I never open up about anything emotional. This is a first for me. I just had my dog of 11 years put down and I'm devastated. I'm autistic and had a miserable childhood, with me being painfully quiet and unable to make friends. When I went to university it was too much and I moved back home with my parents. Then we got a dog and he changed my life. I felt such a strong love towards him and he opened me up, with me talking to him non stop and constantly all throughout the day just going and petting him.
The next 11 years were also miserable with me getting extreme OCD, anxiety and exhaustion. I became a shut in. But whenever it got bad, I'd go to my dog and I'd feel better. When I was up all night with insomnia I'd have him with me keeping me company. When I lay in bed for 8 hours unable to sleep I could just get up and relax with him. He was by far the best thing in my life. My life was nothing but waiting for the day to end hoping I'm less exhausted and miserable the next day, but with my dog always there for me. And he was always so happy and fun. Trying to imagine all that time without him feels extremely depressing and I'm not sure I'd have survived. And now I'm terrified knowing it's going to continue without him.
To make it worse, my OCD got so bad I couldn't touch him much or have him in my room and I feel like I didn't make the most of my time with him at all in the last few years. And for the last month I've been on and off over 5 different medications and just feeling terrible so I've been so distant to him. Terrible timing. We also put him down as suggested by the vet due to him losing the ability to stand after a seizure, but he was fine besides that. I spent the whole day researching alternatives but when we got to the vet I just shut down and agreed with my parents to put him down. And since I got back home, I've been reading so many examples of dogs recovering over a couple of days after a seizure and being fine. We only left it 12 hours. Did we kill our dog unnecessarily?
The night of the seizure I heard him retching too. I always went to check on him when he retched and he'd always been fine, except for this one time, where I didn't rush to him, because I was in the middle of doing some exposure therapy for OCD and didn't want to restart it. I then ran out when I heard the seizure and him tumbling down the stairs. If I had just gone to check on him straight away I would have been able to stop him running up the stairs and prevented the fall. And then because we thought he was mid seizure and we were told to leave the dog alone during it, we just waited for it to end, for 25 minutes. I realise now he was probably out of the seizure for most of that time and was just writhing in pain. And we just stood there for so long. His last day had him writhing in pain as we watched, not helping. And then maybe we put him down too early.
I've not slept for 30+ hours and I can't stop crying. I can't get a new dog as I live with parents still and they don't want another. Even if I manage to move out, I won't be able to look after one by myself due to the OCD. So this is it. I already missed him intensely when he just went away with my parents for a weekend. Ever since we got him, I'd been despairing over losing him. And then it happened so awfully and so suddenly. Every few minutes I burst into tears and my first instinct is to go see my dog. He was my life. My only friend as a shut in who can't socialise with my whole life revolving around him. I would always be thinking about him and talking about him. I even developed some kind of nervous tick where I call his name without thinking. It's still happening now and it makes me cry everytime. I can't bear the thought of him being gone forever now.