Cat Intuition

Lately I've been experiencing a down-point. Every once in a while I go through periods between 2-10 days of feeling pretty low, today is one of them. These periods are matched by a few weeks of feeling normal and comfortable, and then short periods of extreme productivity and happiness. It makes it difficult to tell what I want to do in the short-term future, and decide on a correct path to take in my life/job/hobbies, and therefore commit to anything, because it changes based on my mood. It can get pretty self-loathing and chaotic up there in that brain of mine, but I know that it will eventually go away, which is reassuring. Today my dear american friend helped me out with some socializing therapy, which really helped me out. I find that my down points are amplified by my unfamiliarity with where I live, and the fact that I'm not very close to anyone here except my husband who has very little experience with depression, and doesn't experience mood swings. I'm really glad though that I've been able to break the socially-awkward shell of mine at least with one person where a coffee date can actually help me out and not add to my chaos. When I got home, I figured it was time for blog therapy.

It amazes me still how my cats are always in tune with how I am feeling. On my up days and down days, no matter what they always seem to respond in a way that matches with how I'm feeling. They both have extremely different personalities, so it is really interesting how one of them usually compliments my mood while the other reflects it in himself.

For example, this is Cole.

He's a big lummox. Super chill, super cuddly, likes to be all over you and doesn't understand how heavy he is when he flops on your chest. He's a fairly social boy, will literally eat anything including string and wasabi cheese, and at the age of 7 still has the potential to play and get excited, but only for a few minutes at a time.  Cole is excellent at helping me calm down, and helping me fix my emotional problems. If I'm feeling down, like today and yesterday, he will provide me with whatever he thinks I need to fix the problem. Yesterday, it was suffocating face-smothering cuddles and kneading his paws so hard into my stomach that it was starting to make me nauseous. Today, it was the same amount of cuddles, but also, he was acting very chaotic and kitten-like. He was distracting me from my mood by getting into everything he possibly could that would make me have to get up and remove him, so I wasn't thinking about feeling down. After about a half an hour or so of trying to open my dresser drawers with his paws and knocking over my hair products on my vanity, chewing on the corner of my laptop and crawling behind my headboard and getting stuck, he felt that my brain had been exercised enough and is now taking a break by sleeping on my feet.

 

 This is James. He knows he is extremely handsome, as you can see in this picture. He likes having his picture taken, he walks slowly across the apartment, never rushes anywhere, and the only time he ever gets excited is at a laser pointer or when he is running away from the terrifying sound of a plastic bag being rustled. James has anxiety just like me, except I don't pee on couches when I'm stressed out. When I am stressed out, he is usually stressed out. He isn't very social, and it takes him a long time to build trust in new people, and will act out by peeing or pulling out his fur when he is feeling anxious or uncomfortable. He is very delicate, and cautious, takes very light steps and takes a long time to decide if he's going to socialize with a person or not, even me.  I can tell that it is going to be a down day, or that a down day is coming up soon when James is having a down day, and when I am feeling up and comfortable, so is he. The interesting part though, is sometimes when I am feeling blue, especially lately since he has finally become comfortable in this house, he will act like this in the picture. Overly sweet, overly cute, rolling around begging for belly rubs, and headbutting me in the back on the leg. His way of telling me that everything is going to be okay is my smashing his face into  my face when I am laying in bed.

Both my boys are really great at helping me out during mood swings, like seriously, this is what I am dealing with right now as I type this:

mum srsly, wut u need?

 However something I also noticed that is different now than before when I lived in Canada is that I'm not constantly surrounded by animals all the time. I used to volunteer for a shelter back home, and fostered cats and puppies, helping train and rehabilitate them in order to be adoptable. Then I would take them through the adoption process and help match them to families wanting dogs that applied. Seeing these puppies go from near-bait dogs (since many of them were imported from Northern BC or even Southern California, where pit mixes and small breeds were very commonly used for dog-fighting) to well-socialized, behaved and in loving families, really gave me all the fuzzies plus a sense of purpose.  These days, I have my boys, but they more or less take care of themselves  so I have a very stagnant routine day in and day out, that isn't difficult and doesn't exactly make me feel like I am contributing to society. So the other day I looked into volunteering at the animal shelter here, which I was terrified to do before because obviously it meant I'd have to interact with other humans. Now though, I really feel like it would help, and at least one of the shelter workers speaks english really well, so we've been corresponding via e-mail and I'm going in on Saturday.

I've also started to track my mood. I'd seen it used by other people before but didn't really think I needed it. In fact, I am in this constant battle with myself about the fear of being diagnosed with something vs the desire to be told that there is a reason for my rollercoaster mood swings, vs this little nagging voice that tells me "pfft you're just overreacting." I am going to see a therapist soon, after a doctor's appointment on Friday, and hopefully this mood tracking chart I found online will actually help them, and help me. Here is what i'm using, i've already tracked the last two days:

We'll see how it goes, until then, I am at least taking the time today to work at bringing down my anxiety levels. Unfortunatley I do have to make another stressful phone call today, but until then I am enjoying being suffocated by this giant lump of a cat sitting on my stomach.