Can’t live if it’s true

Four years ago our beloved adopted stray, Scruffy, was hit by a car. It was night and Dad had let her outside to go to the toilet. Usually she came back pretty quickly but this night she didn’t. I remember mum saying not to call her in case she was across the road. She never crossed the road but for some reason this night she must have. I remember feeling anxious when she wasn’t home because the worst had happened to our beautiful cat, Pudding, a few years before and it was too horrible to think of. ( i feel responsible for Pudding’s death as mum had gone to pick me up from work because I’m too scared to drive. My sister had gone with her because we both suffer from ocd and she was checking that she hadn’t hurt a cat when she’d driven to our house. Her ocd had been getting better except for when she was around me 😔. They would have put Pudding to bed earlier if they hadn’t gone to pick me up and she wouldn’t have been hit. It was the worst day of our lives apart from the day My Poppy died.)

As it got later, we did call Scruffy softly. I remember going outside and I think I sat down on the front steps and called her softly. I used to call her Scruffaluffagus. I don’t remember yelling. Dad went out with the torch and later returned with our beautiful girl, lifeless in his arms. It was unbearable.

I suffer with severe OCD and awful intrusive thoughts. I remember having many of these following her death and being anguished that Softy (her spirit) might think they were true. I was so upset and unwell for a very long time following Scruffy’s passing. I wrote many letters to my beloved Poppy asking him to take care of scruffy in heaven.

Two or three years later I had the awful intrusive thought/ idea that I had deliberately yelled out for Scruffy that night and caused her to cross the road in front of the car. Sometimes I have horrible intrusive thoughts about doing something horrible and it becomes so overwhelming that I feel like I will follow through with it. The thought was so disturbing that I remember sitting down and writing out what I remember happening that night and that I called her softly only when she didn’t come back after a long time. I wrote it down because I don’t trust my thoughts anymore. Having ocd makes you go over and over things until you aren’t sure what is real anymore. After I did this, I was able to let the awful idea go.

Until now. The thought came to me again the other day and I couldn’t dismiss it. I was going over in my head how I was responsible for beautiful Pudding’s death and then I thought that it was my fault that Scruffy died too. That I had yelled out her name because it was an overwhelming thought in my head and I had followed through. But then surely I would have remembered doing it and I wouldn’t have been able to live with myself knowing that I had deliberately caused her death. All I remember is being disbelieving and incredibly distraught after it happened. I don’t remember thinking I had killed her. But I could not live if it was my fault. I would not deserve to live and I wouldn’t want to live if It was true. I’m so scared and confused and I don’t know what is true anymore. I can’t live like this anymore. My animals are everything to me and I could not bear to continue my life knowing I had deliberately caused them pain and suffering when it was my job to protect them.