Repost from AmITheAsshole
I (19F) went through something traumatic pretty much a year ago on the dot. Recovering from it required me to basically reshape my whole life; I was dorming up at a university, and since that traumatic event I have moved back home, transferred schools, and started therapy, among other measures. Last year, while I was still reeling from what had happened, I didn’t want to believe that moving back home was the best thing for me (I was ashamed of it, really, and thought once I moved out I would never move back in, despite my home being a loving and welcoming one.) I wasn’t in the right emotional space to be making big decisions, and I wanted to do whatever I could to make the situation and the move back home less sh!tty, so I adopted two pet mice. They are female fancy mice, and their names are Stella and Luna. I love that they have their own little personalities despite being so little and unassuming.
Within the first couple months of having the mice, I noticed Stella's ear didn't look right - it was blood-red and sort of shriveled, as though it had gotten stuck in something. I don't understand, to this day, what happened or why. The cage they're kept in is one that is made for small pets such as hamsters or mice, and there was nothing dangerous in there. I considered maybe the two of them got in a fight, but from seeing them interact normally, that felt unlikely. Even now, Stella still has what I call a "nubby ear," but she still acts and appears happy and healthy.
After that, things were normal with the mice for a while. I was kind of starting to regret adopting them: they tend to smell bad (even with cleaning their cage twice a week), their little hamster wheel is loud at night, and I kind of started to feel I didn't love them as much as I, or someone else, could. I was passively considering rehoming them.
Then, a couple weeks ago, I noticed something concerning with Luna this time: both her hind legs appeared to be paralyzed, and in order to move, she would drag herself around with just her front two legs. I cried when I realized this, because it always sucks to have a sick pet, but also because I felt that I'd done something wrong or even failed to do something to prevent this. Luna's been getting better these days - she seems to be regaining feeling in her legs and is able to climb a bit now - but I'm still unsure of what to do.
Because of the lifespan of fancy mice, I know I'll only have two more years with them, tops. However, I don't know if I want that. Clearly, somehow, they keep getting sick/injured while in my care, so maybe I'm not the best carer for them - maybe it'd be all-around better if I gave them up. I can't rehome them now as I'd feel too awful giving away a more-or-less crippled pet to someone else, and frankly, I think anyone on the market looking for pet mice probably wouldn't want an incapacitated one. Getting the mice was supposed to ease me emotionally, but this taking care of them an their injuries has been doing just the opposite for me. I think I'll be really hard on myself, and start hating myself and be unable to forgive myself, if they died while in my care. And regardless of the if's: having them around is stress-inducing, cleaning their cage is a chore, and all in all, I don't think I want them anymore.
Yes, it was a mistake to ever adopt them in the first place, and "don't adopt a pet if you can't take care of it," but I did adopt them, and now I regret it and don't know what to do. Should I keep them and see them through? Or would it make more sense if I took them to a shelter and surrendered them?
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from Pets https://www.reddit.com/r/Pets/comments/qwa33q/thinking_of_surrendering_my_pets_but_not_sure_if/
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