, but when we fight so hard to change someone else’s opinion of us, we are essentially telling ourselves, “If person ‘x’ thinks I am a terrible person, until I convince them otherwise, it must be true.” When you let go and let them think you are a terrible person, the key to your self-image remains in your possession.

Don’t get me wrong. Feeling misunderstood is frustrating and uncomfortable, and there is nothing fundamentally wrong with trying to “explain” what happened — if that’s what you want. Part of owning your experience means you can talk about it and share your feelings around it. Explaining becomes dangerous, though, when you give the outcome (whether someone else changes their view of you) the power to dictate how you feel about yourself.

I get it. As someone who hasn’t experienced a traumatic loss, I can sit here calmly and give you this tidy package of insight, but if this had happened to me, I would be consumed by shame. Lost. Broken. But, I also know that I would never judge anyone else as harshly and unforgivingly as I would judge myself. So, try to reverse roles. Take a step back and talk to the part of yourself that is drowning in shame as if you were talking to a friend. At some point — no matter how much you loathe them — I hope you can make peace with the circumstances of your loss, and offer yourself the same empathy, love, and compassion that you would to someone in similar circumstances. I can only hope Mike can one day see that any dog would be lucky to spend its life with him, and that the accident doesn’t negate every other loving moment he shared with Barkley.

Remember: Being alone in your head after a trauma is not a safe place to hang out. This kind of loss can feel like a lonely experience because shame makes us afraid to talk about it. We don’t want others to see how bad we are. However, the longer we allow it to fester, the stronger it becomes and harder it is to get out of. That is why it is so important to gather perspective to counter the constant chatter swirling around in your mind. You need to hear The Words. Consider seeking therapy, attending a support group, reading about pet on pet loss, or even talking with a trusted friend (you can find recommendations for books, articles, podcasts, support groups, and counselors on my website).

There is, however, a superpower we do possess — the ability to remember. To revisit beautiful moments in time. To replay the videos and get lost in reverie. The life you shared with your beloved pet had many chapters—don’t let the ending dominate the story.

Remembering can also be painful, though, so do so at your own pace. When a wound is fresh, you may be too vulnerable to look back, and that’s okay. Just don’t forget to re-read the rest of the book when you’re ready.

You are a human who made a mistake, but you are so much more than your mistake.