I am impressed how the writer knows exactly what’s going on. She’s identified the shadow cat and knows the actual cat is fine, it’s all in her mind. And she’s very aware of the grief, pain and anxiety relating to her mother that has become displaced onto her cat. The difficulty is the separation.
How to do ‘the work’? Will the anxiety gradually lift as she keeps telling herself what’s going on, ‘there goes Fluffy’? Or as she processes the grief and lets go of her carer’s anxiety? How to get head and heart to match up?
I wonder if a ritual might help. When Fluffy goes out, can she engage directly with Shadow and start to lay him to rest, maybe drawing a picture, knitting or crocheting a blanket for him, singing him a song … I’m thinking of a practical caring activity for this invisible anxious creature that will help her nervous system to calm and step out of hyper-vigilance, and takes her away from the window.
What a beautiful response to a brilliant reply. I particularly love knitting or crocheting something for the shadow cat to relieve anxiety and work through grief.
This reminded me of my friend’s pug dog Euston who looked after my friend’s mum who had Alzheimer’s. He’d be by her side 24/7 ready to keep an eye on her and if she wandered out he’d know how to get her home! When she went to a residential home he was grieving for her and my friend couldn’t get him to rest - he was so used to being hyper vigilant and ready throughout the day and night - she took him to vet who said he was suffering with exhaustion having been ‘looking after’ my friends mum for years. I wonder if the LW is too - exhausted and grieving. Eventually with lots of attention and love my friend was able to calm him.
One of my young cats was killed recently and it unleashed a torrent of grief in the family. We haven't even been able to take our son out for sushi to celebrate exam results because the chance is too high that someone will say "Do you remember how much Billy loved fish" and then the 4 of us will have group hysterics and traumatise the innocent bystanders just trying to enjoy their sashimi.
While we all grieve, for my husband the loss of the cat has come to represent also a lot of other losses and traumas. The cat was killed by a vehicle and he is preoccupied with trying to solve the case. Where was the cat hit? By which vehicle? The cat was cautious and quick - how was this possible, etc?
It's clear to me (and to him) that his mind does this as a way of trying to solve the problem of feelings and that time spent trying to solve the Case of the Cat's Death is time spent on not thinking about every difficult thing - being vulnerable, not being able to protect someone you loved, the fear of bad things happening, experiences of bereavement. We encourage him to breathe through spasms of painful feeling (like when you bang your funny bone and you know this intense pain that seems out of proportion will hit AND that it will pass, we just need to wait it out). Or to think of the 'What If' thoughts as weather - clouds passing through. To see and acknowledge the thought and let it go.
I am anxious too. We have had two animal bereavements in one week (one dog, one cat) and I find myself super anxious about a surgery I am due to have and worrying about my own mortality and find myself researching what could go wrong as though that would help. So I take myself back to the root of the feeling and I try and stay with it as much as I can.
Sadness is normal, grief is normal, anxiety is normal. It's OK to be scared but trying to prevent bad things from happening is not a shield, only a toxin.
This is not a simple process obviously. It's hard for everyone to go where they feel vulnerable. My husband will still find himself thinking who killed the cat, I will find myself worrying that I will die. But we can do our best to see and process these thoughts -to let them flow through us (one breath at a time) and not get ourselves stuck in content. Or if we do find ourselves stuck to notice and gently step back and do something else instead.
(Eg 'I shall not think about dying because I shall scrub the tile grout instead'. My house has never been this clean.)
The LW is clearly an exceptionally kind and caring person. I resonate with the wish to keep our loved ones safe and I hope she will find a way to let shadow cats show up and pass through.
Dear Letter Writer, aww, thank you for sharing. Two things that come to me: one is, what if that ‘correct course of action’ you took with your mother was actually an act of love, and you were acting to keep your mother safe? Feeling safe and loved are the two most important things to a person at end of life, I think. The other is: I wonder if there were some feelings of relief when your mother passed, after those long years of caring for her alone? And whether some of this has turned into guilt, which gives fuel to the idea that you yourself are not worthy of love, only those you are caring for.
Thank you for sharing this LW, and your lovely and considered reply Phillipa. I read your Guardian article recently when you shared it, and recognised myself instantly, as I did here. My lovely cat Poppy was absolutely my shadow cat. A few years after she died, we rescued our lovely chonk Horace and it has been a totally different experience. We have been on holiday! The neighbours looked after him! He was fine! I didn't spend the whole holiday worrying! An unheard of phenomenon woth Poppy. I did worry it was because I didn't love him as much. These writings have allowed me to realise I absolutely do, I just understand and have worked on the parts of myself I was projecting onto Poppy. I love it when pets come into the therapy room (metaphorically but often literally if working online!), as it is an opportunity to 'de-minimise' the importance of our pets, and how society encourages us to not be 'too much' about it when they are ill/die. Warm wishes, from a proud 'cat lady'.
Oh how I relate to this! But unlike the LW I didn’t recognise until way more recently the displaced caring role that happened after my husband died, swiftly followed by having to PTS our beloved Jack Russell. Maude 🐈⬛ came into my life as a tiny bundle of joy 3 months after the house emptied of life and became a home again but just like the LW I became hyper-vigilant and a total worry wort. Four years on I have slowly and gently worked through my grief for everything and everyone lost and Maude has free range, except after darkness falls. She is now allowed to be a cat and I have allowed myself to accept that love and kindness don’t rely on me to create them, nor to invigilate at all times.
Dearest LW, follow the excellent advice of PP and a previous respondent; treat yourself to some of the love you bestow on your companion - you deserve it after everything you’ve been through. I wish you and your furry companion nothing but joy x
A very insightful letter and a very caring response.
I’m planning on getting a cat and have been worrying in advance about the cat hair, and the responsibility But I’m still going to get one!
My elderly mother died last year of Alzheimer’s. She was vehemently opposed to going into a care home, but after one very fraught Christmas when I was briefly providing 24 hour care I snapped and went to find a home which caused issues with siblings. In the end we were lucky to be able to keep mum at home with lots of support, but sometimes a care home is the only viable choice. My relationship with her in her last 3 years was a potent mixture of love, guilt and resentment. And I’ve only just sold her property after 13 months which was another emotional roller coaster, disposing of a lifetime’s belongings, clothes, photos, old passports, correspondence, and books that no one will take.
Parenting one’s parent is so hard. But I feel at peace that after a long and often difficult life she knew she was much loved and now is at rest. LW I wish you luck as you navigate your bereavement and family estrangement, and are able to let go of shadow cat and enjoy your robust real cat.
You love your cat! It’s the relationship that relies on you being responsive to needs and anticipating wants. It can be obsessive and fill the hole left by your very demanding and loving devotion to your Mum.
It sounds as if your caring role was not fully appreciated by family which is often the case when other people don’t fully understand the 24/7 nature of that role.
You know what’s going on in your mind so maybe just cutting yourself some slack would help.
To gradually reduce the burden of anxiety focus in the opposite direction- give yourself some love and attention.
Cats can be aloof and will probably enjoy the freedom from your all powerful eye!
This really resonates with me. I lost my mother just before lockdown, from dementia having cared for her for almost eight years & latterly moving her into a care home, something I promised her I’d never do - even though I know it was the right decision. I got a rescue cat shortly afterwards, who has had a very hard life, she is old & has various ailments & every time we go the vets for medication reviews they say they don’t know how she keeps going. I am very attached to her. I have never stopped being anxious / vigilant since my mum died & now realise I’ve transferred a lot of this on to the cat. I’ve not been able to understand why I’m such a different person to the person I was before caring for my mum. I also fell out badly with my brother due to things he did in regard to my mum - we do now have a relationship but I will never trust him again & he’s certainly not the person I thought he was. I say all this in the hope that the letter writer knows she is not alone in feeling this way. I actually have another friend who I think may feel this way about her rabbit, after having cared for her father (I will talk to her about it). Please take care of yourself & do remember what an amazing (& hard) thing you did in caring for your mum.
‘Your cat’s job now isn’t to give you somebody else to keep alive. Perhaps she can teach you something about loving another creature without having to control what happens to her.’ Such wise words for us all whether our animal companions or other ‘animals’ in our lives, eg. children, family, friends! I also appreciate Philippa validating the letter writer’s feelings, I think we can all sometimes diminish our feelings, perhaps not realising they are a complex response, often subconsciously to many aspects of our existence. Thank you letter writer and Philippa, as always have learnt a lot.
This is an excellent reply from Philippa, and I think I relate to that because something similar has happened to me, less as a result of long caring responsibility and more as a result of fairly traumatic, sudden bereavement. I've also developed hypervigilant anxiety, which I had never had before, and some of it is attached to whatever it could land on: including cats.
The only thing I can add to that, and perhaps this is something that's painful but necessary, I would say, is that you also have in your life a creature that you are very likely to outlive. Accepting that your cat will die almost certainly before you is something that I think is absolutely key to dealing with it and being able to enjoy the cat as it is now. I find that, for me at least, the one way to avoid hyper-vigilant behaviours and thoughts spiralling is to actually accept that the bad things might happen and some of them, especially death, will happen. It's not reassuring myself or myself, in my case, that it'd be alright. It's saying, yes, it can happen. We live on the edge. Death is everywhere. Suffering is everywhere. Trying to ensure that it doesn't happen is perhaps the biggest mental trap that can lead to spiralling of consistent, persistent anxiety.
As a little story, I had two cats that I kind of inherited from my children who left home. Neither of them was officially mine, but for years, I was the human. One of them died recently after a very short and kind of unexpected bout. I barely took them to the vet, and that was horrible, not just because of the process and euthanasia that followed, but also because it confirmed that things can go wrong badly. But it was also a reality check. In the aftermath I even stopped petting and interacting with the surviving cat for a while. The one thing that allowed me to start petting him again and not try to avoid him (beyond basic care functions) was accepting that he might die anytime. I can't do absolutely anything about it in a grander scheme of things. This might not work for you, but I found that this is the only thing that can get me out of that mindset.
I am hoping that, over time, the cat helps the letter writer lessen the hypervigilance she developed from caregiving. I think the cat is a gift and a teacher. Unlearning the habit will take time. Signed, a fellow cat lover and cat mom/friend.
As a crazy dog lady (three of them sitting next to me and on me on the sofa right now), I can relate. When I get more anxious than usual about life, I get more anxious than usual about our pets, which includes one indoors-only cat called Gustav Klimt.
Love to! I wonder where she gets her talent from...? heh.
My daughter is making a takeoff Schiaparelli jacket. Only instead of the lady's face (drawn by Cocteau) she is embroidering it with our cat's face as we imagined by Cocteau. https://ibb.co/39Fn0bdh
I love these cat pictures … missing having a cat ( two small dogs now ) and especially missing the lovely freedom and independence that cats enjoy unlike dogs these days. I’ve often said my next dog is a cat.. but I feel for the writer . The constant anxiety about someone else’s safety is draining and exhausting and makes it impossible to fully relax . Grant your cat and more importantly yourself freedom. If only we could all be more like cats : content to be and free to roam.
I feel guilty keeping our cat indoors-only, but outside my house is a scary road with too much traffic and I couldn't bear it if something happened to him.
i was totally attached to my cat as the idea of harm coming to him was too traumatic for me to bear as i was (am) already in trauma. In his older age i would shepherd him across the road like a lollipop lady and kept him indoors if i thought there was danger. Mostly he was well able to look after himself but i could not have rested without knowing he was in for the night. i would search if he fidnt appear at his normal time and not give up till i had brought him home (usually from some standoff with a neighbouring cat, sometimes from having invaded a neighbour's house). i nursed him through his final illness and still feel i betrayed him when i decided his suffering was too much and asked the vet to end his life. He trusted me and i betrayed that trust. it was terrible.
I love this letter and the reply - so honest and frank and very helpful ways to think from PP - I think cats are harder than dogs in the sense that they disappear and you have no idea where they are etc - there is also an intrinsic knowledge that we are likely to outlive them which is so sad - but so worthwhile and of course you are giving her such a lovely life
From a practical point of view you can get collars that track cats ? I don’t know if you have one or of that helps or not but I think reminding yourself that the real cat is happy and the shadow cat isnt real is helpful and PP is spot on
I am impressed how the writer knows exactly what’s going on. She’s identified the shadow cat and knows the actual cat is fine, it’s all in her mind. And she’s very aware of the grief, pain and anxiety relating to her mother that has become displaced onto her cat. The difficulty is the separation.
How to do ‘the work’? Will the anxiety gradually lift as she keeps telling herself what’s going on, ‘there goes Fluffy’? Or as she processes the grief and lets go of her carer’s anxiety? How to get head and heart to match up?
I wonder if a ritual might help. When Fluffy goes out, can she engage directly with Shadow and start to lay him to rest, maybe drawing a picture, knitting or crocheting a blanket for him, singing him a song … I’m thinking of a practical caring activity for this invisible anxious creature that will help her nervous system to calm and step out of hyper-vigilance, and takes her away from the window.
What a beautiful response to a brilliant reply. I particularly love knitting or crocheting something for the shadow cat to relieve anxiety and work through grief.
This reminded me of my friend’s pug dog Euston who looked after my friend’s mum who had Alzheimer’s. He’d be by her side 24/7 ready to keep an eye on her and if she wandered out he’d know how to get her home! When she went to a residential home he was grieving for her and my friend couldn’t get him to rest - he was so used to being hyper vigilant and ready throughout the day and night - she took him to vet who said he was suffering with exhaustion having been ‘looking after’ my friends mum for years. I wonder if the LW is too - exhausted and grieving. Eventually with lots of attention and love my friend was able to calm him.
Dear Euston 🥲 Pugs are incredibly kind little dogs. I'm glad he felt better in time ❤️
One of my young cats was killed recently and it unleashed a torrent of grief in the family. We haven't even been able to take our son out for sushi to celebrate exam results because the chance is too high that someone will say "Do you remember how much Billy loved fish" and then the 4 of us will have group hysterics and traumatise the innocent bystanders just trying to enjoy their sashimi.
While we all grieve, for my husband the loss of the cat has come to represent also a lot of other losses and traumas. The cat was killed by a vehicle and he is preoccupied with trying to solve the case. Where was the cat hit? By which vehicle? The cat was cautious and quick - how was this possible, etc?
It's clear to me (and to him) that his mind does this as a way of trying to solve the problem of feelings and that time spent trying to solve the Case of the Cat's Death is time spent on not thinking about every difficult thing - being vulnerable, not being able to protect someone you loved, the fear of bad things happening, experiences of bereavement. We encourage him to breathe through spasms of painful feeling (like when you bang your funny bone and you know this intense pain that seems out of proportion will hit AND that it will pass, we just need to wait it out). Or to think of the 'What If' thoughts as weather - clouds passing through. To see and acknowledge the thought and let it go.
I am anxious too. We have had two animal bereavements in one week (one dog, one cat) and I find myself super anxious about a surgery I am due to have and worrying about my own mortality and find myself researching what could go wrong as though that would help. So I take myself back to the root of the feeling and I try and stay with it as much as I can.
Sadness is normal, grief is normal, anxiety is normal. It's OK to be scared but trying to prevent bad things from happening is not a shield, only a toxin.
This is not a simple process obviously. It's hard for everyone to go where they feel vulnerable. My husband will still find himself thinking who killed the cat, I will find myself worrying that I will die. But we can do our best to see and process these thoughts -to let them flow through us (one breath at a time) and not get ourselves stuck in content. Or if we do find ourselves stuck to notice and gently step back and do something else instead.
(Eg 'I shall not think about dying because I shall scrub the tile grout instead'. My house has never been this clean.)
The LW is clearly an exceptionally kind and caring person. I resonate with the wish to keep our loved ones safe and I hope she will find a way to let shadow cats show up and pass through.
Dear Letter Writer, aww, thank you for sharing. Two things that come to me: one is, what if that ‘correct course of action’ you took with your mother was actually an act of love, and you were acting to keep your mother safe? Feeling safe and loved are the two most important things to a person at end of life, I think. The other is: I wonder if there were some feelings of relief when your mother passed, after those long years of caring for her alone? And whether some of this has turned into guilt, which gives fuel to the idea that you yourself are not worthy of love, only those you are caring for.
With love,
Manda
Thank you for sharing this LW, and your lovely and considered reply Phillipa. I read your Guardian article recently when you shared it, and recognised myself instantly, as I did here. My lovely cat Poppy was absolutely my shadow cat. A few years after she died, we rescued our lovely chonk Horace and it has been a totally different experience. We have been on holiday! The neighbours looked after him! He was fine! I didn't spend the whole holiday worrying! An unheard of phenomenon woth Poppy. I did worry it was because I didn't love him as much. These writings have allowed me to realise I absolutely do, I just understand and have worked on the parts of myself I was projecting onto Poppy. I love it when pets come into the therapy room (metaphorically but often literally if working online!), as it is an opportunity to 'de-minimise' the importance of our pets, and how society encourages us to not be 'too much' about it when they are ill/die. Warm wishes, from a proud 'cat lady'.
I
Oh how I relate to this! But unlike the LW I didn’t recognise until way more recently the displaced caring role that happened after my husband died, swiftly followed by having to PTS our beloved Jack Russell. Maude 🐈⬛ came into my life as a tiny bundle of joy 3 months after the house emptied of life and became a home again but just like the LW I became hyper-vigilant and a total worry wort. Four years on I have slowly and gently worked through my grief for everything and everyone lost and Maude has free range, except after darkness falls. She is now allowed to be a cat and I have allowed myself to accept that love and kindness don’t rely on me to create them, nor to invigilate at all times.
Dearest LW, follow the excellent advice of PP and a previous respondent; treat yourself to some of the love you bestow on your companion - you deserve it after everything you’ve been through. I wish you and your furry companion nothing but joy x
A very insightful letter and a very caring response.
I’m planning on getting a cat and have been worrying in advance about the cat hair, and the responsibility But I’m still going to get one!
My elderly mother died last year of Alzheimer’s. She was vehemently opposed to going into a care home, but after one very fraught Christmas when I was briefly providing 24 hour care I snapped and went to find a home which caused issues with siblings. In the end we were lucky to be able to keep mum at home with lots of support, but sometimes a care home is the only viable choice. My relationship with her in her last 3 years was a potent mixture of love, guilt and resentment. And I’ve only just sold her property after 13 months which was another emotional roller coaster, disposing of a lifetime’s belongings, clothes, photos, old passports, correspondence, and books that no one will take.
Parenting one’s parent is so hard. But I feel at peace that after a long and often difficult life she knew she was much loved and now is at rest. LW I wish you luck as you navigate your bereavement and family estrangement, and are able to let go of shadow cat and enjoy your robust real cat.
You love your cat! It’s the relationship that relies on you being responsive to needs and anticipating wants. It can be obsessive and fill the hole left by your very demanding and loving devotion to your Mum.
It sounds as if your caring role was not fully appreciated by family which is often the case when other people don’t fully understand the 24/7 nature of that role.
You know what’s going on in your mind so maybe just cutting yourself some slack would help.
To gradually reduce the burden of anxiety focus in the opposite direction- give yourself some love and attention.
Cats can be aloof and will probably enjoy the freedom from your all powerful eye!
This really resonates with me. I lost my mother just before lockdown, from dementia having cared for her for almost eight years & latterly moving her into a care home, something I promised her I’d never do - even though I know it was the right decision. I got a rescue cat shortly afterwards, who has had a very hard life, she is old & has various ailments & every time we go the vets for medication reviews they say they don’t know how she keeps going. I am very attached to her. I have never stopped being anxious / vigilant since my mum died & now realise I’ve transferred a lot of this on to the cat. I’ve not been able to understand why I’m such a different person to the person I was before caring for my mum. I also fell out badly with my brother due to things he did in regard to my mum - we do now have a relationship but I will never trust him again & he’s certainly not the person I thought he was. I say all this in the hope that the letter writer knows she is not alone in feeling this way. I actually have another friend who I think may feel this way about her rabbit, after having cared for her father (I will talk to her about it). Please take care of yourself & do remember what an amazing (& hard) thing you did in caring for your mum.
‘Your cat’s job now isn’t to give you somebody else to keep alive. Perhaps she can teach you something about loving another creature without having to control what happens to her.’ Such wise words for us all whether our animal companions or other ‘animals’ in our lives, eg. children, family, friends! I also appreciate Philippa validating the letter writer’s feelings, I think we can all sometimes diminish our feelings, perhaps not realising they are a complex response, often subconsciously to many aspects of our existence. Thank you letter writer and Philippa, as always have learnt a lot.
This is an excellent reply from Philippa, and I think I relate to that because something similar has happened to me, less as a result of long caring responsibility and more as a result of fairly traumatic, sudden bereavement. I've also developed hypervigilant anxiety, which I had never had before, and some of it is attached to whatever it could land on: including cats.
The only thing I can add to that, and perhaps this is something that's painful but necessary, I would say, is that you also have in your life a creature that you are very likely to outlive. Accepting that your cat will die almost certainly before you is something that I think is absolutely key to dealing with it and being able to enjoy the cat as it is now. I find that, for me at least, the one way to avoid hyper-vigilant behaviours and thoughts spiralling is to actually accept that the bad things might happen and some of them, especially death, will happen. It's not reassuring myself or myself, in my case, that it'd be alright. It's saying, yes, it can happen. We live on the edge. Death is everywhere. Suffering is everywhere. Trying to ensure that it doesn't happen is perhaps the biggest mental trap that can lead to spiralling of consistent, persistent anxiety.
As a little story, I had two cats that I kind of inherited from my children who left home. Neither of them was officially mine, but for years, I was the human. One of them died recently after a very short and kind of unexpected bout. I barely took them to the vet, and that was horrible, not just because of the process and euthanasia that followed, but also because it confirmed that things can go wrong badly. But it was also a reality check. In the aftermath I even stopped petting and interacting with the surviving cat for a while. The one thing that allowed me to start petting him again and not try to avoid him (beyond basic care functions) was accepting that he might die anytime. I can't do absolutely anything about it in a grander scheme of things. This might not work for you, but I found that this is the only thing that can get me out of that mindset.
I am hoping that, over time, the cat helps the letter writer lessen the hypervigilance she developed from caregiving. I think the cat is a gift and a teacher. Unlearning the habit will take time. Signed, a fellow cat lover and cat mom/friend.
Flo's drawings of cats are delightful.
As a crazy dog lady (three of them sitting next to me and on me on the sofa right now), I can relate. When I get more anxious than usual about life, I get more anxious than usual about our pets, which includes one indoors-only cat called Gustav Klimt.
You’d better get all your cats immortalised by flo. Floperry.com
Love to! I wonder where she gets her talent from...? heh.
My daughter is making a takeoff Schiaparelli jacket. Only instead of the lady's face (drawn by Cocteau) she is embroidering it with our cat's face as we imagined by Cocteau. https://ibb.co/39Fn0bdh
I love these cat pictures … missing having a cat ( two small dogs now ) and especially missing the lovely freedom and independence that cats enjoy unlike dogs these days. I’ve often said my next dog is a cat.. but I feel for the writer . The constant anxiety about someone else’s safety is draining and exhausting and makes it impossible to fully relax . Grant your cat and more importantly yourself freedom. If only we could all be more like cats : content to be and free to roam.
I feel guilty keeping our cat indoors-only, but outside my house is a scary road with too much traffic and I couldn't bear it if something happened to him.
i was totally attached to my cat as the idea of harm coming to him was too traumatic for me to bear as i was (am) already in trauma. In his older age i would shepherd him across the road like a lollipop lady and kept him indoors if i thought there was danger. Mostly he was well able to look after himself but i could not have rested without knowing he was in for the night. i would search if he fidnt appear at his normal time and not give up till i had brought him home (usually from some standoff with a neighbouring cat, sometimes from having invaded a neighbour's house). i nursed him through his final illness and still feel i betrayed him when i decided his suffering was too much and asked the vet to end his life. He trusted me and i betrayed that trust. it was terrible.
I love this letter and the reply - so honest and frank and very helpful ways to think from PP - I think cats are harder than dogs in the sense that they disappear and you have no idea where they are etc - there is also an intrinsic knowledge that we are likely to outlive them which is so sad - but so worthwhile and of course you are giving her such a lovely life
From a practical point of view you can get collars that track cats ? I don’t know if you have one or of that helps or not but I think reminding yourself that the real cat is happy and the shadow cat isnt real is helpful and PP is spot on