I love this cat, I love all my cats, but Holly was so tiny when we got her and still wanting to nurse, Most cats will do happy feet when they are feeling the warmth and goodness of being safe with mom again, Holly makes her way to my chest and licks my neck as if to nurse. I let her do it because I'm as needy for that feeling of being loved by a baby as she is for being loved by a mommy.
Her urinating behavior reminds me of the foster kids actually. Holly is a cat with a tiny cat brain and the only way she can deal with the overwhelming feelings of abandonment and fear is to urinate on a possession of mine when I return to let the world know I'm hers.
Foster kids have such bigger brains and the same over whelming feelings of fear and abandonment. How do we expect kids to just take it in stride dealing with sudden moves, not knowing when things are going to get back to their normal. The smells of parents house, food, cigarettes...the sounds of a house have a rhythm tv sounds quarreling, music. The feel of home furniture, mattresses, their own clothes washed or unwashed the way it has been everyday before the authorities got involved.
All of that is taken away from them when they go into care. And then again each time they get placed in a new foster home. All those feelings of loss and abandonment and fear, self blame, anger they become their own weather systems inside the kids, and as I foster mom I have seen those storms rising and moving inside each of my kids.
I'm not going to be able to get my cat to understand that I'm not abandoning her. The best I can do is make some quality time to cuddle her before I go and leave her something that smells on me in one of her sleeping places, then giver her more cuddle time when I get home. Hopefully I can alleviate some of her anxiety.
I wish I understood this when I had troubled kids in my house. That sometimes its ok to not address the troubling behavior, but to reassure the kid. Teaching them to FEAR consequences when they are already overwhelmed by fear and anxiety seems like throwing gasoline on a fire then blaming the fire for getting hotter.
There were some behaviors of the kids in my house that I took personally. And I felt like a failure when I couldn't help them stabilize-feel relaxed and safe.
Distance and Holly have helped me see it was never personal even when I was targeted. It was just the only way the kids could deal with what was going on with them at the time.
I mean after Michael was in the hospital and we were both gone for a week, Holly peed in my game bag from Metatopia. That felt really personal. No more so than I imagine me not coming home one day and staying away felt to my very needy little cat. She's powerless and tiny and doesn't speak my language, and yet I think she got her message quite clear.
Being angry at her is not going to get her to stop. I'm not even sure if she can stop.
Being as I'm going to Metatopia, PhillyGamesCon, Nerdly, & Dexcon, I know she's going to do it again, but I know why. So maybe if I give her extra time, before and after I go and leave her the nightie I last slept in to cushion her bed, she won't feel so abandoned. Either way soap is cheap enough,
This is Holly-
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