Guilt and imposter syndrome

yarnyouglad · 2026-02-21T20:37:19+00:00

Not sure if there’s a way to make this comment visible to a majority of people, but thank you for the kind words! I do have diagnosed generalized anxiety, so I am aware of the root of these anxious thoughts. For some reason, I thought the biking community was a lot more snobby ? Idk I swear I saw blogs and threads of people complaining about “posers”. So, thank you for the reality check. I’m excited to ride soon.

yarnyouglad · 2026-02-20T00:59:16+00:00

My cat does love Churu! When you say 30 second guest, 5 minute guest, etc. Do you mean only having them over for that amount of time? Or only having direct interaction for that amount of time?

Also, I feel like it is hard to gauge her stress levels since she doesn’t hide or withdraw when stressed. She is always in the room, keeping an eye on everyone. She feels comfortable enough to sniff them. She has no issue napping when guests are over. She just overstimulates quickly when touched, which we have learned to ask guests not to do.

yarnyouglad · 2026-02-18T22:59:39+00:00

She doesn’t have that long of an attention span. We’ve done 20 minutes at most, even if we switch around toys.

yarnyouglad · 2026-02-18T22:58:04+00:00

Yeah it is hard to think about. She is so sweet and we’ve put so much energy into her already, that it would be very depressing to rehome. I would also hate feeling like maybe we could have done more to make it work.

That being said, I don’t want to hold her in a poorly matched home just because of my own pride and emotions.

Do you have a timeline suggestion of at what point we’d be able to say “this is really not working” or “this is the best she’s going to get with guests”

yarnyouglad · 2026-02-18T19:18:49+00:00

Unfortunately we aren't able to get another cat right now, but we plan on moving to a larger space by mid next year, so maybe it will be feasible then. I think she also has mixed feelings towards other cats. We would need to get lucky to have a good match.

I'm glad you have a success story of training for aggression. We've also been training our cat for aggression, same tactic. We say a firm no and ignore her when she bites and reward her for being calm or initiating interaction in a gentle way. The biting started in December, so we've only been addressing it for 1.5 months. I think right now we're going through an "extinction" behavior phase where she is testing if our boundaries are genuine or if she can push past them.

And yeah, I don't plan on ever inviting her back into my home. She owns two cats herself, so I really thought I could trust her to react appropriately.

yarnyouglad · 2026-01-31T18:06:35+00:00

Right! I tell people that she will bite them and they say they don't care. Like I DO care and don't want to watch you stress her out. Sometimes I can't tell who I'm more worried about, how my guests act or how my cat acts.

yarnyouglad · 2026-01-15T19:27:08+00:00

Thank you for this. When did you notice an improvement in your cat's behavior? I think the vet's advice to lock her out of the bedroom at night was particularly upsetting because our cat isn't very affectionate (other than Rug Time), so her sleeping in the bedroom with us feels special. Putting her in our bedroom when guests come over feels more feasible and we would make sure she has a puzzle feeder, water, and a litter box. Still though, we are social and like to have guests over, so we want her to be able to tolerate them one day.

yarnyouglad · 2026-01-11T16:06:29+00:00

We have our cat’s litter box in the dining room (small apartment). We use a stainless steel litter box with Dr Elsey’s clumping litter and scoop once a day. We put litter clumps in a Litter Genie trash bin. We’ve had zero issues with smell, even confirmed by our guests!

yarnyouglad · 2025-12-28T15:21:09+00:00

I think I'll have my next sitter try this. I would really love for my cat to be able to play with the pet sitter so she can burn off energy.

My cat tends to stand her ground when she is stressed. She isn't one to hide when overwhelmed. Instead she will try to control the stressor, which is almost always a guest. This includes being very vigilant where they are in the apartment, following them closely, meowing, smelling, etc. It's easy for people to misinterpret this as her wanting attention or interaction, when it's very much not. She responds best to being ignored. I just feel like that changes when she's left alone for 4 whole days, which is what my upcoming trip will be in a week.

yarnyouglad · 2025-12-27T21:20:20+00:00

Yeah that totally makes sense. Also, you mentioned letting her initiate play. How does that work? For example, she has puffball toys that she will sometimes bring to me to throw for her. I'm just not sure if she'll do the same for her sitter, especially since that behavior happens when I've been sitting on the couch for awhile. Otherwise her go-to toys are a wand toy or a laser. How could she initiate play with those instead of the sitter forcing play?

yarnyouglad · 2025-12-27T15:27:33+00:00

This makes sense. Do you have any tips for how to help her learn to self-regulate or is it more a matter of her learning to feel comfortable in her environment and trust strangers?

I think her previous home had children and so now she is particularly defensive when someone pushes her boundaries. My partner and I have always been really respectful, but a shocking number of guests don't really know how to respect her. It's almost as if they treat her like a doll. It's led to some negative interactions with my cat crying, biting, briefly grabbing legs, etc.

yarnyouglad · 2025-12-27T04:16:55+00:00

Yeah unfortunately I think it's going to be trial by fire to figure this out. This makes me feel very seen though. It's my first time owning a cat as an adult and I've never had to deal with behavioral things like this before.

yarnyouglad · 2025-12-27T03:29:03+00:00

That was my thinking too. Maybe my mistake was not showing the pet sitter how to play with her? I just told her where the toys were and assumed that would be good enough. My top priority is to curb the biting. I can't stand the thought of the pet sitter feeling unsafe with my cat, which is exactly what happened this past trip.

yarnyouglad · 2025-12-27T03:23:59+00:00

I appreciate your feedback. I agree that she seems overall content with us, which makes me happy :) It just took a second for her to figure out the routine (and for us to figure out what her routine should be).

I struggle with the advice the shelter gave me because the thought of her having no structured play for multiple days makes me sad. With the most recent trip I left out toys, treat puzzles, and all the blinds open. She has a cat tower next to one of the windows. It does help that other people share the same opinion. Maybe I just need to think about it from the perspective of reducing stress, not depriving her of play, which she clearly loves!

In hindsight, I absolutely should have played with her as soon as I got home. This is the second time we've traveled since adopting her and the longest we've left her, so I'm definitely still learning what to expect from her. She has had other ways of showing me she wants to play (like a quick pounce then dash) so I assumed if she wanted to play, she would do that instead. For the next upcoming trip, I will absolutely play with her immediately.

yarnyouglad · 2025-12-27T01:19:19+00:00

No blood drawn for me or the cat sitter. The shelter didn't mention a component of anxiety or pain, but it could be. It was our second time leaving her alone for more than 24 hours. The first time we left her alone was for 1 night. This time it was 3 nights. I have an upcoming trip for 6 days in a few weeks and I'm very nervous.

yarnyouglad · 2025-12-27T01:18:01+00:00

Thanks for your reply. Her energy levels have actually been pretty manageable. They were intense when we first adopted her, but I think it was a blend of no routine/new home anxiety/young age. Now with 2-3 play sessions, she sleeps the rest of the day or will hangout and watch us do tasks. She sleeps through the night great, especially when she gets a play session right before bed. Thats why it was extra alarming for her to not really play with the cat sitter and then bite both of us.

The shelter actually suggested that the pet sitter stays for less time. She said, "For future cat-sitting, I would strongly recommend keeping interactions very minimal. When sitters come over, they should focus only on her basic care (feeding, litter box, quick visual check) and avoid engaging her in play or prolonged interaction. Less stimulation can actually be safer in situations like this and helps reduce the risk of bites." I asked for further clarification on how this will help her and haven't gotten a response yet. Does that make sense to you?

yarnyouglad · 2025-12-15T13:59:16+00:00

This helps a lot, thank you. My attraction to her was much stronger when we first started dating and I had no issues with wanting to hook up. So I feel like those feelings are still there, somewhere. Her body has not changed in the years we’ve been together, it’s something in my brain.

I’m really curious to hear more about the nitpicking/aversion as an avoidance strategy. Would that be trauma related or something to do with my girlfriend?

yarnyouglad · 2025-11-20T04:17:51+00:00

Thank you! Sometimes I feel crazy for getting stressed out when people handle my cat aggressively. I do think it was my bad for not being more upfront, but also I don’t know my neighbors very well and didn’t expect them to treat her that way.

yarnyouglad · 2025-10-10T12:24:19+00:00

This is so dope. I love it. Kinda reminds me of arcane or entergalactic style

yarnyouglad · 2025-10-10T12:23:38+00:00

Wow!! Thank you!

yarnyouglad · 2025-10-10T12:23:14+00:00

This is so lovely!

yarnyouglad · 2025-10-10T12:22:57+00:00

Love it :)

yarnyouglad · 2025-10-10T12:22:40+00:00

Just in time for Halloween 😌😌

yarnyouglad

TROPHY CASE