My dad killed my cats

So far, my father has killed 3 of my best friends. When I was 15 he killed my first cat. He was a stray I took in and fed (with my father’s permission) and, aside from a bad habit of scratching the front door mat, he was a REALLY sweet cat. I had him for nearly two years when my father decided to shoot him in the side and leave him to rot in the backyard. Every night he would come home after roaming the neighborhood for the afternoon and tap the back door with his paw. He even learned to open the door by turning the door handle if he could find something to sit on. One day he came home and my father leapt from his armchair (where he would spend nearly every hour of every day) and went outside with a pistol. I heard what I thought was a shot but didn’t know what he had actually done until I found my cat the next morning lying dead in what used to be our backyard garden.

He was the only friend I had. My parents decided to take me out of school the year prior and rarely let me leave the house. I had no friends, and no one in the family I could talk to or relate to. I spent (and still do) most of my day doing chores for my parents. The only thing I really had to look forward to was reading when I had the chance and the company of my cat. Loosing him really hurt.

About a year later I took in another stray cat. She looked a lot like my first cat, and her quirks reminded me of him. I had her for about a year until one day she had a litter of kittens in the alley behind our house. My father took the kittens in a box and dumped them curbside somewhere, and shot the cat and buried her in our backyard. I did nothing I know of to deserve this, and neither did the cat. She was never in the house or in his way, she would just show up in the morning and the evening when I would feed her and we’d play with a box of cat toys I bought from a lady I knew that lived on the corner of our block.

A year or two ago I took in another cat (I know, at this point is should’ve known better, but it gets unbelievably lonely at home). She was the absolute sweetest animal I have ever met. Like my previous cat, she would show up in the morning and evening and we would play in the backyard. She used to catch mice in the alley and leave them for me at the back door. One day my father was angry with me for not taking his side in an argument with my mother, and he threatened to kill her too. I tried to scare her off. I ignored her for a week, but she kept coming back every day. I showed her off and chased her up the next block, but still she kept coming. I even hosed her with a hose in hopes it would scare her off. I called a few nearby shelters, but they all told me I’d have to pay to have her picked up. I could bring her somewhere or go to a neighbor and ask if they’d like to take her in as I wasn’t allowed to leave the house. He got angry with me again one day and shot her in the side. I slept on the floor in the living room, and I hear her come up to the front door. My father got up from his char, picked up the pistol he kept by him all the time, and shot her off the step. Then he drug her over to the kitchen window and opened it, and left her to cry into the window all morning while he told me how worthless my feelings were.

I’m 19 now, and trying to move away for college (which is rather difficult with a GED) to get away from them. I don’t have much of a life or any friends to speak of, and it’s been incredibly lonely not having friends and loosing the only thing I had to keep company.

I just needed somewhere to vent I guess, I’ve been feeling a bit depressed lately. And I apologize for the grammar, I need glasses something terrible and I can barely see a thing on the screen.