Processing Day Support Group ~ HELP us through the Emotions PLEASE!

[Chambertin]

I don't feel at home in my home anymore. I go out and talk to people and just get confused...
Its crazy, but so true. I can only imagine how you must be feeling with all the domestic foreigner as well as the new aspect of getting up close to death.

I may sound cold or crazy, but I'm nearly coming to tears that my little special buddy egg has got a perfectly formed blood ring all around it. Such a waste, and my fault.
Killing and death are extremely hard things to deal with which is why it takes so much preparation and the mentality that most of what you are doing is to ease the suffering of what must be done.

Its been a horrible 2 weeks, and I need a break.
Good luck to you and whatever you must do to come to terms with this is the right thing. No one can tell you what to do, we can only try to help by sharing what we have learned.

 

[jajeanpierre]

They are just as important, but they serve a very different purpose.

Accept that and your troubles are 90% over

No, not 90% over but at least someone else understands.

 

[jajeanpierre]

I don't feel at home in my home anymore. I go out and talk to people and just get confused...
Its crazy, but so true. I can only imagine how you must be feeling with all the domestic foreigner as well as the new aspect of getting up close to death.

I may sound cold or crazy, but I'm nearly coming to tears that my little special buddy egg has got a perfectly formed blood ring all around it. Such a waste, and my fault.
Killing and death are extremely hard things to deal with which is why it takes so much preparation and the mentality that most of what you are doing is to ease the suffering of what must be done.

Its been a horrible 2 weeks, and I need a break.
Good luck to you and whatever you must do to come to terms with this is the right thing. No one can tell you what to do, we can only try to help by sharing what we have learned.

You've been through a lot in the last two weeks. Home won't feel like home. You'll feel like a foreigner in your own country because no one you know understands the differences in cultures that you've lived. Plus you've had a relationship breakdown that for any of us who've been through divorce know is a cut right to the core of your psyche.

My kids have no home. They think of Riyadh as home! Being an expat has a lot of challenges and rewards. But, it is really difficult.

Take really good care of yourself.

I really appreciate all the help you've given me.

 

[Kassaundra]

I think a lot of us not raised killing animals for food tend to be our own worst enemy in our own heads (myself included). I totally believe in a humane death for all lives, pet, food, mercy, nessecery b/c of over population etc... however I think there is a very real danger of over humanizing these animals, especially if we are on a committed course of providing our own meat. Each of us needs to come to a peace in our own heads and hearts about what needs to be done to eat meat. Yes learn the skills needed to do what needs to be done w/ the least cruelty to the animal, but keep in mind there is no way to take life w/o "getting our hands dirty" so to speak, and there is a definite learning curve.

We look at the deed from a foreknowledge, and reasoning ability animals just do not have, keep in mind the animal doesn't come to the same crisis of psyche that we do. Each of us are very individual and come to this w/ our own baggage, so we need to figure out what works for us, and sadly the only way to learn that is experience. Some people find comfort in ritual (prayer, moment of thanksgiving, repeating certain actions, etc...) others in shutting off our emotions and just going through the motions, others do not struggle at all, or maybe only w/ "special" ones like pets.

I had a rocky start too. While I do eat meat now, I was a vegetarian for many years, and before I started on this course I had not killed anything bigger then a bug, and only those that were garden pests or poison spiders (all others were relocated to outside) oh and flies. My first few kills were mercy ones, then mercy ones that I processed for food, then healthy injury free birds for food. I was very distraught after my first several kills, each time I analyzed what went right and what went wrong and how I could change what went wrong in the future. If you stick with it IT DOES GET BETTER, I promise.

 

[Beekissed]

I agree. Any way you approach it probably works for that person and wouldn't work for another. And I also agree that this current generation has a hard time separating animal from human so it is harder for them all the way around. The simple fact is that animals are not human and that can never be changed no matter how much we try to make it so.

They are their own unique specie with their own social structures and life that is very separate from ours in most ways. They have a specific purpose on this Earth, as do we all, and most of us will eventually provide food for something else..everything finally does. All flesh is grass and that is one of our few similarities with animals. We will all die and our flesh return to the soil. Most animals just get recycled a little before they return to the soil and such is the case with food animals, in particular.

If people can just get it through their minds that they are merely using the energy from that animal for a specific purpose before it is finally returned to the soil, it would go a lot easier on their minds. It's no different than a cat eating a mouse or a fox eating a rabbit, but we don't think those animals are cruel for eating another animal..we recognize that everything has to eat to survive and something must die before you eat it.

Just takes some sitting down and getting those practical facts arranged in one's mind in order to gain some small detachment from the hardness of the task. I don't know that I will ever grow completely detached of killing something..I've killed many, many somethings for food and it still hasn't gotten to the point where I don't feel anything at all when I do it. I always am analyzing how to do it better, quicker, etc. each and every time. That's just our responsibility of stewardship for these animals and I take it very seriously. But, I don't agonize or feel depressed over the task...it's just a necessary thing and a hard job, but someone has to do the hard jobs in this life. We can't all sit back and throw up our hands and expect everyone else to do them for us, nor would I ever do that.

I guess that is why I became a nurse...I don't mind doing the dirty stuff, the sad stuff or even the painful stuff so that others can live better, happier, more comfortable.

 

[Chambertin]

Vegetarians kill too... Every time they eat.
They just have a much better support group.

I think that's part of why we have such trouble with death, life and food. We completely lie about the most basic truth.

 

[jajeanpierre]

And I also agree that this current generation has a hard time separating animal from human so it is harder for them all the way around. The simple fact is that animals are not human and that can never be changed no matter how much we try to make it so.

It's more than that, at least for me. We are very separated from death. In years gone by before access to antibiotics, vaccinations and modern medicine, lots and lots of people died. It was not just the very old and frail who died--children died. People died at home, too, not hidden away in a hospital. Today, death is not a part of every day life the way it was at the turn of the last century. I've got a few hang ups about death and dying, so killing is pretty disturbing for me.

I think I want to use something along the lines that Kassaundra uses--a gun of some sort. I have to think about that, though.

 

[Kassaundra]

Processed my latest volunteer (crower) he had the Fm gene but didn't show much in his skin, splotchy dark in the skin I was wondering how he was going to present on the inside. His flesh is normal colored (maybe just slightly darker but not grey by any means) all his bones are black though, testes were jet black. Here is my observation / question for those who have processed dark fleshed chickens. His lungs were the normal pinkie color, they were completely healthy texture and look, but were marbled w/ dark fine thin marbling all over and through. Other then the color though completely healthy appearing and he was not sick a day in his life, not a sniffle or sneeze.

 

[goodb]

Vegetarians kill too... Every time they eat.
They just have a much better support group.

I think that's part of why we have such trouble with death, life and food. We completely lie about the most basic truth.

LIKE!

 

[Beekissed]

Vegetarians kill too... Every time they eat.
They just have a much better support group.

I think that's part of why we have such trouble with death, life and food. We completely lie about the most basic truth.

I agree! They don't seem to look upon vegetables and plants as being alive for some reason. They even bleed!

It's more than that, at least for me. We are very separated from death. In years gone by before access to antibiotics, vaccinations and modern medicine, lots and lots of people died. It was not just the very old and frail who died--children died. People died at home, too, not hidden away in a hospital. Today, death is not a part of every day life the way it was at the turn of the last century. I've got a few hang ups about death and dying, so killing is pretty disturbing for me.

I think I want to use something along the lines that Kassaundra uses--a gun of some sort. I have to think about that, though.

I agree! I've been a nurse for 20 years, so being around death is part of my job. The last several years of my career was spent in hospice, where even many seasoned nurses hate to work because they still have hang ups about death. People seem to think that, if they don't think about death or go near it, it won't happen to them, so their fear of their own death seems to drive their thinking about how they deal with their loved one's medical care, even their pet's medical care. They try to make both live way past the time they could have or should have pass on, through artificial means and life support, instead of allowing them to die naturally when they are in such pain and distress.

Over the years I've seen this type of thinking grow and grow. It always saddens me that so many people fear death, won't think of death and don't prepare for death. They know it's going to happen, no matter what, but they somehow think if they don't think about it, they will escape it. It's a mystery to me...death is nothing to be feared and is a natural part of our lives, just like our birth.