Maturation

In many ways growing up is similar to grieving.

Sure, there are gains, skills earned, and new experiences to be had, but getting older involves a great deal of loss.

As we age, we constantly lose securities and familiarity. The world we have grown to know, changes around us, and we are repeatedly forced to give up things we love.  Over and over again, we are expected to say goodbye to the only things we have ever known. Unknowingly, we leave behind old versions of ourselves as we indulge our maturational tendencies.  Then, we reach a point when we realize we no longer are who we once were.

As a group, we give much of our attention to celebrating milestones.  We honor achievements, and we rejoice at annual accomplishments. However, all too often we forget that getting older means leaving something behind.

Feeling It Out

Image found here

I express myself more than most.  I talk about how I feel.  I get it out there.  This makes others uncomfortable.

In general, people dislike negative emotions. We see them as bad feelings that must be fixed.  When confronted with unpleasant emotions, we go to great lengths to get rid of them.  Mothers shush their babies, begging them not to cry. Teachers offer incentive plans, pleading with children to be good.  Over and over again we urge one another to turn our frowns upside down or to grin and bear it.  We rush to put band-aids on owies and wipe tears off cheeks. With the best intent, we try to replace pain with pleasantries.  In doing so, we push away bad feelings thinking they will stay where we put them.  Only they don't.

Life is full of stress.  Unfortunately, negative emotions are all around us.  We do ourselves a great disservice by avoiding upsetting feelings.  Setting aside distress momentarily alleviates anguish.  However, avoidance is negatively reinforcing.  It relieves us of stress, and deprives us of frustration tolerance skills.  The irony is that ignoring pain enhances our sensitivity to it.

In recognizing this phenomenon, I do the only thing I can do.  I acknowledge my feelings.  Initially I make no effort to fix them.  I allow myself to cry, yell, pout, or feel lost.  I recognize the sensation, and I identify the source.  Where appropriate, I express the feeling.  Often, this manifests as honest responses to inquiries about my mental state which results in bewildered expressions as others try to avoid that which I have not.

Crazy Cat, Lady

In the interest of transparency, I have nothing profound to share with you today.  I thought about trying to pull something deep out of the recesses of my mind, but to be totally honest I have more important things going on this week.  My licensing exam is coming up, and I am only on chapter 2 of 5 in the recommended study book.  So, to follow through with my commitment to weekly Monday Musings, I decided to provide you with something superficial.  The story of my cat.

Growing up I had a cat named Mallory who was essentially my best friend.  This is not to say that I was antisocial.  I had human friends.  I was just particularly bonded to ole Mallory.  So bonded, that I took her to college with me.  Unfortunately, I didn't get to see her through to the end of her life.  Halfway through my freshman year, she escaped out the front door of the apartment.  Being an indoor only cat in a brand new neighborhood many miles from home, she didn't know her way home.  We never found her.

Fast forward to last year, when I was living with my sister for the summer, and a stray kitten literally wandered in our back door. It seemed almost poetic, my last cat walks out the front door, my next cat walks in the back door.  However, logistically and financially I couldn't justify keeping her. So I dubbed her Schrödinger because she seemed to exist simultaneously in two realities.  She was my cat, and not my cat. I spent the better part of two months searching for her prior home and trying to find her a new home.  We bonded during that time, and I quickly realized she hard carved out a place for herself in my world.  This is when "Dinger" became my cat.

Over the last year I learned her personality as she climbed the door frame, searched the fridge, rode my bike, and helped me study.  She was an odd little creature, but she was my odd little creature. After a few months, I expected she'd begin to settle down.  I hoped her maturing body and developing mind would eventually calm to a more regulated less rambunctious feline composure.  Only, it didn't.  She seemed to get more behavioral.  She began to defiantly climb on the kitchen table, bat jewelry off the rack, scratch walls and doors, and actually dug a whole in my carpet in an attempt to enter my bedroom.

I've been in behavioral health for quite some time, and wasn't phased by most of this.  Though I did feel at a loss for consequences when I learned that she loved being sprayed with water....  Right?! It wasn't until recently when she began urinating on my items that I thought a visit to the vet was in order.  So, this weekend we toted our little Ding-Ding to the doctor, and expressed exasperation at sleepless nights brought on by a restlessly needy kitty cat.

In an ironic twist of fate, I learned that Schrödinger's behavior fit an OCD diagnosis, and that she might respond to treatment with anxiety medications.

And that's the unremarkable story of how a crazy cat found a