Does anyone out there experience issues with hygiene, specifically to do with pets? I like my family's cat Jess but I get so incredibly anxious about hygiene / family members interacting with her that I spend most of my time at home up in my bedroom because I can't cope with all the anxiety of having to be around the cat. To name a few issues:
1.) Some sounds she makes when she is licking herself / eating can be unbearable for me and I can't cope with them. There have been times when I have been watching TV shows with my family but because these noises are so unbearable I just had to leave in the middle of it and go to my room to get away from the noise. It's especially annoying when it's my night to do the washing up, I already struggle enough with having to touch other people's plates / things that sometimes I have to leave mid way through washing up because the cat came into the kitchen to eat and I can't cope with it. My family think I am just trying to avoid washing up but I happily do it other nights and I come back down after a few minutes once the cat is gone!
2.) The cat is banned from my room because I don't want to have to worry about her brushing against / making contact with certain possessions in my room, especially these guys:
Meet "Fluffy" and "Barnie", they are plush toys who are similar to a weighted blanket in the sense that they provide me with comfort / help me to cope with anxiety. I am absolutely paranoid about the cat getting to these owls even if I know she would probably ignore them. I get very frustrated at family members when they leave the door to my room open without closing it, potentially letting the cat wander in without me knowing. At least in the case my parents sort of understand these personal boundaries but my brother? Nope. In fact the reason I was prompted into writing this today was him, he took the snowy owl* away from me by force which is already bad enough, but then he stroked the cat and then started touching my owl with the same hand he had touched the cat with, having not washed it. Is it an irrational fear of him touching the cat and my owls? Yes. But he still needs to respect my personal boundaries and it really upset me that he would do something like that, especially as I told him after touching the cat not to touch my owl and yet he still did it. And he knows that it upsets me yet he repeatedly does similar things (on a sofa in our living room we have a blanket that the cat will lie down on and he would take my owls and put them down on the blanket despite me telling him not to.)
3.) The aforementioned point 2 is basically the reason I spend so much time in my room. I am in control and don't have to worry about these hygiene things. But anywhere else is total chaos. There is basically nowhere downstairs that is "safe" from the cat other than a high up shelf on our bookcase when I am eating dinner. At all other times they have to be on me, not with anyone else or lying down somewhere like the floor where the cat goes. And its not just these toys I worry about either, the cat has her own toys that frequently end up all over the place downstairs and I make sure to take great care in avoiding them. Perhaps other than the issue of the owls, nothing is more frustrating than when a family member leaves the tv remote in direct contact with one of the cat's toys / a blanket. It drives me insane, before even considering using that TV remote it will have to be wiped 'clean' and I will wash my hands thoroughly afterwards.
So even if this was all a lot of rambling I hope you get a picture of what I am talking about and that at least somebody can relate. I am absolutely paranoid with hygiene and what family members / the cat are doing, I would never let a family member out of sight with my toys for fear of what they might do with them. And its not good for my mental health because I spend all my time locked up in my bedroom alone. I dont want to be there alone all the time, even if there are certain interests I like to explore for hours on end some days, but I can't bring myself to go anywhere else the majority of the time. I will also take the time to mention that the eating sounds thing is not isolated to my cat, but is something I encounter with my family at dinner times and when I am somewhere where other people are eating. There's a reason I eat my lunch and breakfast in my room if I can get away with it to avoid those sounds. There were times at school when I had to go into the toilets because I was having a meltdown not coping with eating sounds / loud talking - and this is one thing I cannot understand, why people would go to a study room and act like that. Extremely frustrating!
I think in time I will be able to work on this anxiety and at least get to a stage where I feel able to even stroke my cat (yes you read that right we have had this cat for a year and not once have I stroked her.) In the mean time I am satisfied with watching her stare blankly in a random direction most of the time (which reminds me a lot of myself!), and I have no idea how or if I will ever get over this anxiety to do with my toys / hygiene.
*incase you wondered just how seriously I take this, "Fluffy" is currently in quarantine on the end of my bed and I will have to do with cuddling Barnie tonight :)
A nice picture of the cat in my garden:
