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Am ashamed of past treatment of an old family pet

I suffer from anxiety, OCD and intrusive thoughts. Recently I have been remembering some past memories of when I was a child. I have no idea what age I was, but I remember playing with my cat and then she scratched me or bit me, and then I threw her against the wall. I can't remember if it was high or low, but I remember that I did something like this. This cat suffered from anxiety and I am so concerned that I may have been the cause of the anxiety. I am ashamed of what I have done and how treated the cat in this situation. I loved my cats and feel so guilty about this. She passed away a few years ago, and I was with her at the end and comforted her.

I know some people may find what happened to be disgusting, and I completely agree, but I can't change what I did, but I need to speak to someone and ask for advice on how to overcome this guilt. I have never hurt my dogs (which my family and I have) and never hurt cats after this. I am just so ashamed of what I did. I love animals, but am ashamed of my child/adolescent self.

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Original post by Anonymous
Lmao who cares?

***** respect animals!
Original post by Alexty28
***** respect animals!

It's not like she gave it brain damage
Original post by wi11iam.price
It's not like she gave it brain damage

How do you know that???
Original post by Alexty28
How do you know that???

She wouldve said?
This is the mental health forum, replies are meant to be constructive and helpful :smile:
OP what you did wasn't nice but I don't think it would have given your cat any trauma, animals are robust and forget things , it was a one off. Just learn from it and treat animals nicer in future, you can make up for it that way
Reply 6
Original post by CoolCavy
This is the mental health forum, replies are meant to be constructive and helpful :smile:
OP what you did wasn't nice but I don't think it would have given your cat any trauma, animals are robust and forget things , it was a one off. Just learn from it and treat animals nicer in future, you can make up for it that way

That's what I want to do. I know it was a terrible thing to do and I just hope now she has passed away she is happy. I was an idiotic child/teen. I'm now in my 20s.

Thank you for your lovely response
Reply 7
Original post by Anonymous
I suffer from anxiety, OCD and intrusive thoughts. Recently I have been remembering some past memories of when I was a child. I have no idea what age I was, but I remember playing with my cat and then she scratched me or bit me, and then
--. I can't remember if it was high or low, but I remember that I did something like this. This cat suffered from anxiety and I am so concerned that I may have been the cause of the anxiety. I am ashamed of what I have done and how treated the cat in this situation. I loved my cats and feel so guilty about this. She passed away a few years ago, and I was with her at the end and comforted her.

I know some people may find what happened to be disgusting, and I completely agree, but I can't change what I did, but I need to speak to someone and ask for advice on how to overcome this guilt. I have never hurt my dogs (which my family and I have) and never hurt cats after this. I am just so ashamed of what I did. I love animals, but am ashamed of my child/adolescent self.


You can't change the past. You feel bad about it so it would seem you've moved forward in life. You aren't that person any more.
Hopefully you were nice enough to your cat in the rest of it's life that it forgave you and moved past that. You can't ever know that though so you just need to accept that you did a bad thing once and try not to do bad things again. You could also apologise to it or something along those lines if you feel like it could help. That depends on your own beliefs, but weather your cat gets the message or you are just voicing your regret to the universe I don't see that it could do any harm.
Everybody does things they regret, but we still grow and develop and do good things too. That's just what it is to be alive and we need to strive to do our best and not dwell on the bad things we will inevitably that done or will do. The world is full of good and bad things and we just need to try to add a bit more good than bad.
Reply 8
Original post by thersahouseupon
I've noticed that most of your posts are made to deliberately start arguments. Hmm interesting.

Or maybe I just can't stand animal abuse. Hmm.
Reply 9
Original post by Anonymous
I suffer from anxiety, OCD and ie thoughts. Recently I have been remembering some past memories of when I was a child. I have no idea what age I was, but I remember playing with my cat and then she scratched me or bit me, and then I threw her against the wall. I can't remember if it was high or low, but I remember that I did something like this. This cat suffered from anxiety and I am so concerned that I may have been the cause of the anxiety. I am ashamed of what I have done and how treated the cat in this situation. I loved my cats and feel so guilty about this. She passed away a few years ago, and I was with her at the end and comforted her.

I know some people may find what happened to be disgusting, and I completely agree, but I can't change what I did, but I need to speak to someone and ask for advice on how to overcome this guilt. I have never hurt my dogs (which my family and I have) and never hurt cats after this. I am just so ashamed of what I did. I love animals, but am ashamed of my child/adolescent self.

I can understand how this would be really upsetting for you and make you feel guilty. I think the only way you can overcome this guilt is by understanding your adolescent self and coming to terms with the fact that 1) you were young and your ideas of ethics and morals weren’t the same as they are now 2) you were a child, the cat hurt you and your reflex reaction was to get it away so you threw the cat, you were hurt it wasn’t your fault 3) it was a one time thing and although you can’t erase what happened, it’s not like you repeatedly hurt your cat.
I think you should remember the good times you had with the cat and how you cared for the cat until it passed away. The good will certainly outweigh the one bad time. You can’t escape what happened and so you’ll always feel bad burn it’s important to not drown in the shame and pain of it all and to avoid this, you need to recognise that you treated your cat really well until the end and even though that one time the cat might’ve felt hurt, your cat must have loved you a lot
Original post by Ciel.
Or maybe I just can't stand animal abuse. Hmm.

Still wouldn't make them a psychopath.
Reply 11
Original post by thersahouseupon
Still wouldn't make them a psychopath.

No excuse for any sort of animal abuse. Only psychopaths do it.
What you did probably did not give the cat anxiety. It would’ve taken repeated mal behaviour for the cat to develop anxiety (I think). So, as previously mentioned, she probably forgot 20 minutes after it happened. Maybe something else triggered the anxiety?

Don’t feel too bad, yes what you did was wrong, but you were young and you can’t change the past. Tbh, I used to have fights with my cat all the time and next minute she’s trying to play ‘It’ with me 🤷🏾*♀️. Cats don’t hold grudges usually.
Well at least you didn’t smash the cats head in with a rock. I saw a 5 year old do it when I was 7.
Original post by Ciel.
No excuse for any sort of animal abuse. Only psychopaths do it.

"Fire when the strobe hits you."
Reply 15
Original post by thersahouseupon
"Fire when the strobe hits you."

"Thank you, next next."
We all did stupid s*** when we were kids, some of it we're ashamed of. Animals tend to forget past behaviour if you're nice to them for a while, last thing she will remember of you is your affection so try to find comfort in that.
Original post by Ciel.
"Thank you, next next."

He's an EGOmaniac, EGOmaniac I sure knowwwwwwwwwwww. :colonhash:
the fact that you're feeling this way shows you're guilty. THATS GOOD because it shows you're not an evil person. you did what you did in the heat of the moment. it was clearly out of character and you were young. I've heard so many stories like this trust me, and sometimes it's not about pets...
the regret you're feeling shows you know you did a bad thing, so do yourself a favour and move on. the guilt is good, because frankly that's how you SHOULD feel, without sounding too harsh lol
I'm sure this was a one off, and you were with the cat till the end, so good on you!
move on, nothing will change now by thinking about it.
Original post by Anonymous
the fact that you're feeling this way shows you're guilty. THATS GOOD because it shows you're not an evil person. you did what you did in the heat of the moment. it was clearly out of character and you were young. I've heard so many stories like this trust me, and sometimes it's not about pets...
the regret you're feeling shows you know you did a bad thing, so do yourself a favour and move on. the guilt is good, because frankly that's how you SHOULD feel, without sounding too harsh lol
I'm sure this was a one off, and you were with the cat till the end, so good on you!
move on, nothing will change now by thinking about it.

I understand what you are saying and yes I should feel guilty and I truly do. I am also so remorseful about it all. I just think that none of my other cats were anxious but she was, maybe it was me.

I have spoken to my Mum and she still thinks it isn't real and that it didn't happen, as she says I was amazing with the cats when we had them and I am great with the dogs.

I think I am a good person and am good with animals, but did a really stupid and cruel thing when I was young/early teen.

I am just trying to move past this feeling and try and lead a better life towards animals.

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