Discover Top Posts Tagged with #perceive her

Scout is a very strange cat. She does not have Separation Anxiety. I'm housebound, and in her 11+ years of life, I have always been here. Scout has a weird, esoteric form of regular Anxiety. The Existential Crisis version. Scout always has to be in the same room as one or the other of us. Always. If she is not within someone's line of sight, she will howl and scream as if she is on fire or auditioning for The Exorcist. We will rush out to find her, eyes wide, mouth gaping open, crying piteously...which stops the second she realizes we See her, and she's fine. Totally normal. No issues. She's been thoroughly checked out by multiple vets over the years. No problems. No issues. Nada. She just needs to be Perceived. At all times. She sleeps on my husband's chest, waking him up at intervals so he can Look at her. She seems to believe that if no one Sees her, she no longer exists. If she cannot See one of us, if someone has the audacity to close a bathroom door or something, that person must have ceased to exist, and she has a panic attack. She has clawed holes in bathroom doors, trying to get to her people. If I am on the couch, resting my eyes, she will bat at me until I open my eyes to Look at her. Whenever she starts looking panicked, one of us will solemly intone 'I Perceive you, Scout. You are Seen.' And she calms right down. It is Weird and Exhausting. We should have named her Schrodinger.