Once you've grown up, parents often still think they know what's best for you and will try to make decisions for you.
But when one woman's parents made the decision to have her cat put down without talking to her about it first, that was going much too far.
Redidit user "TGxNihilum" shared in the "Am I the A$$hole?" subReddit the story of how she decided not to speak to her parents anymore after they took away her final moments with her cat.
The Reddit user explained she was dealing with health problems and did not think she could lift her cat's carrier by herself. However, he appeared to have a little cold and was due for shots, so she knew a vet visit was in order.
She made the plans with her parents, who would take her cat to the vet for her, while she prepared for an evening with them.
"For context: I'm 28, the vets office is literally 10 minutes away."
"I had them take him because I have two herniated disks and can't carry the carrier and open the multiple doors and hold the carrier without fear of dropping it. I thought he had a little cold with the only reasoning being that his ears felt a little warm, he wasn't eating as much as he normally does and he was due for his shots anyway. So I cooked dinner for all of us while they took him to the vet on my dime."
She regularly checked in, so she could be as involved in the appointment as possible.
"I called them after an hour and asked how things were going and my father told me everything was good and he had a little fever."
But she soon realized she wasn't kept as involved as she should have been.
"Fast forward another hour, they come back and let themselves in and I open the door to my mother sobbing and my father slinking in the corner. Turns out the vet found a large mass on his Kidney and suspected it was stage 3-4 cancer. So my parents, without calling me, had him put down to 'spare my feelings'."
Of course, like any loving pet owner, she was enraged.
"I told them both to leave and that I never wanted to speak to them again. That it wasn't their decision to make and they should have called and told me the situation so I could at the very least say good bye and be with him. That by failing to tell me, they stole an opportunity for any closure I could have. I raised that cat from a feral kitten with his mother and his brother from the time he had his eye's open. He was only 10."
Not wanting to take the blame, her parents began deflecting her anger.
"I'm equally heart broken and furious and they can't seem to understand why. They proceeded to berate and belittle me, going as far as to say I wasn't sad, just angry and that I was: "ruining a beautiful and tragic moment" and that it was my fault because I didn't go with them."
She reached out to Reddit, to ask if she was being over-the-top in reacting this way, but Reddit offered a resounding 'no,' as she should have been involved in this decision.
"Do they often take your circumstances as an excuse to misbehave emotionally? I'd recommend calling the vet and making sure that they're being honest that a)the cat was put down, and b) it's for the reason they said it was. It is pretty weird to diagnose a cat with kidney cancer during a walk-in appointment, even if you're there an hour or two." - RememberKoomValley
"If you can do it rationally, go to the vet immediately and confirm their story. Make sure they know that you're the owner of the cat. Bring any paperwork you have confirming ownership. Ask if you can talk to the vet that diagnosed him to confirm that putting him down was the right thing to do. It might give you some sense of closure to hear that your parents—however misguided they were about not telling you—were acting in the cat's best interest." - Robbylution
"Same-day blood work? Even my expensive, downtown emergency clinic doesn't do same-day (let alone same-hour!) blood work. I call BS."
"Also - were they aware this wasn't your parents cat? Or is the cat listed as belonging to your parents? If not, then the vet clinic let someone else make major medical decisions for YOUR pet. So many questions." - digsher
"Yeah, it seems like they expected an emotional reaction, but not this one. They wanted her to shed a tear and thank them for being the ones to generously share her cat's last moments when she was not able to."
"It seems like they wanted to steal her emotions. Like maybe they think OP is not expressive and open enough with them, so they inserted themselves into her relationship with her pet, in order to feel some sort of connection with her. (Which, needless to say, is psycho.)" - sthetic
This is such a heartbreaking and difficult situation to be in, knowing that those final moments were taken away from her, and knowing her parents really don't want to hear about it.
Hopefully with the help of her fellow Redditers, she will be able to decide how she wants to proceed in talking or not talking with her parents.
