WELCOME TO THE FAMILY, GRACIE

So, you may remember that I lost my cat; Emmy, a few months ago. She had been best-friends for over a year with my lop eared lionhead bunny; Luna. She was all Luna had ever known. And losing her was heartbreaking for both of us.

From the day Emmy was put to sleep, our Veterinary Practice recommended adding a bunny companion to help Luna cope with the sadness, stress and confusion of the loss. And, for a little while, I thought that I’d completely made my mind up and that I wouldn’t be getting another fluffy one. But then, Luna began depositing waste everywhere and the Vets explained it was from the stress, so I discovered Simply Beautiful Mini Lop Bunny Rabbits and on January 9^th, I added Gracie to our family!

REST IN PEACE MY DARLING LITTLE CALICO; EMMY

 

There was a moment when I felt cold and dead

A moment when nothing mattered

Nothing seemed worthy of my energy and time

And then you became mine

 

You came into the home when all was at a low

Dolly had just gone

And Pixie and I were broken

Then you became our lovely, lucky token

WHY GAINING RESPONSIBILITY IS ONE OF THE GREATEST REASONS TO HAVE A FURRY FRIEND | FOUR YEARS SINCE LOSING DOLLY

“When we love, we always strive to become better than we are. When we strive to become better than we are, everything around us becomes better too”

Paulo Coelho

Four years ago on October 16th, my big, fluffy, four-year-old Maine Coon; Dolly, was put to sleep after battling kidney failure for just over a week (you can read more about her death here). Every year since losing Dolly, I’ve felt the need to concentrate on all my good memories from my four years with her, because I recognised that if I didn’t – if I allowed my head to be consumed by all of the sadness and grief – there was every chance that I would fall apart. And this is a coping mechanism I found so helpful that I actually used it in the death of my Lionhead bunny; Pixie in 2021. From doing this, and from the fact that I now have a rescue, calico cat; Emmy, and a mini-Lionhead bunny; Luna, I found the inspiration for this blog post where I’m going to talk about my top four reasons for having pets…

A POEM FOR PIXIE | ONE YEAR SINCE I LOST MY BUNNY

So, tomorrow will be one year since my lovely Lionhead, Pixie was put to sleep. I decided to do a collaboration piece that was a bit more fun and light-hearted for the actual anniversary (so you've got that to look forward to tomorrow!) but, I couldn't resist doing something a bit deep too...

DEAR PIXIE, | ALMOST ONE YEAR WITHOUT MY BUNNY

‘All that we love deeply becomes a part of us.’

Helen Keller

When I first created, I’m NOT Disordered, a huge motivation to do so was that writing/typing is really beneficial for my mental health. I find it so therapeutic to be able to ‘get out’ a lot of thoughts and feelings that I’ve felt unable to verbalise or internally process. And to be honest, I genuinely believe I’ve lost that over the years, and I’ve slowly began to really prioritise my readers interests and needs. Of course, there’s nothing wrong with that exactly – I’m more than aware that I (and my blog) wouldn’t be where we are today if it weren’t for all of you lovely people – but I think it’s equally right to remember why I started this. To ensure that I’m still benefiting from the time and effort that I’m putting into my content. And so, with that in mind, I decided to write a post just for my sake and I thought I’d still publish it to hopefully shed light on just how heart-breaking it is to lose a pet and to provide a level of comfort for those struggling with their grief to know that they aren’t alone…

EVERYTHING YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT A MENTAL HEALTH RELAPSE

From the start of my blogging career, I’ve been very passionate about being honest and open about mental health and my experiences. But when I had my first ‘relapse,’ I massively struggled to talk about it. I worried that through I’m NOT Disordered, I had become a bit of a ‘poster-child’ for mental health recovery. I mean, I receive messages from readers calling me an inspiration. So to have to say that I’d been so well, but just like that, it was all ‘ruined;’ made me worry that readers would panic and loose hope. Eventually, however, I realised that there’ll be so many people out there going through mental health relapses and being afraid to talk about it; and I don’t like that thought because it means a greater chance of them not getting help and support. So, I thought I’d lead by example…

About a month ago – maybe a bit longer – I began experiencing a few things which were sort of similar to the past, but at the same time very different… They were these thoughts – these very strange thoughts… With them sort of being along the lines of the hallucinations I hadn’t experienced since my medication increase over one year ago, I kept quiet for a week. 

Throughout my mental illness, I’ve come across a number of professionals who – even when they were in the same role and working for the same organisation – have disagreed with one another with regards to the hallucinations. I’ve had some say the voices and visual hallucinations of rabbits were stress-induced – that when I was busy or something upsetting had happened, it made those experiences worse. Then, other professionals (who were in the majority, to be fair) believed it was more genuine and something which I actually needed medication for. And because my medication increase last year led to the hallucinations disappearing completely, those professionals seemed victorious.

WHY THERE’S NO SUCH THING AS ‘JUST A PET’ | THREE YEARS WITHOUT A BEST FRIEND

I could hold you all night

And it wouldn’t make it right

I have held you all day

And it doesn’t go away

‘Cause it’s when I hold you close

That’s when it hurts the most

Rose Cousins – Go First

Three years ago today, my beautiful, big, fluffy Maine Coon; Dolly, was put to sleep after a week-long battle that ultimately ended in Kidney failure. Having recently started to struggle again with my mental health, a lot of people were kind of concerned that the anniversary of my cat’s death would trigger more unsafe behaviours. But, I know that Dolly wouldn’t want me to use her death as a reason to hurt myself. She would want me to hold onto the good memories of her and to focus on all the positives in my life. And doing this, made me think about the main thing I’ve learnt as a result of losing my furry best friend:

LOVE THE FLUFFY ONES IN YOUR LIFE WITHOUT CONCERN OR CARE FOR THE JUDGMENT OF OTHERS

Being aware of the judgements, thoughts, and opinions of others can be so unhealthy because they can prevent you from making decisions based on your own feelings. After losing Dolly, there have been so many instances where I’ve found myself saying “I know it sounds silly but…” I was just so conscious that if I talked about all my thoughts on what Dolly would have wanted, there’d be so many people who’d be thinking ‘it’s just a cat!’ And with their judgement in mind, I tried so hard to hide just how much I was hurting, and how utterly broken I felt with the overwhelmingly painful realisation and acceptance that I would never see Dolly again.

I was going to talk about how Dolly came into my life with the intention that it would illustrate to people why she was so important to me; but I worried it would look as though I was trying to justify her worth. As though I were trying to convince everyone that she was definitely more than ‘just a cat.’ But then I wondered, wouldn’t that be the exact opposite of the message I’m trying to get across? Wouldn’t it look as though I do really care about the judgement of others? So, I finally came to the conclusion that rather than talk about the beginning with Dolly in a bid to force others to understand my upset, it’d be much nicer to tell you because I believe her coming into my life is so very deserving of being shared…

EVERYTHING LOSING PETS HAS TAUGHT ME | PET REMEMBRANCE DAY 2021 | IN COLLABORATION WITH CATS PROTECTION

This post is in memory of Saffy, Dolly, and Pixie – my furry little lifesavers.

“Death ends a life, not a relationship.”

Mitch Albom

Whether you know me personally or only through my social media or the content of my blog, I’d like to think you know that I’m the type of person who is forever looking on the bright side of difficult situations. And I think this is because I’ve experienced how it feels to allow myself to only see the difficulty of everything. To concentrate on the hardship and fail to find hope. And I now know what damage that can cause me to do to myself. I know it can leave me feeling as though I’d rather be dead than continue to experience it. And so, I’d like to take this Day as an opportunity – not to concentrate on the devastating impact of the loss of three very important pets since creating I’m NOT Disordered – but instead, to talk about the lessons I’ve learnt from the loss of Saffy, Dolly, and Pixie; in the hope that it will benefit others going through a similar hardship…

DON’T BE ASHAMED TO TALK ABOUT YOUR SADNESS

This lesson came particularly when my lop-eared, Lionhead bunny Pixie was put to sleep in April this year (you can read more about her death here). Prior to losing Pixie, both of the most notable pets passing (Saffy and Dolly) were cats and for some reason, I think that even people without pets can be more empathetic to someone who’s lost their cat than they would for the death of a rabbit. I think that with rabbits mostly being classed as a ‘small animal’ a lot of people (especially those who haven’t owned a rabbit) see them as less significant. 

When I bought Pixie in September 2017 ( you can read more about adding her to the family here), the visual hallucinations of rabbits had just come back and spotting her in my local Pets at Home, I had the impulsive idea that maybe holding her would help me. I knew that I couldn’t touch my rabbit hallucinations because every time I got closer, they moved away. So, I thought that in holding and stroking a real rabbit, maybe I’d feel more grounded. And I was right; the next day I returned, bought Pixie and took her home where she continued to help me. She continued to bring me back to earth when all my mind seemed to want to fly away and ignore all of the very really challenging moments and situations.

MAKING THE BIGGEST DECISION SINCE LOSING PIXIE | SIX WEEKS WITHOUT MY BUNNY

“How we handle our fears will determine where we go with the rest of our lives.”

Judy Blume

I honestly can’t believe it’s been an entire six weeks since my bunny; Pixie, was put to sleep (you can read more about her death here). When I told my Mum, she took the words right out of my mouth when she said, “it feels like yesterday.” Although, it is definitely one of those stereotypical – but still totally understandable – scenarios where it feels like it happened so recently and yet, in a way, it feels as though Pixie has been gone forever. However, either way, immediately after losing Pixie, I was aware that the decision I’m blogging about was going to be something I would struggle with; do I get another bunny?

Won’t the hallucinations come back?

It’s very well known (or at least to long-term readers) that I originally bought Pixie (you can read about her joining the family here) because my mental health had relapsed and my visual hallucinations of rabbits had come back…

When I was younger, I had two rabbits they killed their babies. Professionals have said that it was a trauma which contributed to the fact that I started hallucinating rabbits two years after my mental health began to deteriorate and the auditory hallucinations began. It was all well and good having those psychiatric staff recognise the connection, but me being the one who was actually experiencing it; I was unable to appreciate that common thread, and the hallucinations continued to make very little sense to me.

HELPFUL RESOURCES DURING GRIEF | IN COLLABORATION WITH ETSY UK | AD

“We don’t stop loving. We don’t forget. We don’t stop hurting. We don’t get over it. We journey forward. Living the best that we can. We hold them in our hearts. Until we’re together again”

Grieftolife.com

The loss of my bunny; Pixie (you can read more about her death here) has really shown me a lot more about grief and that has included recognising the importance of having help and support…

A huge motivation in me maintaining I’m NOT Disordered and my safety, is my hope that my experiences are helping others in some way. The notion that I didn’t go through all that I have for no reason has been massively reassuring and a positive step in my mental health recovery. It has given me hope. Hope that all those hard lessons I’ve had to learn, were worthwhile. Like they were thrown at me for a reason.

So, similarly to my mental health, I want to use my experiences around grief, loss, and bereavement to help others safely navigate (in my opinion) one of the most difficult emotions you can go through. Having lost Pixie almost two weeks ago, I’ve turned to numerous things to help and support me to cope with my grief in a healthy way, and I thought I’d share what I have found the most beneficial for my mental health:

So firstly, practical items – chosen from Etsy…

SELF-SOOTHE:

Learning the Dialectical Behaviour Therapy (DBT) skill of self-soothe in the section of the Therapy labelled ‘Distress Tolerance,’ I was initially kind of reluctant to tell people how helpful I found it because I was so worried it would give others selfish, materialistic connotations about me. As though hearing that washing my hair could help my mental health meant two things:

1.       I can’t have been that unwell if something so simple could make a difference

2.       I must be really shallow and self-obsessed if I felt I had to do something for me to help me

Gradually, though, I began to warm to the idea of telling others what I found helpful because I found that sometimes, when I was in a mental health crisis, I needed to be reminded by others of the coping skills and mechanisms that were helpful. As though my head was so focused on being unsafe that there was no room to entertain healthy thoughts like those around what I could be doing to keep myself safe. So, telling the hospital staff, and then the professionals who would continue my care in the community after being discharged, was pretty necessary and in recognizing that, I had to just swallow my pride and ignore any concerns as to what others would think of me.

“SHE’LL BE MISSING HER BESTFRIEND” | LOOKING AFTER A GRIEVING PET | IN COLLABORATION WITH CATS PROTECTION | AD

in memory of Pixie

‘Although grief in animals is not well understood currently, you may recognise changes in behaviour in your cats, which may be attributed to grief.’

Cats Protection

So a little while ago, my cat’s best-friend, my lop-eared Lionhead bunny; Pixie, was put to sleep (you can read about her death here). Since losing her, Emmy – my cat – has become more and more upset and distressed. I wanted to take this horribly painful situation and somehow turn it into something that was – in some way – positive. So, I thought that talking about what happened might help others to feel less alone and that collaborating with Cats Protection, could provide professional advice for anyone confronted with a similar instance…

A taste of life without Pixie…

It started almost as soon as Pixie was first admitted to Critical Care on the weekend; at night-time Emmy sat outside the door to the room (the Kitchen) Pixie slept in, meowing over and over again until I called on her to come lay with me in bed.

When Pixie was allowed home, the Vet recommended keeping her and Emmy apart, but I explained how upset Emmy had gotten and voiced my belief that if anything, it would distress each of them further if they hadn’t seen one another. The Vet agreed it would be ok to just show them one another so that they knew they were sort of together again. So, I put Pixie in her carrier onto the bed where Emmy was lying, and they sniffed each other before I quickly put Pixie back into the Kitchen.

It ended up being quite challenging to get into the Kitchen without Emmy either already being sat there meowing at the door or her hearing me open the Kitchen door and coming running to it! There was one time where I’d gone in and hadn’t shut the door behind me, so I had turned around to see Emmy edging gradually and gently toward Pixie who was huddled in a corner under the dining table. I got the immediate impression that Emmy wanted to say ‘hi,’ but that she also knew that Pixie was poorly, so she was being cautious.

The absence of goodbye…

SOME OF THE COMMENTS MADE IN LOSING MY BUNNY | IN LOVING MEMORY OF PIXIE

Wrapped up, so consumed by all this hurt

If you ask me, don’t know where to start

Anger, love, confusion

Roads that go nowhere

I know there’s somewhere better

‘Cause you take me there

Came to you with a broken faith

Gave me more than a hand to hold

Take Me Home – Jess Glynne

 

If you follow my social media accounts, (particularly my Twitter: https://twitter.com/aimes_wilson) this post probably seemed inevitable and just a matter of time before it was written and published! I guess it’s fairly obvious that I find blogging soothing and therapeutic so it’s probably a given that I was going to use it as a coping skill in the death of my beloved lop-eared Lionhead bunny, Pixie.

 

“I said that I had a bad feeling!”

For a long time, my poor mental health meant that I was really out of touch with having accurate and fair instincts around my physical health. I think this largely stemmed from the abuse and how much pain I experienced from it because I found myself cutting myself off from that harsh, painful reality. It meant that once my mental health started to improve through hospitalisation, medication, and therapy, I found that actually; I could be in tune with my body and not fall apart in doing so.

Becoming more aware of my health, also meant that I found myself to develop very good instincts where my pets were concerned too. One key example of this was with Pixie. It was only early afternoon one day a few years ago so Pixie had only really been exhibiting symptoms (no appetite and no passing of poop) for the morning, but I had a bad feeling, so I called the Vets. The Vet was reluctant to give me an appointment for Pixie because she believed she should be given longer at home to check if she really was poorly. I remember telling her that I knew my bunny better than anyone and I knew something was wrong. Fortunately the Vet agreed to do an examination and within five minutes of it, she said it had been very lucky I’d insisted on the check-up because Pixie had Gut Stasis; which can be fatal for rabbits.

EVERYTHING YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT ABUSE | PART ONE OF THREE

Having thoroughly enjoyed writing the ‘everything-you-need-to-know’ style posts in the past, when I checked through previous posts about abuse, I noticed they all seem to be in pieces… Bits of information, parts of my experience, a few tips; all just separated into so many different posts. Of course, they are that way because up to the date they were published, they were the things I knew. The things that had happened. And I’m not suggesting that I’m at a point where I now know absolutely everything about the subject, but I do feel that I’m at a pretty good stage in my mental health recovery to feel I am now able to collate all that I have learnt, and all that I know. Unfortunately, abuse is a subject where I’d argue you will never fully understand unless it’s something you’ve experienced, so posts like this – media content by survivors – can be the best resource for those who want to learn more…

 

Why You Can Experience the Grieving Process:

I began writing each of the feelings I experienced during and after the abuse I experienced when I was fifteen, and things began to seem familiar in some way. I realised that I was describing four of the five stages of grief determined by Elizabeth Kubler-Ross. I actually thought immediately why that process would be linked with abuse, because it’s about – and can be applied to – any type of loss, not necessarily a death. And I definitely lost a lot going through the abuse…

Even aged fifteen, I was very naïve and having had very little sexual education, I had no real knowledge about what was happening to me. I think it’d be fair to say that I didn’t even realise people like my abuser existed. Rape and sexual abuse (the type I experienced) were so taboo back then (2006) too, so I had never heard of someone else experiencing anything even remotely similar to what I was going through. All those factors meant that one thing I lost in the abuse was that naivety. I do sometimes consider that might have been a good thing because perhaps at that age, I should have probably been more aware of the existence of abuse. There’s something to be said about balance though, recognizing that children and young people, deserve some sort of naivety so that they’re able to fully enjoy their childhood and the simple notion of being young.

AFTERMATH & MENTAL HEALTH

"The world breaks everyone and afterward, many are strong at the broken places."

Ernest Hemingway

With Christmas becoming extra special this year for lots of people seeing it as a huge cheer-up through the lockdown and coronavirus pandemic, it’s sort of been inevitable that more people will experience a ‘Christmas Come-down!’ Realising this, I thought I would blog some tips for making it through that time, and then my thinking sort of snowballed into me thinking about aftermaths in general. And aftermaths can be so connected to a person’s mental health that it feels worth talking about the entirety of them…

aftermath

[ˈɑːftəmaθˈɑːftəmɑːθ]

NOUN

The consequences or after-effects of a significant unpleasant event.

 

SELF-HARM

If I’ve labelled the aftermath of self-harm difficult or bad in any way, I’ve sometimes found people surprised by this because they’ve assumed that if I’m self-harming it’s to help myself in some way and so surely, I should consider the aftermath of it to actually be pleasant. And that if I didn’t think of it as enjoyable, why would I continue to self-harm? My response to this is an attempt to get across the desperation that a person usually feels when they self-harm. Especially where it isn’t the first time…

You can become so desperate to escape the motivations to hurt yourself that you don’t stop for even a moment to consider how awful any previous aftermaths have been. And it isn’t really about denial and blocking out those memories, it’s just that… Well, personally, I have the mindset that no matter what the aftermath, it’ll be worth that very short, momentary feeling of relief that I experience immediately after self-harming. So, it’s not as though all those memories about unhelpful responses in the aftermath of self-harm aren’t in my head; just that in the grand scheme of things, they mean nothing. Honestly, in the past, there’ve been times when a professional’s response to my self-harm has left me saying ‘I’m never going back to that A&E!’ or ‘I’ll never speak to the Crisis Team again!’ Yet, those instances don’t change my decision to self-harm.

MARKING ONE YEAR WITHOUT DOLLY

When I think Back On These Times,
And The Dreams We Left Behind,
I'll Be Glad 'Cause I Was Blessed
To Get To Have You In My Life.
When I Look Back On These Days,
I'll Look And See Your Face,
You Were Right There For Me,

In My Dreams I'll Always See You
Soar Above The Sky,
In My Heart There'll Alwys Be A Place For You
For All My Life,
I'll Keep A Part Of You With Me,
And Everywhere I Am There You'll Be

Faith Hill - Everywhere I Am

[the advert photo from pets4homes] 

I’m going to be so cliché right now and say that I can’t believe it’s been a year since Dolly was put to sleep and almost a year since I adopted Emmy because it feels like just yesterday that it all happened!


I’ve recently had a friend on social media have to go through a similar experience of deciding whether to have her cat put to sleep. Initially, it was really triggering of the memories of being stood in the clinic room at Robson and Prescott Vets and having to agree to lose my best-friend forever in order to end her pain and suffering. After a little while, though, I realized that instead of allowing my friend’s suffering to trigger the memories, maybe I could use my experience to help her through this difficult time. I remember in the first few days after Dolly was put to sleep and I said to a friend that it was the hardest decision I’d ever had to make before correcting myself and realizing that I was probably only saying that because it’s what everyone says in these situations. But actually, it wasn’t ‘hard;’ it was easy. There was no debating whether to put Dolly through one final battery of tests and treatments – that might not even have worked - just to give myself an extra day with her. The decision just wasn’t nice or fair.

CAN I DISTRACT MY WAY THROUGH CHRISTMAS? | GRIEF AT CHRISTMASTIME

“Just because I stopped blogging about it, doesn’t mean it went away!”

I recently wrote a blog post on ways to look after your mental health at Christmastime and I talked a little about what a festive person I am and that I didn’t want to come across as not knowing what I was talking about. Like many blog posts, it made me think a lot afterwards and I realized that actually, this year, I can, sort of, identify with some people struggling at this time of year. And whilst the cause for my struggle might seem lesser than others, it’s important to recognize that grief is grief. A person’s turmoil shouldn’t depend on how close the relative was or whether the loss was a human or animal; because it isn’t always about who you’ve lost but what you’ve lost.

This year will be the first Christmas without my Cat, Dolly. This week it will have been two months since she was put to sleep. If you don’t have a clue what I’m talking about then here’s the posts I wrote at the time: here and here because this post isn’t for going through the whole story again; it’s about having to move on.

GOODBYES - THE GOOD, THE BAD, & THE UGLY

At 27, I think I’d still be classed as young but at the same time, it’s kind of expected – at my age – to have at least gone through some challenging ‘goodbye’ situations. I mean, I think you’d struggle to find a 27-year-old who could say they’ve never experienced the death of a loved one, or a relationship break-up. The sad truth is, goodbyes are an inevitable challenge in life. We will all face one eventually.

It’s difficult to rank the goodbyes I’ve faced into which was the most challenging because I don’t want to say one and for the others to seem meaningless or ‘easier’ to cope with. So I’m not going to talk about the goodbyes I’ve experienced in any particular order; no one experience was harder than the other – each of them were completely different and challenging in their own way…

LEARNING THE LINE BETWEEN DENIAL, DISTRACTION & ACCEPTANCE

Losing Dolly has got me thinking about how one of the key reasons for my two-and-a-half-year admission in the Psychiatric hospital Cygnet Bierley, was so that I could be taught Dialectical Behaviour Therapy (DBT) – the recommended support for those diagnosed with a Personality Disorder. When I was first admitted to the hospital my only coping skills were through several different methods of self-harm so being unable to do that yet still only learning the healthy, safe coping skills DBT teaches you; was more than challenging. It felt impossible.

Our group DBT facilitator would have us keep a diary of which skills we’d used on which days and under which circumstances. She told us that we’d know that we had mastered the skills when we could no longer remember which skills we’d used during the day because they’d just come naturally. Something I wasn’t told, however, was that even when the DBT lessons were done and I was discharged, I would still be learning about it. I’d still be developing my skills, favoring different ones and using them in different ways. Where I’d once loved distraction techniques, and hated mindfulness, I’ve now learnt that sometimes I use distraction to an extreme, unhealthy and unsafe level and have found that mindfulness is massively helpful in grounding me when I’m overwhelmed by hallucinations or thoughts of self-harm.

"DON'T TELL ME HOW TO GRIEVE" | WHY THE 'FIVE STAGES OF GRIEF' DON'T MEAN A THING

IN MEMORY OF DOLLY I'VE SET UP A JUSTGIVING PAGE TO RAISE MONEY FOR HER VETS BILLS. IF YOU CAN CONTRIBUTE ANYTHING AT ALL IT WOULD BE HUGELY AMAZING!

https://www.justgiving.com/crowdfunding/dollywilson

So once upon a time, there was this fantastically clever lady called Elisabeth Kugler Ross who came up with a theory. She thought that there are five stages of grief that a person can experience.

As you’ll know – if you read one of my most recent posts – I recently lost my four-year-old cat (Dolly). Some of you might read this and think “oh my God it’s just a cat. She’s grieving over a cat?!” but I’d like you to continue reading and see if you feel the same by the end.