When my cat died and I stayed stable

This is a composite story, drawn from common experiences shared in the schizophrenia community. It does not depict a real individual.

Bartholomew was my black-and-white cat for ten years. I got him from a shelter in Minneapolis the year I was diagnosed with schizoaffective disorder, when I was 24. He died of kidney failure last month, with my hand on his side, in the vet's office. I am 35 now. I cried for three days. I did not get hospitalised. I want to write about that.

What I told myself for ten years

For most of the decade I had Bartholomew, I told myself a quiet story: I am stable because of him. He was the reason I got out of bed. He was the reason I had to come home from work. He was the warm body next to me when the voices came in at night. He was, I told my therapist many times, the single most important factor in my recovery.

I wasn't wrong, exactly. Research on pets and mental illness, including studies summarised by NAMI, supports what most pet owners already know — that animals provide structure, comfort, and a non-verbal form of social connection that can be especially helpful for people with schizophrenia. He gave me all of those things.

But I also built him into something larger than he could be. I was secretly afraid of what would happen when he died. I worried that I would unravel. That all the stability I had built over ten years would prove to be borrowed from a small mammal, and would leave when he did.

The week he got sick

It was sudden. He stopped eating on a Tuesday. By Thursday he was hiding under the bed. The vet did blood work. Late-stage kidney disease. They told me we had days, maybe a few weeks if I did sub-cutaneous fluids at home. I did the fluids. He died on the following Wednesday.

The seven days between the diagnosis and his death were the worst week I had had in years — but in a clean, ordinary, human way. I cried at work. I cried in the car. I sat on the floor of my bathroom and cried. I did not have psychotic symptoms. The voices stayed at their usual quiet hum.

This surprised me. I had braced for something else.

What kept me steady (without me realising)

Looking back, I can see what carried me. None of it was Bartholomew.

My medication. I had been on the same long-acting injection for three years. My next dose was scheduled. I went and got it the Monday after he died. The thing I had been white-knuckling about — would I be able to take care of myself? — had largely been pre-decided by the structure of my care.

My psychiatrist. I had seen her every two months for four years. The week he was dying, I emailed her. She moved an appointment up. She didn't change my meds. She just said, "You're grieving. That's not relapse. We will check in weekly until you say you don't need to."

My routine. I had spent two years building a daily routine that was small enough to survive a hard week. I did not exercise. I did not cook properly. But I took my meds, ate something, and went outside for at least five minutes every day. I missed two of the outside-going days. I did not miss any of the meds.

My friends. Two of them came over on different days. One brought soup. One sat on the couch and watched TV with me without saying anything for three hours. Neither of them tried to fix anything. They just made the apartment less quiet.

The grief itself. Crying about Bartholomew was sad and exhausting and it was also — I want to say this carefully — normal. It was the kind of pain a person without schizophrenia would also feel about losing a ten-year companion. For the first time in a long time, I was experiencing something my brain was processing the way most brains process it. That was, weirdly, grounding.

The story I had wrong

I had told myself for ten years that Bartholomew was the reason I was stable. What was actually true was something more honest: Bartholomew was one of many things that supported my stability. The medication was another. The psychiatrist was another. The routine, the friends, the years of slow work in CBT for psychosis — all of it was the foundation.

He had been the warmest part of the foundation, but not the only part. When he died, the rest of the foundation held.

I needed to lose him, in some hard way, to learn that.

What I would have done differently in advance

• I would have talked to my psychiatrist before he got sick about how I wanted to handle his death when it eventually came. Pre-decided plans for hard moments are easier to follow than decisions made in tears.
• I would have told one or two friends, in advance, that I might need them when this happened. They would have been on standby instead of having to be summoned.
• I would have given myself permission, in writing, to take time off work — not as a sick day but as a grief day. Many companies have bereavement policies that include pets, and even when they don't, an honest conversation with a manager often works.
• I would have read about pet loss grief in advance. Knowing other people had also fallen apart after losing an animal would have made me feel less alone in that first awful week.

What I want others to know

If you have a pet that has become central to your sense of stability, please know two things. First, that the pet is not actually doing the work alone — your medication, your routine, your relationships, and the years of work you have done are all carrying weight too. Second, that when the pet dies (because eventually they all do), you are likely to be more resilient than you think you will be.

I am not "over" Bartholomew. I do not think I will be for a long time. I have his photo on my fridge. His food and water bowls are still where they were the day he died. I will probably get another cat eventually. Not as a replacement, just as a continuation of the kind of life I want to live.

And I learned, the hardest way, that I am the foundation. He was the warmth on top of it.

This article is for educational purposes only and is not medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Always consult a qualified mental health professional. If you or someone you know is in crisis, call or text 988 in the US, or your local emergency number.