The Long and Winding Road, pt. 7
Last night was more emotionally taxing on me than I thought it was. My SO and I are fostering a dog we were thinking of adopting. After last night, I’m pretty sure that is not going to happen.
He likes to chase cats. That wouldn’t be a problem with a more confident/less skittish cat. Unfortunately, that’s not our cat. She saw him last night. She freaked out and ran away. We restrained him for a while… after 15 minutes, not only had he not forgotten about the cat. He tore up the stairs after her, jumped her gate and had caught her by the collar.
Now when you see a cat attached by the claws on the dogs face as it looks like he has actually bitten her, it’s a bit of a freak out. My SO injured himself separating the two. I picked him up and gave him a puppy time-out in our bedroom while he tried to calm down our cat.
Not surprisingly, she’s still scared. She has the completely safe zone of her room/my office, but she’s still nervous.
So, how does this relate to what I’m doing?
Oddly enough, I can empathize with my cat. I know what it’s like to be so scared that you don’t want to leave your cozy little spot. You don’t know if you’re going to be attacked again out of nowhere.
Even just seeing that upset me. I was already mentally back in that spot because I’m doing group… and that just put me back there.
I almost totally mentally broke down.
I know I need to learn how to cope with my triggers. So, we’ll see what I learn.