- Date posted
- 1y
Obsessive Guilt About The Death Of My Cat
To the best of my memory: I am ocd. I check locks, I check the stove. I think of “what ifs”. Etc. I have some hoarding tendencies. I wash my hands until they get dried out sometimes. Etc. January 2022 I moved back to my mother’s house after graduating from university with an accounting degree, to save $ & pay student loans. November 21, 2022 I take my 16/17 year old cat to the vet because he lost weight & has Horner’s syndrome (1 constricted pupil and raised eyelid). The cat is diagnosed with hyperthyroidism, and a heart rate of 240 at the time of the exam. November 29, 2022 Around 12:30pm my mom texts me & says cat could use his medication(he started methimazole). I go downstairs to see the cat. The cat, Peebles, seems like he could not stand or walk. He seemed like he was going through something. We administered the methimazole to him in a syringe. Shortly after this, he started to have what appeared to be erratic movements, that I wouldn’t know how else to describe them, other than looking similar to seizures or erratic flailing. After this, he laid on the ground for a while. He appeared to still be breathing at this point, because his abdomen was moving to suggest breath. Every once in a while a rear leg would kick as if he was trying to scratch himself, but he was laying down and didn’t seem to have bodily control or movement or function besides this. I think maybe for some period of time his eyes were closed and he was just laying on the ground breathing with eyes closed. Eventually I think his eyes opened. I think also at some point he tilted his head way back and arched his back, it was very strange. Idk how to describe this other than seizure like movements. Eventually I called the vet around 2:30pm, the vet suggested I not assume it he worst and bring the cat in. I return to the cat after stepping outside from my phone call. I pick him up and cradle him in my arms with his belly facing up. I take him to a sunny area of the porch, and in the sunny area his pupils constricted reacting to the light. At some point after I picked him up and while I was holding him, he began doing mouth gasps, which may have been agonal respirations. I took him to the sunlight on the porch because nature and sunlight make me feel better when I don’t feel well. So I brought him to nature and sunlight because I like nature and sun light and my cats were indoor outdoor cats who likes to be outside. While he was doing these mouth gasps, I handed Peebles to my mother so that I could leave to take a quick shower before going to the vet. If I could do it over, I would have skipped the shower and reacted differently in so many different ways, such as skipping the shower and going to the vet immediately. Part of me suspected that death was imminent for my friend Peebles. Maybe that is part of why I delayed, because when my dog died, she has mouth gasps. So idk. Regardless this is what happened. I return from the shower and my mom is no longer holding Peebles. Peebles is laying on the couch wrapped in a towel. My mom says Peebles died. For whatever reason this was not a well lit living room at the time. My parents are not the most functional people, my mom was sexually abused and been on diazepam for at least a decade, and I don’t perceive her as being the most high functioning person. And I guess I’m not either. Because neither of us thought to replace the light bulb in the living room. So the light in the living room was from light coming through the blinds from outside, maybe light from the lightbulb in the kitchen next to the living room, maybe light from the television, so it wasn’t completely dark or completely well lit. I visually inspected Peebles to see if he was breathing. I did not notice his abdomen moving, so I assumed he was not breathing because I didn’t see him breathing and I didn’t see him moving. So I called the vet and told them we were not coming in because Peebles had passed. I informed people Peebles had passed on my phone. I informed my work (I work from home), and explained what happened and made sure it was okay for me to be excused from work. After my phone call with the vet, I inspected Peebles’ body again at least once or twice, looking visually possibly staring a few second to see if unnoticed abdominal motion to suggest breath. I did not see any motion or movements or any sign of respiration. I wish I had thought to feel for a pulse. I think I did, but thought “well he does not appear to be breathing and he smells bad, so perhaps checking for a pulse is not necessary”. The smell made me gag. He seemed to smell bad fast. I remember thinking that if we waited to bury him, the house might smell bad. I eventually ate for the first time all day around 4:30pm I had cheese, crackers and salami or pepperoni or something like that. I asked my mom to wait to wait to dig the hole and to wait to bury Peebles. My mom never listens to anything I say and often does the opposite. Even if it is serious or if there is a reason, she never listens, and I don’t know if this is malicious or dementia or what it is, I can’t tell if she is a liar or just a confused person with bad memory. Sometimes it is difficult to tell. I find her digging the hole after I asked her not to, after I asked her to wait. But since she is already digging the hole, I begin to dig the hole further to assist her, because I want to do the right thing, I want to feel like I am doing the correct thing and assisting with this difficult moment. I dug the hole deeper. At some point after this, anyways between 30-90 minutes after this, at the cusp of sunset, it seems like there is pressure and expectation to bury Peebles. I think to myself “should I take a video of his condition, so that I don’t question whether or it he is dead?”. I dismiss this and think no, I’ll just thoroughly inspect him before he is buried to confirm his death again, I don’t want to be weird by taking a video. So, it is the cusp of sunset, not sunny at this point, getting dark. I lay Peebles’ body on the porch to inspect him and confirm his death. I think I had just read online that the pupils are usually dilated after death. So I glance at the abdomen, I still don’t notice breathing from the abdomen. So I don’t stare or spend too much time on the abdomen because I felt like that box was already checked. So I am thinking about the eyes and pulse and other things like that. In my mind, I want to take my time and conclude at my own pace that Peebles is dead before burying him. He was completely limp and had not moved for 2.5-3 hours. When I carried him wrapped in a towel, I did not inadvertently notice any breath or pulse through the towel. It wasn’t something I was consciously purposefully feeling for. But after the fact, I wrapped my other cats in a towel to test if a pulse or breath would be obvious and it seems like something that a person is unlikely to miss visually or feeling through the towel. So at this point Peebles seemed dead. I didn’t notice breath. His teeth were showing. His eyes were open. He was limp and hadn’t moved for at least 2.5 hours. I lifted his head and looked in his eyes. His pupils appeared to be pretty constricted. Which gave me a weird feeling, because I thought the pupils should be dilated. However, as I am making this observation and trying to process this observation my mom said “would you hurry up! You’re freaking me out!” in a rushed hostile judgemental tone. This broke my moment of inspection. She followed with “do you want to put him in the hole or do you want me to do it?”. I said “I don’t want to put him in the hole”. This is because I was not ready to bury the cat and had not sufficiently concluded he was dead. But I felt so rushed and pressured in the moment and didn’t have time to process or think or go at my own pace. When I said I don’t want to put him in the whole I meant in general. My mom picked the cat up and put him in the hole. I hated this moment. It is the worst most anxious moment of my life and I relive this nightmare every day. I think I said something like “okay Peebles this is last call, let us know if you’re there”. I think when my mom put him in the hole I wanted to retrieve him, but I could see the neighbors watching tv with their blinds open in my periphery and I guess I felt self conscious about how it would look. I felt pressured an guided in the moment. I felt like the expectation was for me to bury Peebles at this point. So I began to put dirt on Peebles. I put it on loosely. It was the worst feeling in the entire world. I relive it every day. I was horrified wondering if I had buried Peebles prematurely. And I still wonder every day. I’ve probably spent 1,000 hours thinking about it. Hours contacting vets and animal neurologists and ChatGPT for answers or reassurance. My mom patted the dirt down and I was horrified. I felt so trapped and stuck in this horrible moment. I felt like a cat killer. I feel like a murderer. My self esteem and my ego are gone. I feel like my mom and I deserve incarceration. I want to feel normal again but I feel like I don’t deserve to feel normal. I feel like a traitor. I worry about my friend being scared and in need and what if we betrayed him during a medical emergency. What if I caused him to suffer. I feel very bad. Sometimes it is my first thought when I wake up. I feel it in my heart and mind and skin. It is like a never ending Tell Tale Heart by Edgar Allen Poe experience. When we went in the house immediately after the burial it was dark outside and I had a temper tantrum about what happened and called people for reassurance. I wish I had immediately dug up Peebles’ body to confirm his death immediately after the burial. I guess some reasons I didn’t: 1. Afraid or how it might look to the neighbors. 2. It was dark outside. 3. If he wasn’t dead before, I assumed the burial probably killed him. 4. Maybe I was just being weird and ocd and overreacting. In retrospect I wish I had dug him up, because if I thought there was any possibility he might have been buried prematurely then the right thing to do would have been to have immediately retrieving the body instead of calling everyone to vent about what happened. There are so many aspects of this day I wish I could do differently. The constricted pupils haunt me because usually pupils are dilated after death, not constricted. That said, Peebles had Horner’s syndrome, and I wonder if an underlying condition that caused his Horner’s syndrome could have caused his constricted pupils post Mortem. Some things that make the constricted pupils unusual: 1. Pupils are usually dilated after death for cats. 2. It was the cusp of sunset and our porch was facing East. The sun set in the west. It would have been unusual for pupils to be that constricted as reaction to light at this time and in this setting. I’ve taken my other cats to the same spot around the same time, and their pupils did not get this constricted as Peebles were. 3. Peebles, when he was alive had Horner’s syndrome. Usually one pupil was more round and dilated while the other pupil usually remained constricted. Prior to burial, to the best of my memory his pupils were uniformly constricted, and he didn’t appear have Horner’s syndrome. This seems to suggest his constricted pupils may not have been a reaction to light or a sign of neurological activity, but it seems I’ll never get the opportunity to check for sure. No vet I’ve talked to seems to think Peebles was alive when he was buried. Idk if they are just saying that to make me feel better. ChatGPT seems to suggest it is highly likely Peebles had passed prior to burial, but cannot be definitive without a professional examination by a veterinary professional. So idk what to do. I feel like I need a group of vets and animal neurologists and ocd specialists to convene to try to determine what happened. And even after that it feels like I would still feel guilty and ask what if and feel bad and wonder if I caused my scared friend to suffer and die when he needed my help. Idk what to do. According to google maps there are ocd specialists about 3 hours away from me, in Tampa. I’ve heard of a certain type of mushroom helping to treat ocd in some studies, but this mushroom is illegal in most states including my state. So idk what to do but it has become a lot of weight and not very enjoyable.