Another Foster Kitty Picture

This is Prince. I promised to put up a picture, somewhere in some thread, can't remember which, so I'm starting a new one.

I can't stop myself...

He's a prince of a cat! What a lovely kitty....


Hissy who is smiling, because she loves black cats best of all!

Me Too! Me Too! I love black cats and he is a beauty. I have always wanted a black cat (if I could get one I would name it Pumpkin).

My mom is a big fan of small, dark, and handsome cats too.
As soon as she can get together the pet deposit, she's adopting Prince.
I'm giving her the adoption fee as her early birthday present.

Oh, and Prince is blushing under his inky fur from all the sweet things you said.

Prince is absolutely gorgeous! Black cats are so sleek and daring looking. You mom is one lucky momma!

What a cutie-pie! I'll try to put a picture on of one of our kittens.

Prince sure is a cutie!

Alexnell you are so sweet for giving Prince to your mom!!

Unfortunately, my mom changed her mind about adopting Prince.

She's having financial and personal problems right now and decided she couldn't take care of him. I offered to pay for all of his upkeep until she's back on her feet, but she won't let me. I'm really unhappy about this, since even her therapist said that having a cat would help her depression and anxiety. But she just won't listen to anyone.

alexnell - I know how disappointed you must be - but if your mom really can't (or won't) take the responsibility of Prince right now, there may be a reason she isn't ready to voice.
I hope that this all works out for the best, but that must be hard for you to think about right now.
Thoughts are with you!
Deb M.

Dear Axnell -- From a person born with chronic, inherited depression into a family of certifiable depressives, and who finally "kicked the habit" -- at least most times -- I can attest to the value of cats. Or better yet, meditation and cats. Cats demand attention when you are really in a black well. They are cute, endearing and soft (and often psychic enough to be really sympathetic during bad times), and humans reach out for such anchors when they are lost in the well. Even catatonics will respond to the presence of cats. (Well -- a cat-atonic should, I guess!)

They don't let you alone. If it isn't the food dish, it's the water dish. Or going in and out, or the litter box, or having to buy food for them -- once you're at the super market, you impulse-buy some food for yourself. Even ice cream and cookies or unsalted nuts is better than sitting with an empty stomach in a deep depression. Cats are infuritating and whiny, and loving and accepting, and it is impossible to ignore them because they also have claws -- an occasional bloody scratch is good for the soul, since you have to consider what it is that you contributed to the scratching. When they understand that you can't take the intrusion, they will often come and sit or lie against some part of you, forming a warm, real, alive focal point in a world that seems totally unreal and dead. They keep you anchored in the now.

Keep trying to encourage your mother to accept a cat, or even some placid breed of dog. There are lots of things you can say or do in front of a nonjudgemental cat or dog that you can't even tell your therapist. You can act out, cry, sing, curse, and scream, and they are only concerned for you, They don't badger you with innane questions or advice. They simply accept your bad moments with the same concern -- or unconcern -- as they do your good ones.

Meditation began my journey to self-help and sanity. But it was one dog and a number of cats that put me firmly on the side of emotional health and who reminded me that I was a human being in a community of human beings. They retaught me manners, concern for others, the ability to interact with other people (starting with cats), and to progressively dig a shallower and shallower depression well until it is now only a small dent in the ground -- easy to get out of and easy to leave behind.

good luck.

Dear AlexNell...Thanks for the photo's

He is gorgeous! When I was a little girl...I was very partial to black cats...now, I'm partial to all cats...:LOL:

You're so wonderful!

Love, Peace &

Here's a wild color! :LOL::laughing2:laughing2:LOL:

Dear Catherine :angel2:

Thank you for sharing your feelings...you writing is so artistic...I just thougtht I'd say that

:flower:

Love, Peace &

Thanks Deb, Cat, and Catherine.

I know my mom will get a cat someday, I just wish it were now.

My cats have helped me so much with my depression. Sometimes feeding them and changing their boxes is the only thing that gets me out of bed.

It's hard to watch mom struggle with the same stuff I've gone through, but not be willing to benefit from the things I learned from my experience. Mom used to give me grief for not following her advice that came from her personal experience and mistakes--I guess the shoe is on the other foot now.

Hi Michelle :angel2:

I just found out something rather interesting last nite and thought I'd share this with you.

I was talking with my Mom and we were discussing animals. I asked her if she really liked cats. Since she lives with me, she often helps me with them. Many times my Mother has been there for me when I'm ill.

Suprisingly, my Mother said she would rather not have any animals! All this time I thought my Mom loved my cats. She said she could take them or leave them!!!!!! OMG...what a shock...

I couldn't believe my ears.

Obviously, I had to find out why...Well, she told me these stories that would break anyone's heart and she didn't want to get close to any "beautiful" (that's what she said) animals because she hurts so bad when something happens.

My Mom is very sensitive, I guess my understanding of her goes much deeper and I can see how beautiful my Mother truly is. Perhaps your Mom doesn't want to be hurt or better yet....LOVES YOU SO MUCH that she doesn't want to see you hurt. I have a feeling it's the latter. I used to think it was because she was jealous of all the attention I gave my cats. But, she's too loving for that...I don't think that could be possible. I just asked her...she said "NO"! :LOL:

You sound a bit like me when it comes to animals (cats especially) actually this whole site does! :laughing2 Just crazy in love with our babies. It's a beautiful thing. I guess I have to remember that I have someone that feels that way about me too. Now I understand why she used to tell me..."I wish you wouldn't get so close to these cats" or "You love these cats more than people"....:LOL:

I hope that helped...maybe a little

if not...I just shared something new and amazing that I never knew about my Mom

Love, Peace &

I'm sure that part of my mom's hesitation is because she's afraid of the pain of losing an animal too. I guess it worries me, though, because she seems to be pulling away from everything that is even slightly risky, not just this. She wants to avoid anything that isn't 100% guaranteed not to go wrong. But there isn't anything in this life with that kind of certainty. A person has to take risks if they're going to live life.

I suppose I'm wondering when she's going to decide that having a daughter is just to stressful and worrysome and drop me out of her life like everything else. She says that will never happen, but with the way she's going, there isn't much left to cut loose but me...

Dear Axnell, I hear the sound of depression in your last posting. Listen, depression is often an genetically inherited disease. It is very hard to overcome without meditation -- lithium and the like are only stop-gaps -- bandaids at best. But everyday medical progress is made on new treatments and medicines. They no longer tell you, as they did my generation "Pull up your socks and use will power," or "Stop whining...think about all the people in the world who are worse off than you," or "All you have to do is use self-control..."

And a little later, doctors were calling it manic depression and they defined your status as "emotional illness."

Most recently they have found a gene that is shared in common by most depressives. So our children or grandchildren may have the benefit of preventive genetic engineering to alter or eliminate this sad tendency of mind and body.

It is easy to say "Don't let your mother's depression get you into a similar state" -- but to keep yourself aloof from her pain and confusion is next to impossible, I know. The main thing is that you are not responsible for how her life goes. You do the best you can. You try to be there for her when she is willing to talk and you try very hard to let her make her own decisions unless she becomes suicidal.

It would help tremendously if you could sort out your own depressivie tendency. Go take a Transcendental Meditation course -- there is probably a center near you somewhere. TM is a very easy method to learn and it has teachers almost everywhere in the world who can help out if you have a problem with the technique. Most other methods (my own included) require that you are near the original teacher, so that if you travel and ta some point need to talk about your experiences in meditation, there is no teacher directly available. TM was what I started with years ago, and it was my first great breakthrough to cure myself of depression.

If you can deal with your own lapses, you will be much stronger in helping your mother deal with hers. You will also be able to maintain the kind of loving attachment that is needed in such a situation. The business of not wanting to have things unless they are 100 percent sure is usually a sign of fear of death or of dying. If you can work out this problem through meditation for yourself, you may be able to help her to work through hers.

I have learned through my own meditation -- and through several sessions with a regression hypnotist -- that death is nothing more than a step into a different space. There is no real death -- only the passing from one state to another, and again back to rebirth in the future. There also seems to be no real loss of loved ones (or, for that matter, real enemies), since, in every lifetime, many of the same personalities/spirits crop up. I do not know what this other space is in which we await rebirth, but I know it exists.

If you find some certainty in the wheel of life, instead of seeing it as linear and finite, you will go a long way to helping your mother overcome her fear of loss and death. Try, therefore, to find your own peace about these things, and your inner knowledge will shine. I don't mean to have you preach -- you know that there is nothing worse than having to listen to a lot of good-intentioned advice and preaching when you are depressed -- but simply to find in yourself peace and comfort in the thought of life as a circle instead of a line. Your manner will change in small ways, and these will hopefully filter through to your mother. You will also be able to give her the breathing room she perhaps needs. Sometimes one must be trapped for a while in the deep well of depression before the inner spirit begins its climb toward life again.

I will pray that you find peace and strength.

Blessings, Catherine

You always have such wise words and insight.

You're right, I do have Major Depression. I'm on medication and go to therapy regularly. I've also taken a yoga class and try to practice relaxation techniques. It helps alot. I know that I learned many of my depressive behaviors from seeing my mother model them. And the genetic component is strong on both sides of my family with depression and other mental illnesses such as panic disorders.

I keep striving towards a more balanced state of mind, but it seems to be a long process for me. Some of my current sadness and frustration is from being further along in my journey to wellness than my mother is in hers. I have insights and advice, but often times she won't listen when I try to help. She tells me she is glad that I am beginning to recover, but sometimes I hear a hint of resentment in her voice. I think she is bothered by the differences in our development, too. Its a strange situation for the child to be more experienced in than the parent, and I think we're both finding the role reversal uncomfortable. But, that's how things are for now. The only choice is to accept it, and go from there.

Dear friend, I was over 40 before I began to really come to grips with a lifetime of depression (and I should add panic attacks and a variety of phobias -- spiders, bees, wasps, sometimes even closed doors...). Yoga, relaxation techniques, and self-knowledge are all ways of alleviating the problems. Psychiatry also helps to pinpoint problems and to initiate behavioral patterns to help you cope. But none of them is a cure. That I found only in meditation. But to this day I do a few yoga exercises each day to limber up and stretch and relax my muscles (althought at my age, I am thinking of taking up Tai-Chi as a gentler way to do the same thing), and I still initiate relaxation techniques when I am overtired and can't get into a quiet place to meditate for 15 or 20 minutes. Self-knowledge and coping techniques and information help enormously to help you to understand how you got from A to B and how to school your behavior so you can get through the days, but both involve stress -- the stress of remembering things you wish you didn't have to face -- reliving them in some forms of psychiatry -- and the stress of "trying" to mold yourself into a coping structure.

The only thing I have ever found that helped panic attacks and phobias is meditation, and it is a long-term cure, not a short-term effort. Think of how old you are. Add to that the learned behavior from your mother (who went through the same process with her mother and perhaps father, etc.). Figure how many years it took to create your depressive reactions to things, and then figure that as many years as that will be needed to completely clear you of all the learned symptoms. Factor in the genetic tendency, and you have a mountain to climb. It is a very, very slow process to a cure. You can manage to cope, to paper over things until you are ready to deal with them, to manage your life within the norms in a much shorter time with good therapeutic help and coping strategies.

So you have to attack the whole thing from several angles.

I would not get into the habit of calling depression or panic attacks "mental illness." This emphasis on illness (mental or otherwise) is a negative concept and creates a sense of unworthiness, abnormality, and certain failure. Think rather that you have a mountain to climb that many have climbed before you, and that you will succeed no matter how many times you slip back down into the well. A well which, by the way, will get more and more shallow as you repeat the process. Every small step that you advance up the mountain is a victory of your inner strength and resillience. Every time you slip, you should tell yourself that you made the last bit before, and this time you will set yourself the goal of getting a little further up. Every time you slip, you will slip less far. Don't despair, and don't let depressive episodes break you. Look on them as learning experiences. Examine how you feel when you have them. Determine the things that brought them on, and try to see what your contribution was to the depression. Many times depressives set themselves up to slip. They marry someone or become close friends with someone who will verbally abuse them with words like "crazy" "sick" "out of control." These words may even be objectively true at any given time, but you disgard them because they are negative, and your goal requires positivity.

I think your analysis of your mother's feelings is really very good. You are very wise -- seeing the game is halfway to invalidating its influence on your progress.

You cannot live your mother's life. My own progress was too slow to help my mother, but perhaps I could not have made any difference anyway. When you try and try and you simply can't help someone you love, it is perhaps one of the saddest things humans must cope with. But you are not guilty. You are doing the best you can.

Your last sentence is the only answer for the "new" generation who were able to avail themselves of all the many advances in psychology and the many social services established to be helpful. Accept what you must, and go from there.

I think you are just wonderful. I truly hope that your efforts will bring about more life-satisfaction for both of you.

Love and peace,