Inside the Mental Health of a gay Black ex-Christian

I had a lot to let go of.

Some things to get off my chest.

Now that I've said my peace.

I'm ready to get on with the rest...

of my life.

I’ve always had a problem with over explaining. For the longest time, I lived in defense mode. The ability to relax and be comfortable was a quality that I envied in other people. The brain is a magnificent organ. And I was using mine to create worst case scenarios instead of living in the best ones. I was cutting myself off at the knees by presenting an unattractive version of myself. I’d been a victim in my life, like everyone. But my thoughts, words, and actions were keeping me in that victimized state rather than healing and moving on from my past trauma. Recognizing this pattern of behavior and breaking it are two separate feats that both require proper time and attention. And most of all, the ability to be honest with myself. I felt slighted by society because enough people made me feel I was worthless. I knew this wasn’t true, but with nothing going on in my life. Their words rang true. So, I lashed out. I started reaching for things I didn’t want to gain approval. So, the first thing I had to do after coming to terms with my wounded behavior and correcting it was to be honest about what I wanted out of life. The only concrete desire I had was to have a cat. Meet Oumiké!

I adopted him on March 20th 2020. Before I adopted him, I exercised the practice of manifestation. A cat companion has been a desire of mine for a very long time. Cats are often misunderstood. Once I lived with one, I learned they are beautiful animals that require proper patience. Those sentiments resonated with me because that’s how I felt about myself in relation to other people. Oumiké gave me a lens outside of myself in which to view the world. And I found myself excited about life again. If only to see how he would react to things and discover what he liked. The first manifestation exercise I did was buy cat food. Nothing over the top, just a couple of cans of what I thought I’d like to eat if I were a cat. Second, I watched every single episode of Jackson Galaxy’s ‘My Cat From Hell‘. There were various situations cat owners encountered concerning their pet’s behavior. It was a significant source of information on how to deal with these issues when they occurred, as well as how to avoid them. Third, before bed every night I would watch YouTube vlogs of cat adoptions. So that I could get a picture in my mind of the cat that I wanted. Online quizzes that helped you decide which breed fits your personality were a fun way for me to imagine my future fur baby. Christmas of 2019, my family asked what I wanted. The only thing I wanted was a cat. They didn’t get me one. 😂 So, my fourth manifestation exercise was to purchase a surrogate from Amazon. A stuffed animal that I could sleep with and dream about what my future feline companion would be. The picture in my mind was a black cat. That choice was based on posts from cat groups I was a part of on Facebook stating that black cats were the least adopted. So for me, those two things we had in common. When the pandemic hit, I didn’t want to believe it was real. But it was. Being an introvert, staying at home rests perfectly within my comfort zone. Not knowing when we’d be able to leave the house again, I saw it as my last chance to adopt a cat. So, I visited the website of my local animal shelter to see what cats needed adopting. There were so many to choose from but none of them stood out to me. Until I saw Oumiké’s photo. Something about him just said, “Come get me!” I filled out the application and emailed it. The shelter called me an hour later to set up my appointment to come and see him! Excited doesn’t describe how I felt. The entire drive to the shelter I kept saying out loud, “I’m getting a cat today. I’m leaving the shelter with a cat.” Most of the vlogs I’d seen. There was a waiting period after viewing the cats before they made the adoption final. When I arrived, the first thing I noticed about the shelter (I’d never been to an animal shelter before) was how noisy it was. When COVID first hit, there was a rumor about people contracting it from their pets. There were several people giving up their dogs to the shelter because of this. Distressed cries from abandoned canines filled the hallways as the shelter employee led me to where my future fur baby was. He shared an enclosure with an orange tabby named Boggle. The first thing I noticed when I entered the enclosure was that Oumiké’s (the shelter named him Sterling) environment clearly stressed him out. He wouldn’t stop circling the small room. Boggle was a huge sweetie pie. He cuddled up to me right away. Oumiké didn’t acknowledge me right away. I wanted to pet him, but I’d learned that you need to give cats their space and let them come to you. My energy was crucial, and I needed to present myself as a safe place for him to come to. So, I shut out the stressful noise of crying canines and got on my knees, and sat in the corner. Eventually, he came over and nuzzled me. He let me pick him up, and he marked me! That was the deciding factor. When the shelter employee came back, I told her I wanted him. Ten minutes later, I was driving home with my new friend!

From watching My Cat From Hell, I learned cats get bored easily with their toys. Because of this, they can act out and become destructive. A good way to circumvent this behavior is by taking them for a walk. They make it look so easy on YouTube and television, but let me tell you, it is not!😂 You have to get them into the harness first. They’ll hate you for that because it feels like a trap. The main take away from my initial experience with trying to walk him on a leash was that it was too much too soon. He needed to get to know me and build trust with me. The frustration of failing at something I wanted to do, because I knew it was an enrichment for him; Had to go away because I was moving too fast for him. He was in a brand new environment. And there was so much that he was unaccustomed to. Scents, noises, people. All of it was sensory overload, and he needed to survey, inspect, and discover his new surroundings before being thrust into a device that requires proper trust. This helped me calm down a lot. I can be high-strung and his boundaries have helped me to put things into perspective with others as well as myself. The situation required not only for him to trust me, but for me to trust him. He got out a few times. I wanted him to be outside. But our yard has no fence. We’re surrounded by neighbors with large dogs and coyotes come in and out of our yard frequently. Being on leash was necessary for his safety. Once the first attempts with the leash failed, I turned to other means of getting him outside. A tent and a pet stroller were the two options that I could afford. He hated them both.😂 Which further stressed us out.

With the stroller and the tent failing. I needed to get him outside safely. The solution at the time was for me to carry him. Holding him in my arms while walking around our house. This was acceptable to him, and he even seemed to thank me. Nuzzling me whenever we’d go outside for our cuddle walks. After a while, though, this wasn’t enough. He needed to get down and put his paws in the dirt and explore his surroundings. Which meant more escaping for him and more frustration for me. I knew that once he understood what the leash and harness were, and what they meant. He’d be down. By this time, I’d had him for an entire year. After celebrating his birthday, I thought about trying the leash again. This required me to pull out the best of my patience. Treats were an excellent bribe. I used treats the first and every subsequent time but trust had been the missing ingredient. Now that he trusted me, I could coax him into the harness. We got outside, and he had his paws on the ground. All with mixed emotions from him. On one hand, he was where he wanted to be. But it came with the caveat of being in a contraption. He didn’t understand that it was for his safety, he only knew that it was keeping him from running after everything that caught his attention. There were a lot of pushbacks. He’d be fine for a few minutes and then suddenly bolt or stop and try to back out of the harness. He was seeking freedom, not realizing that in his current environment, it was dangerous for him to be off leash. After he escaped his leash a few times, I felt defeated and gave up. My frustration wasn’t allowing me to trust the process because I was focused on the result. Just like he had to get familiar with his surroundings. He needed to get familiar with the leash and harness. This required consistency and patience. Two things that I’m still learning but doing a better job of applying to everything in my life. Instead of trying to take him for a 30-minute walk. I took him out for ten minutes. Long enough to be in the harness and walk around before his fight for flight kicked in and he tried to slip his leash. Doing this for about a month and a half, he started wanting to stay outside longer. Now, he asks to go outside by nuzzling his harness and flipping on his back!

Oumiké is a stop and ‘smell the roses’ (which are his favorite flower) type of cat. Watching him watch his world has prompted me to take a page from his book. There’s a lot that he’s cautious about, but mostly, he dives in head first (literally) into everything that fascinates him. I used to seek a lot of approval or feedback. When I didn’t get it, I allowed the lack of interaction to discourage me from doing what I wanted. The fear of looking stupid doing anything was an immense problem. It ate up a lot of valuable time. This brings me back to being honest about what I wanted out of life. Two things have been constant for me are my love of music and writing. Even though I stopped pursuing music, I was singing to myself as therapy. Writing has always been an escape. Seeing the words from my head written on paper or on my computer, is transformative. Periodically, I listen to my old EP’s that I never released and get upset with myself for not taking the risk and putting more of my music out there. Is it the greatest? No. But you have to start somewhere. Practice makes improvements. I’ve been out of practice but I’m working my way back! A song I wrote called Mirror kicked my ass. It says: Look into the mirror...look into your eyes. Are you being yourself or wearing a disguise? I was forcing myself, unsuccessfully, to portray someone that I wasn’t.

This past Christmas, Oumiké and I had another trust building experience. Flying on a plane. I’ve flown several times. He hates riding in the car, so I knew the plane would stress him out completely. The vet gave us a prescription to help calm him during our trip. The medicine failed. Me attempting to manage his anxiety was also me, trying to manage my anxiety. I kept thinking about other passengers being annoyed at his meowing, and I was afraid of not being able to travel with him if they deemed him too noisy. Ultimately, what kept him calm was me. He meowed a bit but, the comments from other passengers were that he was a wonderful cat. My energy influenced his energy. I had to find a reserve of calm within myself so that he’d have an anchor and it worked! Discovering this ability about myself helped to build my confidence. My cat has taught me that being cautious or even terrified of an unfamiliar experience is okay. But if you don’t have it, it’ll keep you stuck in fear. And if after you try it you discover it wasn’t the right thing for you, that’s okay too! Everyone has an opinion. That shouldn’t stop you from trying. If you don’t know something, you can learn it. Someone reads your story and doesn’t like it? It doesn’t mean your story wasn’t good or that you’re a terrible writer. There are people who enjoy what I create and I enjoy what I create. The right people will show up at the right time. The most important thing is to not give up! I’m not giving up on myself again.