How My Cat Taught Me to Stop Ignoring My Own Needs
By focusing on caring for him, I learned to care for myself
My cat is an anxious cat. He is a black cat with white markings underneath his chin and white paws which make it seem as though he’s wearing little boots. Whilst growing up I had one other cat, and I’ve spent time around various other cats belonging to friends and family. But of all the cats I’ve known, there has never been one who wails like my cat, my Jackson. My cat is not afraid to make his grievances known. He does not shy away from demonstrating his needs. If he does not get what he needs he will wail and wail until he does. He is not apologetic about this. In fact, I am almost certain he feels he is entitled to make his needs known. For this I commend him.
I picked Jackson up at eight weeks old, four years ago this summer, just a few weeks after I was discharged from a psychiatric ward where I had spent a month. Suffering an intense depressive episode, I no longer wanted the life I had been offered. I had lost that burning desire we are all born with, the one that makes you cling to life like a baby clings to their mother’s breast. After 6 months of grappling internally with a traumatic event, I could no longer ignore and bury my needs. They oozed out of me. They were heavy and viscid, and the flood barriers I had built to…
