It's a painful reality for many pet owners that at some point there will come a time when they must grieve the loss of their animal companion. In fact, the death of a pet is perhaps one of the most common sources of stress that families experience, occurring almost two times more frequently than stress associated with children leaving home. However, the profound sense of anguish one feels after losing their pet is often invalidated, unrecognized, or unsupported by others. Doka refers to this stifling of the grieving process as disenfranchised grief, where individuals are sometimes shamed, dismissed, or discouraged from experiencing/expressing grief. Despite a growing body of literature detailing the experience of pet loss, few scholars have explored how this type of loss is communicatively disenfranchised and managed. Thus, the current chapter surveys scholarship on human-pet relationships and disenfranchised grief in order to develop a research agenda for communication scholars interested in studying disenfranchised grief, pet loss, or the intersection of these topics.
I posted a few days ago about my 14 year old kitty passing. I've had her since she was a kitten and her brother and I are really struggling to adjust. She passed on Monday. He's getting better and so am I – I don't cry as much and I'm doing my work and chores.
But I'm still really, really sad. I'm not enjoying much of anything and I have a hard time laughing or even playing with the other cat. I'm writing about my kitty, all the good times we've had and trying to grieve that way…
But my partner is very different. He was sad and devastated on Monday but by Tuesday evening he was getting frustrated with me crying. Last night he was almost pretending nothing happened. I know he's sad too, but he compartmentalizes so much that for him, this is a coping mechanism.
He's frustrated by my sadness and I'm frustrated by his attempts to joke and laugh and just go about life as if nothing happened.
I don't know how to navigate this. I need his support, I feel so alone in this grief, even though I know he is just grieving differently. But being around each other is really hard right now. And I desperately want him to hold me and comfort me and for us to share our memories of her… (Excerpt from post to r/Petloss).
TopIntroduction
It’s a painful reality for many pet owners that at some point there will come a time when they must grieve the loss of their animal companion. Whether the animal dies, runs away, is stolen, or becomes lost through other means, loss is an inevitable part of the relationship between pets and their human counterparts. In fact, the death of a pet is perhaps one of the most common sources of stress that families experience, occurring almost two times more frequently than stress associated with children leaving home (Gage & Holcomb, 1991). For many individuals, losing a pet gives rise to grief - a common response to loss involving emotional (e.g., feelings of despair or guilt), physical (e.g., insomnia, loss of appetite), cognitive (e.g., hazy thoughts, suicidal ideations), behavioral (e.g., lack of motivation, self-destructive behaviors), and spiritual/identity-related (e.g., shifts in values or beliefs) symptoms. Although grief is typically associated with loss-by-death, we maintain that individuals can experience intense distress from other forms of loss as well. For example, older persons placed in long-term care facilities confront feelings of grief that come from their loss of home and sense of familiarity (Van Humbeeck et al., 2018). In another non-death grief study, Bailey (2018) found that partners of alleged sex offenders experienced grief resulting from psychosocial loss – a loss occurring when the departed person is still alive, but has been physically, socially, mentally, or spiritually altered in someway so that the “person they once were” is gone. Grief is even present in moments where there is no clearly defined loss (i.e., ambiguous loss; Boss, 1999; Boss et al., 2011), such as when the family members of trans persons treat the transition process as a “living death” (Norwood, 2013).
Unfortunately, the profound sense of anguish one feels after losing their pet is often invalidated, unrecognized, or unsupported by others (Kemp et al., 2016; Meyers, 2002), as the loss of an animal is commonly seen as less significant than the loss of a human, and thus, undeserving of mourning when they are gone. Doka (1989; 2002) refers to this stifling of the grieving process as disenfranchised grief. Despite a growing body of literature detailing the experience of pet loss (see Kemp et al., 2016, for a review of qualitative studies), few, if any, scholars have explored how this type of loss is communicatively disenfranchised and subsequently managed. Thus, the current chapter surveys scholarship on human-pet relationships and disenfranchised grief in order to develop a research agenda for communication scholars interested in studying disenfranchised grief, pet loss, or the intersection of these topics.