슬픔에 대한 이해: 반려동물 상실의 고통

### 반려동물을 잃은 슬픔의 깊이 이해하기
* 🐾 "고마워요, 호건 박사님. 당신은 훌륭했습니다. 하지만 다신 뵙고 싶지 않아요." 이 말은 **반려동물을 잃는 가혹한 현실**을 자주 마주하는 응급 수의사로서 제 역할의 씁쓸한 특성을 반영한 말입니다.
* 😢 반려동물 주인이 겪는 정서적 혼란은 매우 심각하며, 이는 **슬픔이 타당할 뿐만 아니라 울음과 혼란과 같은 증상**을 특징으로 하는 의학적으로 인정된 질환과 씨름하기 때문입니다.
* 💔 반려동물을 잃은 슬픔은 사람의 상실과 달리 **반려동물과 깊은 정서적 유대감**을 형성하여 엄청난 기쁨을 가져다주고, 결과적으로 반려동물이 세상을 떠났을 때 가슴 아픈 일이 될 수 있음에도 불구하고 사회에서 무시당하는 경우가 많습니다.
* 🐕 반려동물이 주는 무조건적인 사랑은 특별한 유대감을 형성하기 때문에, 특히 주인이 반려동물에게 아무런 말도 없이 **어려운 안락사 결정**을 내릴 때 상실감이 더 무겁게 느껴질 수 있습니다.
* 💔 사고로 반려동물을 잃었거나 주인의 사랑과 안정에 의존하던 구조 반려동물을 잃는 등 슬픔을 더욱 복잡하게 만드는 **몇 가지 동반 질환**이 있습니다.
* 🌈 반려동물이 사랑하는 사람을 잃은 사람과의 살아있는 연결고리 역할을 하거나 단순한 반려동물 이상의 존재로 일반적인 관계를 뛰어넘는 깊은 유대감을 상징할 때 **슬픔은 더욱 깊어집니다.**
* 💖 궁극적으로 반려동물을 잃은 슬픔은 현실이며, 슬픔에 잠긴 주인에게 말했듯이 **반려동물은 우리 집을 사랑과 웃음으로 가득 채우며 천국에서 반드시 그 자리를 찾을 것**이라고 믿게 합니다.
* 🌟 "하나님의 집도 다르지 않을까요?"라는 문구는 **반려동물과 나누는 사랑이 육체적 존재를 넘어 계속된다는 믿음**을 함축하고 있습니다.

응급 수의사들은 반려동물을 잃은 슬픔이 동물과의 깊은 유대감을 반영하는 심오하고 유효한 것임을 잘 알고 있습니다.

Transcriber: Mandy Vincent
Reviewer: Miranda Almeida “Thank you, Dr. Hoggan.
You have been wonderful. But I never want to see you again.” Is, oddly, the most common
compliment that I receive.

I am an emergency veterinarian. That means I see terrible things. Seizures in animals,
pets that have been in house fires and lots and lots of trauma. When I have to tell people the hard
truths about their pet’s condition and the poor prognosis
that accompanies it,

they become visibly different. Their face contorts,
their previously steady voice cracks and their eyes well. Despite their stoicism, a tear escapes
to roll down their cheek. Invariably, when someone
breaks down in front of me, they apologize.

You don’t have to apologize to me. This is what I have dedicated my life to. I more than understand
the feelings inside that lead to this outside. The pain of pet loss is real because the emotions you shared
with your pet were real.

The grief associated
with pet loss is valid because you didn’t lose a thing. You lost a someone,
someone close and someone special to you. In case you hadn't realized it yet,
I am going to warn you now. This is a sad subject.

You may cry and
you may even ugly cry. But I promise I will help you
understand why this is so hard. And understanding is
the first step to feeling better. The first thing that you need to know is that grief is a bona fide
medical condition

with documented symptoms. The American Psychological
Association lists them. They are crying, insomnia, 
fatigue, confusion, and a feeling of profound sadness. That means that the pain you feel and the dysfunction you suffer
after you've lost a pet isn't just valid.

It is normal. Do you know what else is normal
when you lose a pet suddenly or when you have to make
a euthanasia decision? Reliving every minute and every
decision that led to that point. Do you know why you do that?

You do that because emotional pain hurts
just like physical pain. And we are hardwired
to recognize pain as a teacher. Our body has reflexes
that will pull our hand off a hot stove. We have pulled ourselves to safety
even before we know the burn has occurred.

Unfortunately, no such instant rescue
mechanism exists for emotional pain. That means we need to study
the events that led to the pain, to try to learn something from it
and avoid it in the future. I am sure this is a highly
adaptive mechanism

that helped my ancestors survive but unfortunately now,
reliving those decisions just feels like punishment. When I talk to people about pet loss and I explain to them it is
different than losing a human, they believe me because they feel it
but they don't know why it is different.

It is different for multiple reasons. The first reason is that
our society tends to diminish the validity of the pain of pet loss. They act like it is almost histrionic. Histrionic is a word
that means theatrical, like you're just grieving for attention.

You know, it’s funny. Nobody questions our pets' ability to make us happy. I would say the 14 million cat videos on the Internet cement that data. (Laughter) If our pets can make us so happy that we laugh out loud,

then losing them can absolutely have the opposite effect and break our heart. The second reason that pet loss grief is different is because the relationship is different. When our pets look at us, they do not judge. They don’t see our flaws.

They look at us and they say with their eyes, “You are perfect, and I love you.” That is the warmest and most fulfilling connection to have. And that is what makes it so incredibly hard when those eyes go away.

I have had many people tell me like it was a terrible secret that they were confessing, “I cried more when my pet died than when my mom died.” That isn’t a terrible secret. If somebody criticized you or told you what a disappointment you were,

of course you’re not going to miss them as much. (Laughter) As someone who tells you every day with their actions, “I love you. And I’m so glad that you are mine.” Even if you had an incredible mom.

Her ability to speak makes all the difference. (Laughter) She could tell you that she was tired. That she didn’t feel good. That she had lived her life and she was ready to go. While it’s hard to hear at the time,

It means that when you lose her, she’s finally at peace. So you get some peace. Our pets don’t have the ability to tell us that. So that means often when it’s their time to go, that’s our decision.

That is a heavy responsibility to carry. The societal diminishment of pet loss grief, the unconditional love that makes the human-animal bond and our pet’s inability to speak, all make pet loss grief different from losing a human. And if that is enough explanation for you and you feel better,

then I am so glad. But I suspect it isn’t because what makes pet loss grief hardest are the factors that made your relationship so special. Those factors are actual comorbidities to the grief. Comorbidity is a medical term

that means something that makes a bad situation even worse. I’m sure that there are actually hundreds of comorbidities but there are five that I see most commonly. The first comorbidity is if you lost your pet

or had to make a euthanasia decision due to a preventable accident, like the lady that left a tube of topical chemotherapy cream down on her nightstand. It never occurred to her the puppy would get up there and chew up the tube.

Chemotherapy is designed to kill fast-growing cells. 100% of a puppy is fast-growing cells. There was nothing that I could do. In that situation, it is natural to turn blame inward and beat yourself up. But, you know, logically you can’t account for every single scenario.

And pets have a free will
that can’t be accounted for. My own dog proved it
when he defiantly urinated on my favorite reading chair 
right in front of me. (Laughter) Of course you feel responsible, but you need to know that animals
are so much better at forgiveness

than humans. The only person holding
a grudge against you is you. I promise your pet is not. The second comorbidity is
if the pet you lost was a rescue, not the riotous puppy
but the adult you found at the shelter

whose sad eyes looked hollow. A broken soul that learns
to love and trust again because you opened up your heart. And if you lost your pet because
you had to make a euthanasia decision and give them a soft goodbye, yes, that hurts.

Sorry. You know that you made that decision
because you were saving them from the imminent pain, fear
and suffering that lay ahead. Your first rescue brought them joy. Your final rescue gave them peace. The third comorbidity is not
if you rescued your pet,

but if they rescued you. If they got you through a crisis
with their calm presence, reminding you that you are loved
and you have someone to live for. I can tell you in my own life,
when I reached out for a hand,

I found a paw. In your lifetime together,
your pet was devoted to you and they proved it with their actions
when you needed it the most. But they left your side
when they had no other choice, when they had to go eat or
they had to go to the bathroom.

When you let them go, you made that decision
because you had no other choice. They understand no other choice situations and they understand
the choice that you made. The fourth comorbidity is if
you lost a pet that was a living link

to someone you loved and lost before and now losing that pet feels
like losing them all over again. Yes, that hurts. But you have treasured your shared pet. So you did twice the loving and you can feel proud that
you honored that person’s memory

with regular offerings of food, water
and affection to a furry temple of love. Of course, you are going to grieve
because you did a good job loving both that person
and your shared pet. But you need to keep going now
because someone else needs your love.

You need to love yourself
like you loved both of them. The person who needs your love now is you. The fifth comorbidity
is perhaps the hardest and that is when you lose a pet
that is more than a pet. I learned about this early in my career
when I did the hardest euthanasia

that I have ever done. It was for a man who was
mildly intellectually disabled and he had a very sick little dog
that he had named Girl. She was in end-stage liver failure. There was nothing I could do,
no matter how much I wanted to save her.

I could not and I told him that. And he answered me in a voice choked
with desperate anger. He said, “You don’t understand.
I’m special. The girl that I love the most
is this girl and she loves me, too.

“I need her.” I did understand and I didn’t know what else to say, and he didn’t either. So he decided to test me. He became very quiet
and he said, almost in a whisper, “I’m not supposed to tell anybody this, 

but I have a credit card
and I will give it to you and I will keep it a secret,
if you will just fix Girl.” That moment hurt. That moment still hurts. When I said no to his credit card, he understood and he told her goodbye.

But he took off her collar
and he put it on his wrist as a bracelet. And he worked for some months. He came back to the hospital
a few times just to show me he was still wearing it. Are you going to question
his sense of loss?

Are you going to tell him
that all the love he gave her and she gave him wasn’t real? Are you going to suggest
that he should just get over it or he should just replace her
like she was some broken toy? Of course not.

So don’t say those things to anybody else, but especially not to yourself. The pain of pet loss is real and the grief from pet loss is valid. After Girl’s dad held her a final time, he asked me if our pets go to heaven.

I will tell you that theology was not
a course taught in veterinary school. But my answer to him didn’t come
from my head or my training. It came from my heart. I told him, “Of course they do. Our pets share our homes not
because they pay the mortgage

but because they fill it floor to ceiling
with love and laughter. Their joy gives us something
to look forward to every single day. Why would God's house be any different?" (Applause)

Pet loss grief; the pain explained  | Sarah Hoggan DVM | TEDxTemecula

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TEDx Talks

반려동물 상실이 소유주에게 미치는 정서적 영향 소개

응급 수의사인 연사는 반려동물에 대한 나쁜 소식에 대한 반려동물 주인의 일반적인 반응을 설명합니다.

그녀는 반려동물의 예후가 좋지 않다는 소식을 들었을 때 반려동물 주인이 겪는 눈에 보이는 정서적 고통에 대해 자세히 설명합니다.

소유자는 종종 자신의 감정적 붕괴에 대해 사과합니다.

연사는 반려동물을 잃은 슬픔의 타당성을 강조하며 사랑하는 사람을 잃은 슬픔이라는 점을 강조합니다.

그녀는 반려동물의 상실과 슬픔에 대한 감정적인 토론을 통해 청중을 준비시킵니다.

의학적 상태로서의 슬픔과 고통스러운 기억을 되살리는 과정

슬픔은 울음, 불면증, 피로와 같은 증상이 기록된 의학적 질환으로 나타납니다.

화자는 반려동물을 잃은 후의 통증과 기능 장애를 정상으로 확인합니다.

반려동물의 죽음으로 이어진 과거의 순간을 떠올리는 것은 정서적 고통에 대한 자연스러운 반응으로 설명됩니다.

화자는 신체적 고통과 정서적 고통을 비유하며 정서적 고통에 대한 즉각적인 구조 메커니즘이 부족하다는 점을 강조합니다.

과거의 결정을 되새기는 것은 미래의 고통을 학습하고 피하기 위한 적응 메커니즘으로 제시되지만, 종종 처벌처럼 느껴지기도 합니다.

반려동물을 잃은 슬픔이 사람의 슬픔과 다른 이유

반려동물을 잃은 슬픔을 사회적으로 축소하는 것이 사람의 상실감과는 다른 요인으로 파악됩니다.

연사는 고양이 동영상을 예로 들어 반려동물의 기쁨을 가져다주는 능력과 그에 따른 상실의 영향을 설명합니다.

반려동물의 무조건적인 사랑과 판단력 결여가 관계의 주요 차이점으로 강조됩니다.

연사는 사람보다 반려동물에 대해 더 많이 슬퍼하는 일반적인 경험을 언급하며, 반려동물이 주는 무조건적인 사랑과 끊임없는 지원 덕분이라고 설명합니다.

반려동물이 죽음을 맞이할 준비가 되었음을 알릴 수 없다는 점은 반려동물을 잃은 슬픔을 더욱 복잡하게 만듭니다.

반려동물을 잃은 슬픔을 악화시키는 동반 질환

반려동물을 잃는 예방 가능한 사고는 동반 질환으로 인식되어 자책과 자기 용서의 필요성을 강조합니다.

구조 동물을 잃는 것은 또 다른 동반 질환으로 강조되며, 이전에 방치된 동물과 형성된 유대감에 초점을 맞춥니다.

주인을 구조한 반려동물을 동반 질환으로 제시하여 어려운 시기에 반려동물의 존재가 미치는 깊은 영향을 강조합니다.

사망한 사랑하는 사람과의 살아있는 연결고리였던 반려동물을 잃는 것은 동반 질환으로 논의되며 슬픔이 증폭되는 것을 강조합니다.

지적 장애인에게 깊은 교감의 원천과 같이 단순한 반려동물 이상의 존재였던 반려동물을 잃는 것은 가장 힘든 동반 질환으로 꼽힙니다.

반려동물의 사후 세계에 대한 결론과 성찰

연사는 반려견을 잃은 한 남자의 깊은 슬픔에 대한 개인적인 일화를 공유하며 그 감정의 타당성을 강조합니다.

화자는 반려동물이 천국에 가는지에 대해 생각해보고, 반려동물이 사람들의 삶에 가져다주는 사랑과 기쁨을 바탕으로 진심 어린 답변을 제공합니다.