submissive cat?

tell me what's going on here-
ever since we brought Morgie home, she has always been very skittish. However, If I'm on my bed in the morning with a blanket over me trying to get warm while my mom plays on the computer in my room, she will jump up on the blanket and cuddle in my legs. or later in the day, if she's sleeping there and I pet her, she starts purring really loudly and rubbing her face all over my hand. Then she'll get up and SIT on my hand and fall asleep.

But before she comes up on the bed or comes into a room we are in, she looks at us, tail and head low, and we have to nod at her or say "yes" for her to enter or jump up! She always runs from the hall though the living room into the kitchen if we are in the living room, like she's scared of us. What's going on?

It's probably just her personality. The whole you telling her she can enter the room is a routine that you have started, so she probably just waits for it now because it's apart of the routine. Typical submissive behavior would be more along the lines of her scrunching down everytime you touched her, curling into a ball when you scruff her, etc. To me she just sounds like a normal, independant cat with her own agenda.

I have a cat who is similar. If he knows you're coming at him to pet him, he runs away. When HE wants to be loved on, he'll come to YOU. He runs away at loud noises, and is definitley the last to check new things out. He was feral as a baby, so he definitley holds on to what his mom taught him when he was little and I think it contributes to his skittishness.