What having a Cat has Taught me about Attachment Styles

“I have lived with several Zen masters -- all of them cats.” ― Eckhart Tolle

The last time I owned a cat I was around six. Sheeba was an outdoor cat. She showed up covered in spurs looking for food. She was moody and brushed off my bumbling childhood advances.

Our relationship ended in tragedy when my mom accidentally ran her over with the family car. I was in the front seat. I remember seeing her writhe as she took her last breathes.

For months when I was riding the bus to school my heart would lurch with fear every time I heard a thump, sure we had murdered an animal. From that moment on I never liked cats, until around my mid thirties.

Suddenly, as I returned to a more feminine and nurturing version of myself, cats seemed to be drawn to me and I to them. 

In the small town where I live in Costa Rica there is one vegetable stand. I was there a couple months ago, freshly single and full of heartbreak, buying plantains and papaya.

I pointed out to the middle aged apron-clad and kind-eyed lady running the shop that there was a large cat amongst the pineapples. She smiled and told me that she had just had kittens.  I had been telling people I was going to adopt a cat without any real intention of doing it, one of those casual sort of lies I dropped in to find common ground with near strangers.

Now the universe seemed to have called my bluff, and when she handed me an adorable kitten with tiger stripes and blue eyes I knew I couldn't say no. 

I rode home with the tiny furball on my front seat. I'd never had a pet as an adult. Well, once a hamster that I had given away after college and have no idea where he ended up.

My adult life had been so full of sudden moves across continents and cathartic purgings of possessions, that I never felt safe to accumulate anything larger than a tee shirt.  It was a risk adopting a cat. What if I wanted to take off for Mexico next week? 

I'd just done something very unlike me though. I'd gone through a break up and not fled the country in search of something to save me. My body was saying no, it was saying no more movement. Stay where you are even if it's imperfect.

So I was staying, and now the furball was staying with me. I had no idea how to have a cat but did have a newly nascent confidence that I could figure things out as I went.

He mewed, and I suddenly remembered something. I had to name him! I hadn't even thought of that. I looked at him, my mind drawing a blank. The concept of naming another creature seemed so foreign. I started the car and we drove off together.

The first couple days were confusing. Suddenly there was this other thing in my home that breathed and needed to be fed. I relived traumatic memories of accidentally starving my Tamogachi in second grade.

Friends reassured me that the kitty would cry if I forgot to feed him. He followed me around my tiny home, constantly underfoot. I was really busy ruminating over my ex and moving in and out of hysterical crying and the furball was interrupting the obsessive flow with his basic needs. 

Enter Avoidance

One morning I was sitting in meditation and he was doing his usual thing of jumping on me and scratching me.  He needed something. He needed me. He wanted to be around me. Why? Didn't he know that I was worthless? That if he needed me I'd just disappoint?

Something broke inside me. The six-year old child version of me that had developed emotional avoidance to protect herself from a mom that relied on her too much lashed out 'GET AWAY FROM ME, STOP!’ I shouted.

'Please, please, stop. Please leave me alone.' Years of stuck grief poured out as I rocked back and forth and the furball stared inquisitively at me, and gingerly put his tiny paw on my knee.

Later that day after some hours of emotional purging, a lighter me danced around the kitchen making strange sounds as I often do when alone. 

I looked at him 'Ta-ta-ta-ta...Tahini!' He looked up, and so he was named. 

Enter Anxiety

Several weeks later Tahini hit the cat version of the terrible twos. Whereas before the playful attacking was punctuated by moments of chest cat where he would snuggle up under my neck like a little sausage and we would breathe together, we had now shifted into near 24-7 attacking.

If I was working on my computer, he was jumping on my computer. If I was eating dinner he was clawing his way up my leg. If I was doing yoga he was running across the room and slashing my face with his claws. If I was sleeping, he was biting my chin at 3am.

He started spending more time outside, playing in the garden. Sometimes he'd disappear for  hours, and I'd wander around forlornly crying his name, sure he'd been eaten by a hawk. 

I became anxious, uncomfortable with the change and nostalgic for the beginning when it was all sunshine and rainbows, 'Tahini, remember when we used to do more chest cat? Let's go back to that. Now all you do is attack me, do you not love me anymore?'

I took him to visit a friend who also has a cat. At first they were wary of each other, then began to play and run around, attacking each other and rolling on the floor. All the moves he'd done with me he was doing with this new cat. 

'Maybe you should get Tahini a friend, then he'd have someone to play with!' My friend suggested.

'Heh yes that would be cute.' I smiled. Inwardly, I was unsure. 

Tahini and I discussed it that evening. 

'Would you like a friend?' He looked at me. 

'Well if I get you a friend you'd have someone to play with, you'd be getting your needs met and you'd probably attack me less.' He looked at me.

'But if you have someone to play with maybe you'll play together all the time and then you won't want to play with me. Maybe a new kitty would change everything. Maybe it would break our bond.'

He ran off to chase a moth on the wall.  I became vigilant of his moves, seeing the potential for abandonment everywhere. The more anxious I became, the more I tried to pick him up and cuddle. Each time he squirmed away I took it as an affirmation of his rejection. 

Enter Secure

The more time we spent together, the more we established our routines and trust.

Each morning I'd wake to Tahini trying to bite my nose, then I'd make the bed as he dashed in and out from under the sheets. He'd then disappear for an hour, but he always came back and climbed into my lap as I meditated.

In the afternoon we'd cat nap together. He would go play with other cats but I felt safe knowing we were bonded. 

Today we went to the vet. There were some other kitties for adoption there. We met them, Tahini shared a meal but the spark wasn't really there. 

We're open to exploring bringing in another kitty but it will happen when the time is right. It might change our bond, but it won't break it. Maybe we will have even more love with another kitty here.

For now though, as I write this, Tahini sits on my lap napping and being a little sausage, most assuredly to wake up soon and attack me.