I know you're asleep and I tried to go back to bed also, but I keep having nightmares of childhood memories and I've NEVER told anyone about this and I'd like if you didn't either, even when you meet my mom...

The reason I'm so terrified she's going to do something to my cats is because it's something she's known to do. While I was growing up, she's done some terrible and incredibly scarring things that I've never opened up about before because every time I try she immediately denies it and tells me some bullshit story about what "actually happened" and for a while, I believed that maybe I did just make everything up. But while I was laying in bed I thought about the things I caught her doing and came to the realization that it was all very real. But it wasn't just my cats, that went for any animal I've ever had and poured "too much" love into.

Michaelangelo - My first dog; A golden lab puppy who was a gift to me from mom's boyfriend for my birthday. I was VERY young. This is around the time I was living with my grandma on the weekdays and staying with mom on the weekends. I loved that dog a lot. Then he dies suddenly. Mom said that her boyfriend "poisoned" him but I knew he'd have never done that because he knew it would affect my happiness, and there was nothing he cared about more.

Damian - Still my most loved dog to this day. Damian was literally the perfect dog. He was loving but protective, especially when it came to me because I grew up with him. According to her, we needed to get rid of him and instead of putting him in the shelter, she made me go outside with her where she let him off the leash and wouldn't let him follow us. She literally made me watch while she possibly left my best friend to die. I was still very young. That was one of the most hurtful moments of my life.

Felicia - This one messed me up the most. I still have nightmares about it since I was a kid and I constantly blame myself for it, too. It's one of the hardest stories to tell when it comes to my pets and really is what lead to this deep-rooted hatred I have for my mother and one of my brothers, Jerome.

Felicia was a cat that belonged to my step-father, he used to live right next to us. When he moved out, he gave my Felicia because he knew how much I would love and appreciate that cat. I was very young, at least in the single digits. Felicia could be a little mean sometimes because she was still getting used to her new home, sometimes she'd bite me but I didn't care and loved her anyway. It wasn't anything that left any serious injuries, she never broke the skin and she never made me bleed.  My mother told me to tell her the next time she bit me and like a fool, I believed that she'd actually do something to help. She didn't.

Felicia usually hung out under my bed, so she dragged her out from beneath it and put her in a white mesh laundry bag and gave it to my brother who swung it with her inside of it against the living room wall. And all I can remember was screaming for them to stop and they wouldn't listen, I was terrified and I was too small to do anything to stop it. When he finished beating her against the wall, they drowned her in the tub and hung up the mesh bag and told me not to touch it. But I did, I touched it because I thought maybe I could save her and get her out, but she wasn't moving anymore.
To this day, my mother swears that Felicia was "mauled by pit bulls" under my window and that's the lie she made me live with.

Shadow & his sisters - My black cat who was the sweetest and strongest cat. Shadow put up with so much shit over the years. I had him while I had Damian, and he was my support when mom made me abandon my dog. My mom always tried to kill Shadow but after Felicia, I was always on alert. She did manage to kill off his sisters by suffocating them. we had a clear plastic bin and she put them inside to punish them. I wasn't allowed to let them out but she assured me they had air because the top wasn't sealed completely and I made sure of that myself. Again, I was young and stupid so I went to take a nap. Apparently, she did too and when we woke up, they were dead and Shadow was just barely hanging on to his life.

That wasn't the end of it. Now I was old enough to be home alone while mom went to work. One morning I couldn't find Shadow and I panicked. I looked EVERYWHERE and remembered that cats usually like hiding under beds. I checked beneath mine, nothing. I checked under mom's and found him there with a cord tied around the leg of the bed with the other end tied around his neck. she had planned to strangle him beneath her bed without me knowing. But I saved him, I cut the cord and I was just in time. Mom was PISSED. I confronted her when she came home and she tried to say that he did it to himself when it's VERY clear it was the work a human. At that moment, I knew that even when caught red-handed, she'll always fucking deny being the disgusting scum she really is.

Cali - My sweet Calico. I loved her to death and mom knew that. she couldn't stand Cali, and that's why she threw her into the incinerator and blamed some neighborhood kids. When I left for school I could hear a meowing coming from the chute. Lucky for Cali, the incinerator wasn't flaming up that day so the management had to check it out. They got her out for me and I knew that the only way to save her was to give her away, and I let her go to a neighbor of mine who took care of Cali until that cat died of NATURAL causes, not being murdered. And that is the only happy ending in this collection of stories.

The animals that escaped death at the hands of my mother were abandoned on the streets, simple as that. I remember telling you that my mother wasn't a terrible person, but I only said that because she was listening to me. She's the most disgusting human being I know and the only thing keeping me here is the fact that I have to make damn sure she doesn't kill my cats. Because I know if I take my eyes off of them, they're done for.