Since the first post sparked concerns on the severity of my current mental illness, I’d like to clarify a few things and reintroduce the current me to you, so we are all on the same page. The current me is, for the most part, mentally stable, a lot less manic, still very substance-reliant but am getting better. Not too long ago, I had a depressive episode that lasted almost 3 months. It brought me back the worst of memories, and got me back on Abilify which I was off for almost half a year. I doubled my sertraline dose, and now I feel fine. Again, for the most part.
These days, I’ve completely stopped making plans. Anything further than 3 hours away will be hard for me to know if I can actually make it, because of the volatile nature of my mood. But like I said, most days, I’m fine. Most days, I’d wake up whenever I feel like waking up, do my morning routine sometimes in the afternoon because that’s when I had woken up: shower, brush / floss my teeth, feed the cats, play with the cats, vacuum, coffee. Usually by the end of that process I’d have a rough idea of how I feel and what I’d like to do for the day, or whatever time is still left for the day.
If I feel anxious, I start smoking in the morning, until I feel more relaxed. Sometimes, I need a cigarette, sometimes the opposite, other times I drink. Daiga asks me why I need so many substances, I ask him why he eats rice. Why do people always ask me questions I don’t know the answers for is beyond comprehension, they don’t expect me to actually know the answer to everything, do they? I sort of already have a lot going on in my head that I can’t manage these explorations.
Having Moira and Luna has been wonderful, I never thought I could communicate with non-homosapiens so well. In fact, I’m convinced I can communicate with cats better than humans now. From what I’ve learned, what I think probably is why I have an easier time with cats than people, is that they are more primitive. Unlike us, who are trained to cheat, lie, and steal, cats seem to know their instinct crystal-clearly and completely follow it in a way that involves little self-censorship. I always think of Moira as a baby leopard, she certainly acts like one. Her ability to learn and adapt a modern human world has amazed me. In fact, both Luna and Moira are incredibly intelligent, emotionally and logically.
Moira’s got good pattern recognition skills. She is very observant: she can read my facial expressions and vocal tones to determine my emotions. She always knows when I’m upset, annoyed, happy, angry, or aggregated, and she’d know whom I’m directing my emotions toward by observing whom I’m engaged in a conversation with, weather it’d be someone visiting my apartment in Chicago, or just a neighbor we walk into in the hallway. She hated two of my friends, whom I no longer talk to but loved at the time. I’m convinced she’s a psychic and the reincarnation of the baby my mom had unfortunately had to abort, due to radioactive contamination she was exposed to while working in a chemistry lab when she got pregnant before she had me. My mom only told me the story once, but i remembered it. She never told me what gender the baby was, but I somehow know it was a girl, an older sister. The sense of responsibility and royalty Moira feels toward me convinced me that Moira is her. And I’d like her to be my owner in her next life, if she decides to be a human. I’ll be her cat.
I got her from a shelter called PAWS in Chicago (https://www.pawschicago.org/our-work/pets-adoption/pets-available), sort of randomly after calling Daiga an afternoon in June 2023. By then, I had broken up with an former boyfriend for almost a year. He was the reason I moved to Chicago in the first place, even though in retrospective I perhaps should have not, but I don’t regret it. He apparently looked up Daiga’s name in my emails because he was the one that set up the password, and I never cared to change it. He found out that I called a flower delivery for Daiga on his 29th birthday. God knows how long he’s been breaking into my laptop without me knowing. Despite his angry accusations, I didn’t give a flying fuck. I left. However, I did miss him.
I was living alone, and I started doing lots of shrooms, because why the fuck not. I did 20g in about 4 days, a few grames each a few hours. I cried, I laughed, I lost my mind. I had been calling him for maybe too long, and I was obviously not doing well. He said, maybe you should get a cat. With curiosity, I looked it up and realized I could book an appointment in 3 hours, so I did.
After being talked into singing up for monthly donation to Doctors Without Boarders, I finally made my way to PAWs. I walked into the aisle of windows of cats on both sides, everyone was asleep, except her. She was staring at me as i walked closer and closer to her, noticing her stare, I stopped. “Can I go in?” I asked the volunteer working there. She gave me an long explanation of how they have a ranking system rating the cats from easier to take care to the most difficult, and she’s apparently so difficult that I couldn’t walk in without talking to someone about her medical file. I was like, ok who do I talk to.
I got over to the reception line, put down my name and waited for 40 minutes. When it was my turn, i walked over, and the lady pulled out a very thick folder which later I found out had maybe more than 50 pages of her medical record. I started reading. At first I was terrified for what had happened to her, then I was amazed. She was found on the street extremely hurt, alone. It seemed like she had been attacked by someone or something terribly that her neck was broken. Even now, there’s a long strip of skin that doesn’t grow hair on her back neck. It seems like she almost died, but somehow survived.
She was in care for an year and a half before she was healed, and that the vets felt she was ready for adoption, which is a very long time, considering the life span of a cat usually being less than 15. During that year, everytime the vets treated her, they had to put her under anesthesia drugs (gabapentin), because she wouldn’t let them touch her. She was estimated to be three years old when she was rescued by animal control, no one knows how long she was a stray for, or if she had a previous owner and was abandoned. All they knew is that she was hurt, alone. Whoever her previous company was, left her to die. Alone.
But she didn’t. She was saved. A team of vets tried so hard for a year and half despite her fighting and biting, I see all these different names and handwritings on each paper of records. She was first at animal control, then to paws, through various rescue team members. They tell me she still has a biting problem, and she would attack me if I adopt her. “But she’s overall a really sweet cat”, she said. Everyone here seem to know this cat very well, everyone was all like, awww Moira, oh Moira, there’s an endearing tone to it, I thought to myself. Because she was here for so long, everyone probably got to know her well, i thought to myself. I still didn’t understand how can a cat be sweet and bite and fight me at the same time, but I understood it a lot later, maybe half year into having her. Her way of expressing love is subtle, complicated, yet deep and bold. She’s a black tuxedo, i find it very funny that she could be so “impolite”.
The whole debrief took another 40 mins, she asks, are you sure you still want to go in and see her? you have to go in with an volunteer though, its the policy for rank 2 cats. I said, yes sure, i will see her. I didn’t expect much when I walked in, but when I reached to touch her head, she let me rub her. I thought that was normal, because I hadn’t found out how much she hated strangers yet, but the volunteer went wow, she’s really friendly today, would you like to adopt her? I was like sure. They gave me everything, litter box, litter, 30 days worth of can food, a bag of dry food, a scratch pad, her bed and a toy. They didn’t make me pay for anything, and said, i can decide in 30 days if I want to adopt her, if so, i can come back and pay, they will transfer the microchip etc to me (a serial number that associates my name with her microchip if she gets lost and gets turned in to a shelter). It all happened so fast, I was like, ok, sure.
It was a strange feeling, holding a life and taking that life home on a Uber, on the way back. She’s so tiny, am I really ready for this responsibility? I think I knew already back then, that i didn’t realize myself a lot later though fully, that I loved her. I loved her.