10:17pm October 4, 2014

A convincing theory.

Fey has lived with me since she was six months old and I was nineteen years old.  I was nineteen when I started showing severe signs of myasthenia gravis or mitochondrial disease or adrenal insufficiency or whatever it is (possibly a combination).  If I walked around, I collapsed, my legs would give out, and I would be lying on the floor useless for quite some time.  She could get me out of an autistic-catatonia motor freeze, but she could not get me out of the loss of muscle strength I was encountering.

(It was sometimes heartbreaking to watch her.  I’d collapse, and she’d do her entire “get me moving from a motor freeze” routine, running back and forth on top of me nudging my arms and legs and face more and more frantically, until she couldn’t anymore and just sat there looking sad and bewildered.)

She started giving me the “You are my big, stupid kitten who doesn’t know enough to come in outta the rain” looks when she was barely more than a kitten herself.  They happened more and more frequently as I would go on my walks down Highway 9 to the antique stores, falling frequently on the way back and having to stop and rest until I could get up again, and turning into an immobile lump on the couch for hours afterwards while she paced around me and looked worried and tried to alternately poke and snuggle me.  She looked like she felt impotent and worried.  I think she’s always seen me as her kitten, the kitten that doesn’t know what’s good for hir and needs constant guidance, sometimes physical.

This is the first time in her entire life that me getting up and moving around is a good thing.

Maybe she’s upset that I’m “endangering myself”.

I mean… this seems like a potentially self-centered explanation.  But it would be in character for her – she takes care of me, she always has, and she’s always done it in as gruff a way as she possibly can.

So this is one among many possibilities, but it’s a possibility where everything fits very neatly into place.  So I have to consider it possible that in her own messed-up way, Fey is actually trying to help me, not just to torture me.  (And she does find very messed-up ways to “help” me at times so all of this is very much her style.) 

In the meanwhile, I’m wearing shoes to bed.  When I get out of bed with shoes and jeans on, there isn’t a lot of biting surface.  I’ve seen her size me up, look disgusted, and turn the other way.

But I really hadn’t thought about the fact that I’ve been severely ill most of the time I’ve known her, and housebound or bedridden for a large portion of that time.  So my ability to walk around and go places might feel scary or even threatening from her perspective.  She’s 15 years old and she’s spent the entirety of that time, except for her first six months, with me.  And with all that being with me entails.  I hadn’t thought how that might have shaped her view of my behavior.

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