When I was much, much younger I spanked my puppy very hard. I still regret that.

I am an animal lover so this was so out of character for me. I was young and immature and worn out when this happened. Today I even walk carefully so as not to step on ants and I try to help animals whenever I can. I am moving towards becoming a vegetarian too.

We have free will but it isn't infinite. It is often restricted by obstacles from our past, our upbringing, our fears, strong emotions, even stress and fatigue. These block the full exercise of our free will. What diminished voluntariness diminishes freedom and what diminishes freedom diminishes responsibility.
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It wasn't like you sat down calmly and after much thought and reflection chose to hit your cat. So it is not like you "willed" that action from the deepest part of your being and did it with all your mind, heart, strength and soul.

Circumstances had a lot to do with what you did. And I'm sure you did and do thousands of little and big nice things for your cat.

Because of you, your cat is not a stray, not living on the streets facing terrible circumstances and dangers.

The fact that you regret what you did shows that your actions were not done with full knowledge, awareness and free will. Sometimes we exercise part of our free will but not all of it.

Sometimes the unfortunate things we do lead us to become people.

One of my heroes is Oskar Schindler. He rescued thousands of people from the Holocaust. But early in his life he was a spy for the Nazis. He regretted that and became a better person, a Holocaust rescuer.

I think you are a good person with the good heart. I hope you can find it in yourself to be merciful to yourself.

The kindness, understanding and mercy we owe to others, we also owe to ourselves. To be a truly loving person, one cannot hate oneself. We cannot be truly loving people if we love others but hate ourselves.

If you met a person who hit a cat, I'm sure you would try hard to be understanding and compassionate. So I hope you will find ways to be able to be that way toward your self someday.

I really empathize with you and wish I knew what to say that would help you. My heart goes out to you.

Yao Wen