Thank you for these links. I’m looking over them. Hopefully I can implement some and see what happens.

And I’m very aware she wouldn’t know better. It’s just difficult to get her to recognize boundaries. She always wants to play or get in your business. And I understand. She’s curious and I’m a lot more interesting than her toys.

But my issue is that while we’re teaching her those boundaries, I have pretty much nowhere to go in the apartment to escape in the meantime. Just like she wants places to hide when she wants to be alone, I need that too. I get home from shouting matches with angry people in my industry to be pounced on for a while. I don’t often have it in me to engage. I just want to be alone for a bit to recharge.

On the relationship front: probably not the place for it, but other than the cat situation, things are very good. I think we’re both too stubborn for our own good sometimes, and that’s part of what happened here.

I’ve never been a primary caretaker for a cat, so my experience is limited. That was a big part of why I was worried about getting a kitten. I’ve only been around adult cats, and most of them are chill.

Our apartment explicitly forbids the kind of advanced catifying I see online. She has scratching posts with perches, several repurposed cardboard boxes, and a bed we made out of a box and blankets. She uses all of them, and we made sure they were connected to give her an improvised play area/home base. I hope it’s enough, or at least a start.

She was separated young, I believe. She was a stray at 8 weeks old, and was possibly separated several days before being found. I don’t doubt that’s playing a role. She’s very needy. I mean, when she isn’t being hyper, she demands pets for 45 minutes or more at a time, and she’ll nip your hands if you don’t provide them. She used to jump on my face to wake me up at night for more attention. Only me though, not my partner.

I’m going to talk to my therapist next month before I consider all my options. It’s just been a struggle lately. It’s like having an autodestructive toddler with claws.

Cat tax:

Yeah, I really wanted to get an adult or senior cat if we were going to get one. I’ve had limited exposure to caring for cats, and kittens are challenging.

She actually tolerates her carrier, but our apartment doesn’t have enough space for a large dog crate so we could put food and water in there with her if she needs it.

I’m going to mull over whether or not I can hang on that long. I’m not optimistic considering how tough 3 months was. That said, we’re going to make sure she goes to a good home no matter what. She’s a good cat and someone with more experience and a better environment would no doubt love her.