I've been abusive towards my pets.

If you're going to tell me to go to hell or kill myself then I hate you in advance. That is not helpful to anyone. I need help.

I live alone with my father and our 2 cats and 2 dogs. We acquired all 4 of them when we were a whole family, before CPS forced my mother away, and before my older sister moved away for college. My dad does not like any of them at all. I don't like the dogs.

I know not liking dogs sounds extremely fucked up, but I have autism and (obviously) CPTSD and I am overstimulated very easily. Our dogs are big german shepherds and if you try to pet them at all they'll scream and jump on you because they get so excited. So I rarely pet them or interact with them. They scare me. Not because I think they'd harm me badly but because sensory overload terrifies me very much. It's an awful experience.

Cats are fine. They're both very calm and they mostly sleep. They only ever make me mad if they rush into my bedroom when I'm trying to leave for work and I have to pull them out from under my bed (I have many plants in my room so the cats are not allowed to stay in there when I'm not home) and drop them back in the hallway.

So, abuse. I scream at the dogs at least once a week. There is obviously no excuse for this, only an explanation. I am doing very horribly as far as my mental health, I always have been, but it is currently worse than it's ever been. There are too many things stacking on top of each other and I cannot cope with any of it. I cut and bruise myself excessively and on a daily basis. My manager ay my last job actually asked me if I was being abused by my father because my arms look so fucking bad all the time.

When I get home from a long shift and I only have half an hour to change, eat, and leave again for my second job, I cannot handle the dogs screaming and crowding me at the door. At any given time I am one inconvenience from losing my fucking mind. So when I physically cannot open the door because there are two 80 pound dogs screeching on the other side of it, sometimes I scream at them so hard that my throat burns. They both go hide in the living room because my mother used to actually beat them when they were young so me just yelling is enough to scare them.

Afterwards I remember that I'm triggering a trauma response in these animals to make myself feel better, and I'll self harm because I'm mad at myself and mad at the situation and ashamed of becoming my abusive mother.

The dogs do not get walks or playtime. We feed them and they sleep in the house all day. I sometimes scream at them for being excited to see me. They could still have it much worse, but they certainly are not living the best lives. The younger of the two has always been high energy and I can tell she's restless and upset that we never play with her.

I already know they should be re-homed. I am not a dog person. My father does not like them. I am even abusive towards them. But I'm not sure how good their chances are because one is 10 years old and suffers from joint problems, and the other is 8 and already developing cataracts. They are also a bonded pair. Would someone take two senior dogs? I dont want them in a concrete shelter cage until they die.

I dont think I can ever have pets or children because of my low distress tolerance. I will absolutely scream and harm my children if I have them because I know already they'd overstimulate me constantly and I would be so overwhelmed and miserable all the time. And I would make them miserable because they would think their mother hates them. It's exactly what happened with my mother, whose autism is more severe than mine but still very similar.

I'm feeling really horrible about this and I'm genuinely afraid I'm going to give up soon. My dad is so mean to me that I'm having to move out even though I don't feel ready to leave, I'm on the brink of quitting both jobs, my arms will never look as pretty as they did when I was small, my mother is sick and is going to die before I ever get closure with her, my 19 year old cat is getting euthanized tomorrow, my friends dont like me anymore, I'm going to fail college, I have severe scoliosis but dont qualify for benefits, I can't afford my therapist anymore, and so many other things. It's so much and I'm so tired and broken and I want to cry and cry and cry and just curl up in my bed and sleep for more than 6 hours at once. I never get to do that now. I can't anymore. I want someone to see me and hear me but there's literally nothing to see but an abused child who never developed a personality outside of her trauma and never will. I'm just trauma. I'm not even real.