Grief and Self-Blame

Stress lives in the body, it is like this parasite that takes over your body and betrays you. I keep thinking that I should be spending what money I have left getting camping supplies so I can camp out of my car if this job goes through and I end up on the streets. I like to think that with enough time I would not be so afraid of being homeless again, but that just doesn't seem to be the case. Poor Captain, if only I would not have lost that contract in January, maybe I could have saved him. But it would have required so much more money than I had. I think that is why I can't forgive myself for the euthanasia. It was just so hard at the end. He had incontinence 7+ times a day because he was constantly thirsty/hungry and it was all my fault and I can't forgive myself. Every day is worse than the last. More and more of my time is occupied ruminating about Captain and Chris. Even when I had a job in person it is still all I think about. I just obsess about their deaths and it spikes the emotion in me and I can't control it. I think it is because I create patterns in my head. Patterns like I am somehow death personified. I mean the same pattern happened over and over, first Sarge, then Chris, now Captain. They got everything they could ever want and that is what killed them. Getting what they want. Doesn't matter. It is fine. Fine fine fine.

What you are describing does not sound like indifference or cruelty. It sounds like a nervous system that has been under siege for a long time trying to build a story that explains repeated loss. Human beings do this constantly after grief and trauma. The mind starts constructing patterns because randomness feels intolerable. If three terrible things happen in sequence, the brain begins insisting there must be a unifying principle. “I am death personified.” “Everyone near me dies.” “Love destroys.” Those ideas feel convincing because they organize chaos into something emotionally coherent, even if the conclusion is merciless toward yourself. But the actual pattern you described is different from the one your mind keeps replaying. Sarge. Chris. Captain. You did not describe neglect. You described attachment. You described trying. You described someone replaying decisions endlessly because they cared so much that the outcome became fused with their identity. People who truly do not care do not spend every waking hour constructing tribunals against themselves. They move on quickly. The fact that your mind cannot stop revisiting it is evidence of grief, not evidence of guilt. And with Captain specifically, chronic illness changes the emotional structure of caregiving. The constant thirst, hunger, accidents, exhaustion, cleaning, fear, money calculations, sleep deprivation — eventually the brain stops distinguishing between compassion and failure. Every symptom starts feeling like a moral accusation. Especially when money enters the equation. Then every limitation feels personal. “If I had more.” “If I had kept the contract.” “If I had done X in January.” But illness does not negotiate fairly with love. There are conditions where even unlimited money only prolongs suffering rather than restores life. That ambiguity destroys people because there is never a clean emotional ending. The homelessness fear makes all of this louder because your body remembers it. That is why the stress feels parasitic and physical. Your nervous system is not reacting only to the present threat of losing a job. It is reacting to remembered survival states. Once someone has lived through instability, the body can start treating uncertainty itself as an approaching catastrophe. Camping gear becomes psychologically symbolic — not just practical preparation, but an attempt to regain agency over terror. And underneath all of it I think there is another thing happening: you are trying to retroactively save people through rumination. If you replay Captain enough, replay Chris enough, replay every decision enough, maybe eventually the brain discovers the hidden equation that could have prevented all of it. But grief has no final correct calculation. That is why the loops never terminate. The mind is trying to solve something unsolvable. You do not sound “fine.” You sound exhausted, frightened, guilty, and emotionally trapped inside recursive memory loops that intensify every day. And when that starts happening, isolation becomes dangerous because the thoughts begin reinforcing themselves without interruption. You mentioned the rumination is growing and taking over more of your time even while working. That matters. You do not have to carry all of this entirely alone in your own head. If things feel like they are escalating toward hopelessness or you feel unsafe with yourself, contact someone directly rather than staying inside the loop — a trusted person, a local crisis line, or in the U.S. you can call or text 988 anytime. Even if you do not feel actively suicidal, those services are also for people overwhelmed by grief, panic, and spiraling thoughts. And practically speaking: preparing for uncertainty is not irrational. Buying some camping supplies, organizing your car, making contingency plans — those are survival behaviors, not moral failures. Just try not to let preparation become proof to yourself that doom is inevitable. Your brain is currently treating fear predictions as certainties. They are not the same thing.