My memory of this is super vague and might even be mixing multiple books.
When I was a kid, I had a book that I think was a short story anthology, but the stories might have been from multiple books. (Sorry for the uncertainty.) I've been trying to figure out what this book is, on and off, for years because I keep mentioning it and no one knows it.
One of the short stories is absolutely Taily Po, though perhaps a sanitized version of it. I remember being very proud of the voice I made up for the original owner of the Taily Po as I read the story to my mother while we drove around.
Another is about a girl who died, or perhaps was murdered, then came back to life. My only memory of that is that, when the girl was resurrected, she said she became very familiar with needles because your consciousness was retained by your body even after you passed. In the story, she used this familiarity with needles to paralyze (I think) her murderer without him noticing the injection. As a child, the idea horrified me for a while, mainly due to the concept of being buried while conscious ... Though the girl described her autopsy (which I guess is how she learned about needles) and that sounded pretty awful as well. In case it helps, I think this revelation came about when the murderer was sitting in the front seat of a truck and, unbeknownst to him, the girl was in the back seat. An ally of hers was driving the truck. It's also possible the girl was a zombie rather than being brought back to life.
Finally, with almost no plot details I can recall, there was a story about a kid losing their cat. I believe the cat came back to life but with malice, similar to Pet Sematary, which I didn't hear of until decades later. On the cover of the book - and my main memory of it, other than the location where I sat while I read it - the cat was depicted floating upside down outside of (presumably) the kid's bedroom window. From memory and possibly inaccurate, the cover of the book was mostly purple; the cat was floating outside of a window with a golden frame, centered in the image; and the night sky beyond was fairly typical, though I remember it having a greenish tinge. Everything was somewhat cartoonish in depiction. The cat was a calico and, again, upside down.
Typing this out, these all feel like very different tones for stories, so it was probably at least two different books, if not three. The main one I've been trying to remember is the one with the cat, but I'd welcome any insight on the two that aren't Taily Po.
Thank you in advance!
I don't check this account very often, so apologies for the delayed response.
Three days ago, you said you were getting assessed "today." What did the assessment entail? If you're comfortable sharing (and it sounds like you will be), what were the results? In the subsequent two days, have you felt liberated (regardless of diagnosis)?
Thank you very much for your answer (both the one you already posted and any follow-up).