With every new day, Scrounchins' lunacy is slightly more amplified. We took in a new dog called "Peaches," and Peaches goes after Scrounchins because she's a dog and Scrounch is a cat. They're in the process of getting used to each other, but then there must be some intense shit happening out in the town at night because Scrounchins continues to get crazier regardless.
I sympathize with her. Her life was kicked off with a childhood of trauma - I do still intend to write about this fascinating phenomenon of trauma - as she was raised by a highly volatile drug addict, and who knows what happened to her in that apartment of his.
It makes me very sorry to think about it but Scrounchins started out as a very sweet cat. She would hop down from her fence meowing - which sounded like "scrounch" which is why we called her that - and then she would start purring. She loved to be scratched; she was very affectionate.
She started to get neglected, which is when we took her in, and she was pretty crazy by then. And the thing about crazy, or the thing about trauma in general, is that it rewires the brain to account for this compelling emotional imprint caused by the traumatic event(s), and as it happens, the brain becomes wired to feed the crazy. It switches into survival mode. So all the stressful moments in her life were filed away in her crazy cat head as ringing endorsements for continuing to be crazy because the world is in fact a stressful place.
Now you can scratch her for a few seconds and then she freaks out and hisses, and if you're not quick enough, she wraps her claws around your arm and scratches and bites you. She usually gets a nail or two into my skin and catches it, so I have to grab her paw and ease it off.
I'm not angry with Scrounchins. Sometimes when she gets me good, I become enraged and imagine flinging her across the lawn by her tail. After all I am an animal too. But it only takes a few seconds to review the broader context and I am pacified. I'm not even angry with this drug addict. Who knows what horrors he experienced in his lifetime...and the brain is a powerful thing. It gets a taste of instinct and it doesn't let go after that.
My brain is wired for the crazy too, but I never had a traumatic childhood. I just inherited the cognitive effects via genes, which I guess happens all the time. I understand what it means at least, on a subjective level...as far as I know.
Scrounchins now refuses to come inside. We put her food and water out and she seems fine. There's another outdoor cat nearby named "Rosie" that comes by every once in a while. Seems like a nice cat. Seems like it wants to make friends. But then I hear her and Scrounchins fighting at night.
Scrounch likes to follow us surreptitiously when we walk the dogs. And once she faced off with a pitbull that was barking at our dogs. Not sure what she was gong to do, but I suspect she thought she was protecting us. Strange cat. Still love her.
