This was a couple years ago, but I thought It might fit here.
When I was a young girl, around 12, we had a Persian cat. White and black, the runt of her family, and very hyper. We named her Rosy, because she was found in a rose bush. She was a sweetheart, following around people for pets, only jumping up after being called, and so much more.
I had really bad depression and paranoia, especially after our outside cat was flattened. We got her for comfort, and in hopes she would comfort me during nightmares.
She had a weird habit of following me around before I went to bed. But this was different from the usual rubbing against my legs, meowing for pets, and swiping my ankles with her tail.It was different.
She would yowl, in deeper, more panicked tones, scratch my legs if I walked past her, claw at my night gown to try and pull me back and away from my room.
Being a jumpy pre-teen, I was terrified. Had no idea why every day she acted like my bedroom was a hell spawn at night, but will lounge there all the time, when it’s day
I had a very active imagination. I used to have sleep paralysis moments, where I would get stuck in my bed, and voices would start talking to me. The cat we got was supposed to help ease the scariness of nighttime.…but Her reactions and behaviors only made it worse.
To get a better layout of my house at the time, I’ll take this paragraph to give some perspective.I live at the corner of the neighborhood. Right by the main exit, which leads to a boulevard road, and goes into the main town. We have a ditch behind the house, and some smaller neighborhoods surrounding the area.
My house is rather small.when you come in through the door, you are in the living room. It leads straight into a kitchen, which has a sliding door for the backyard.
To the left of the kitchen entrance is a laundry room and to the right, my parents Bedrooms. The hallway to the right (the other side of the living room) has my brother’s room, the bathroom, and then my room.
My room has a window, that lets you look into the backyard.My room had bunk beds lined against the back wall of the room. There’s an old wooden dresser for my sister, on the other side.
My older sister (Abby) was on the bottom, which stuck out and had some shelves. My bed was on top, and sideways compared to the way Abby’s bed sat. Along the left side of the beds set up, by the window, is my built in dresser (four drawers along the wall side of the bottom bed’s shelves.), and on the other side is the ladder. The right side has a built in desk, and There’s a closet right beside it. The room is small.
I never liked having the window open at night. Having super sensitive hearing, I would wake to the sounds of neighbors in their backyards, cars driving by, etc. And it fed those paralysis moments. There would be someone walking on the sidewalk behind the house, and I would convince myself they’d be trying to jump the fence (Which wouldn’t be the first time.)
My cat learned to climb the ladder of my bed to comfort if I was having a little episode, and she was leave after I fell asleep.
But after about a year of having her, things started changing. She would get more violent, and more upset every time I went off to bed. Which cause more paralysis episodes because of the paranoia.
Eventually, my parents would start putting melatonin in my vitamin gummies before bed, so I would just stay asleep. Which they quickly regretted.being the lightest sleeper, I wake up to the slightest sounds. And one day, a group of rowdy teens had jumped the fence while we were asleep, and started digging up the far corner of the backyard. At first this made no sense. Why the corner?
well, it turned out that corner was the place we would put our deceased pets. A mini graveyard if you will. And the kids were digging up the courses and taking them off to somewhere. This went on for a while. Unnoticed.
Until I forgot to take my vitamins one night, and woke up, hearing them close to the window.
I panicked and ran to my parents, room, and they went to go check. And sure enough. Three freshman in the neighborhood who were known for jumping our fence, taking off the screen to our window, and slipping into my room while my sister and I were asleep, were right there, with the corpse of my recently deceased cat…
I ended up listening to my cat more often, and sleeping in the living room with my brother.