- Date posted
- 10w
fear of harming cats lead to unhealthy compulsions
I've been hyperfixated on worrying about abuse and harm to my cats, and as a result i spiraled into some bad compulsions, and I know I'm a bad person for that. I feel horrible. Some time ago my male cat went to sniff my other female's cat bum and i know it's normal but i instantly reacted and bumped by hand to his face and I believe I accidentally used a bit too force. I got scared that I did it too hard. And I felt the urge to replicate the same move to check that it didnt hurt him and i shouldn't have done it I should have ignored the call of uncertainty, and I bumped my dorsal part of the hand on his face repeatedly to check any sign, i was replicating similar "force" to make sure I didn't hurt him going one slight step above of a gentle tap. It was like a slight stiffer tap, but not hard, but still stiff... Like I would feel the compulsive urge to try to bump my hand slightly harder to his face and that would make me feel horrible and wanting me to check it again... My cat wasn't hurt, but I think he had a confused face, my brain is telling me that he ran away and that he had a hurt face, the first thing i dont think so and the latter I believe it. I felt so guilty I thought I was an abuser. And I checked the same thing on my other female cat but she was just annoyed, she didnt feel hurt. This has been on my mind for a long time and I've been obsessing abt. Just now I compulsively tested "abuse" on my cat. i started tapping on her head lightly with my fingers. it didnt hurt her, she didnt react at all, but the first time she lowered her ears but not in a hurt way more like she was a bit annoyed by my antics, or i think it's just the nervous area because cats generally lower their ears when someone touches their head. I started tapping from her back like people do to their cats because the cats enjoy it and i used the same "energy" and slowly went to her head to see if it hurt her. and a medium tap (not hard) that didnt hurt her triggered me a lot, felt like i had done already something that was too hard. and i spiraled and kept doing the same thing to see if it hurt her. like if i do it to myself it doesnt hurt at all. and my cat didnt react at all she didnt move an inch and didnt even meow. she didnt care. i increased the power a slightly to hear more the sound of the tap and I got increasingly worried. but i kept tapping her too much. i couldn't stop. i had to check continuously that the tap before didnt sound as harsh like it did. like she didnt flinch or hiss or move at all. her ears lowered a bit probably because it was unpleasant. i would try to go above one slight step above gently tapping to see what would happened because i couldn't stand uncertainty and i couldn't believe that it could hurt her. it was never hard, but the medium taps felt abuse. when my cat headbutts she uses more strenght than i used to tap her head... to describe the tap it would be like similar to when your friend taps your shoulder to say "good job" or to encourage you. probably a bit less then that...