How to deal with the emotional pain of a missing cat?

March 18, 2024 5:38 PM

My cat has been missing for over a month now. I am in unbelievable emotional pain. How can I get through this?

I've definitely experienced heart-rending grief before when loved ones (most recently my father) have died. But after the death happens, there is nothing left to do but mourn and, at least for me, start to feel very slowly but surely better. With my cat having gone missing my level of (can you call it grief if you don't know they're dead?) has been at a steady level of agony for 34 days straight and counting meanwhile I have to live my life at a basic level and go to work while actively searching for my cat. The search has been very hard on me with many emotional ups and downs and having to talk to strangers as a shy introvert and ask them to look in their sheds. Though the great majority of people want to help and have been more kind to me than I ever could have imagined, there have been a few who have been very suspicious of me or who called to yell at me for leaving a flyer at their house so of course those are the ones that stick in my mind. And I feel I'm wearing out the welcome for the crazy cat lady quest with the neighbors, a few of whom I've had to ask special favors. My partner is verbally supportive but gets huffy when I ask him to physically help out and it's clear he thinks my efforts are pointless and hopes I will, if not completely give up, then put some posters and social media posts up and be done with it. Some friends helped out early on but I hate to burden them further. My other cat, the missing cat's best friend, is my only real moral support and I feel incredibly lonely.

I get leads from well meaning people but it always just turns out to be a different orange cat. I've also spent quite a bit of money on different search tactics and can't really afford to spend much more. There seems to be no comforting explanation for why he's been missing so long - he's a very friendly cat who is chipped, collared and tagged - despite my efforts. Since I've been poring over the lost pet Facebook pages daily I've watched many other people get their cats back sooner and with much less apparent effort.

It's lonely walking around the neighbourhood at dawn and dusk by myself. It's lonely coming home and not seeing a little orange face in the window. I feel immense guilt every time I open the door where I last let him out. I think of everything in terms of whether I've done/used it since he went missing. Anything related to calendar dates triggers me. I have dreamed several times that I found him only to be plunged into a black hole of anguish when I wake up and realize it was just a dream. I torture myself with scenarios of what may have or may be happening to him.

I know I have to keep looking until I find him (most of the good advice I've read is that many cats are never found because their owners give up too soon) but, also, what if I never find him? I feel like I'm in purgatory. I also feel like I can't enjoy things and feel guilty taking a break to read or watch Netflix.

I'd love to hear from people who've been through this and came out the other side whether the ending was happy or not.

A couple requests: please no judgement- trust me I hate myself enough and have learned my lesson; please don't suggest therapy - it's just too hard to obtain for me where I live.

posted by RoseyPosey to Pets & Animals (12 answers total)

Response by poster: Sorry - I put the wrong link for a photo of my cat. Here he is.
posted by RoseyPosey at 5:59 PM on March 18 [3 favorites]

Best answer: I'm so sorry you're going through this, I went through it myself with my sweet cat about 1.5 years ago. Literally, she was the first thing I thought about when I woke up, I kept thinking I saw her out of the corner of my eye and going outside was no longer an enjoyable experience because finding her was all I thought about. Unfortunately, I never found her (and not through any lack of trying).

I don't have any advice on how to avoid the pain because I think it is inevitable when you lose someone you love, especially when you don't get the closure of knowing they're really gone.

I know this is easy to say and difficult to do, but please cut yourself some slack. You have tried so so hard for a long time. Don't cut off the easy things you can do to find him, like checking with organizations that take in strays, but don't keep putting your life on hold. At a certain point, you just have to know that they're either out there and happy, they're not out there, or they have many possibilities that you've set up for getting back to you.

It's not easy, sending you hugs if you want them.
posted by Eyelash at 6:13 PM on March 18 [9 favorites]

Best answer: Please look into ambiguous loss resources, even if you can't access therapy.
posted by warriorqueen at 6:36 PM on March 18 [8 favorites]

Best answer: I went through this. There ain't nothin' for it but time, my friend.

A house guest let my dog loose. I searched for months for that dog; posters everywhere, nighttime neighborhood walks and daytime canvassing, daily checks at the shelter, etc. She was chipped, AND had a collar with tags that she had never ever slipped.

Eventually, maybe at 1-2 years out, I resolved that either she was dead or had found a new family, and so either way wasn't at risk/lost any more. It eventually became something I didn't think about every day.

About 5 years later, I saw what I was 95% certain was her in the window of a house 2 blocks away, firmly within my postering zone. I took a photo of her and compared it to old photos I had, and my certainty rose to 99%. But the people moved from that house before I worked up the nerve to confront them.

There ain't nothin' for it but time.
posted by CharlesDeP at 7:02 PM on March 18 [13 favorites]

Best answer: I've been through this with a cat who was lost for a full 60 days before we found her, so it's not out of the realm of possibility you may still be successful. It was so, so jars during that time to stay hopeful and for much of it I was pretty sure it was futile to keep searching. But we found her in the end!

I have some specific resources/strategies we used in looking for her that I'd be happy to share in another comment, but only if you want them. I know this post is asking about dealing with the grief so I don't want to just throw out a big comment with advice on the searching process without checking if that's okay with you.
posted by augustimagination at 7:56 PM on March 18

Response by poster: augustimagination, I was going to say "please no searching advice" because at this point I'm certain I've heard/tried everything, but it sounds like you've really been through a similar situation so I am actually eager to hear what worked for you.
posted by RoseyPosey at 8:30 PM on March 18 [1 favorite]

Best answer: When i was about fifteen my cat, Otti, went missing. I was devasted, this was in a rural area and the most likely explanation was a neighbour shot her. She populated my dreams for years. And then, eight years later, i had moved out from my parents by then, my mother called to say Otti had returned! I rushed home and there she was. Plumper, obviously well fed, but it definitely was her. My parents also had moved house but the landlord of the previous house called them to say that there was a cat trying to get in... We never found out where she Had been for 8 years. She lived with my parents for another ten years and lived to be twenty.
Just sharing in the hope to cheer you up a little and perhaps your story will also end well.
posted by 15L06 at 2:57 AM on March 19 [14 favorites]

Best answer: This happened to me with our cat. She had been born in my aunt's backyard, and my aunt raised her but she didn't get along very well with my aunt's other cats. So she gave this cuddly, loving beautiful little cat to us. We let her go outside because she always came home when I called her. On the day she disappeared, I kind of extra encouraged her out the door- I can't remember now, but I think she was doing that cat thing of asking to go outside and then not going, so I finally just made her go out. When she didn't return I felt so awful and guilty, for a long, long time. We searched and put up fliers and called her, for weeks. At one point one of my friends asked, "do you think one of your neighbors took her in because she was so pretty?" and that helped me feel that at least maybe she was taken care of. It was still incredibly hard to go through because I felt like it was my fault she was out at all. I didn't tell my aunt for a year. I still think that maybe she found a nice place to live indoors, because there are two feral cat colonies around here, fed by neighbors, and she's never shown up at either of them.

I am also a very shy introvert, but talking to some of our neighbors was actually very helpful- it made me feel like there were a couple people around that knew what we were going through, and would be looking out for her. I am very sorry your partner is not as supportive as they could be, and that you've had some less than nice encounters with some neighbors. You've done all the right things. It's okay to take some time to care for yourself- you're not going to forget about your cat even if you enjoy yourself for a bit, and it won't make any difference out in the real world if you do or do not watch a movie. I don't have much good advice, I'm afraid- I just wanted to share that you are not the only one who has felt awful and responsible for potentially losing a pet, and it's not your fault. I hope your kitty makes it home.
posted by oneirodynia at 9:15 PM on March 19 [1 favorite]

Response by poster: Thanks, everyone. I found each of your answers helpful in different ways and each made me feel a little less alone in this.
posted by RoseyPosey at 10:00 AM on March 21

RoseyPosey As someone in a similar circumstance, I also found this helpful. Would you mind sharing any searching advice people may have gave you privately?
posted by Jon44 at 11:18 AM on March 21

Best answer: Ok, so I'm the person above who did find her cat about two months later. The biggest thing we use were humane traps - initially loaded with cat food and treats, but we tried all sorts of things eventually. We tried to go for things that would smell a lot like tuna, wet cat food, even McNuggets and pieces of breakfast sandwich on days we'd stop at McDonald's for breakfast before a trap check. Note that you'll possibly end up trapping raccoons, possums, and other lost cats, so make sure to have heavy gloves for when you open the trap back up and possibly a cat carrier for when you trap your or another cat. We started off having issues with the traps being sprung, but no animal trapped, so we started putting the food in the bottom of a heavy mug, hoping she would knock it over onto the trigger trying to get to the food. That eventually worked!

For getting a trap/traps, you can buy them at farmer supply stores (Tractor Supply was where I got ours), or shelters/Humane Society locations will also lend them out but sometimes have a limited supply which is why we ended up buying them ourselves. On the topic of shelters, make sure you've checked in at your local shelters and let them know specifics about your cat - they can keep your info on file and contact you if someone does bring your cat in. The shelters near me were SO kind and helpful while my cat was missing and when I ended up bringing in another lost cat we trapped in the process.

The biggest piece of advice that helped me were sites about lost cat behavior - cats do NOT tend to roam and even a month later, it's really likely your cat is sticking to a small area nearby. It's also typical that a lost cat who's hiding will not respond to being called to, out of fear and wariness, even to your own voice. That's why traps are so helpful, because your cat may be hearing you and even seeing you, but doing a really damn good job staying hidden. Knowing that really helped me not lose hope. In particular this Lost Cat Behavior site really, really helped. In particular, it was helpful in getting me to think about where might make sense to put up traps, and in keeping hope going that my cat was there but was basically always hiding when people were around. There are also other resources on that site, including lost pet detectives (not something I used, but they exist) and an actual research paper on lost cat behaviors and people finding their lost cats.

Other links I also found useful:
Huge, Neon Posters - Lots of stores are really strict about posters, but I know I was able to put them up at PetSmart and Petco, and I think Pet Supplies Plus is good about that too.
Summary of Tips - this mostly summarizes the lost cat behavior link above and is a little easier to read.

I really hope this helps - if you want expansion on anything I brought up above please let me know, and HUGS. It sucks to feel so helpless while it's all going on.
posted by augustimagination at 1:58 PM on March 23

Response by poster: augustimagination, I just sent you a message.
posted by RoseyPosey at 6:47 AM on March 24