By: Aimee Wilson
I have felt cats rubbing their faces against mine and touching my cheek with claws carefully sheathed. These things, to me, are expressions of love.” –
James Herriot
*Content Warning*
This post contains content and themes that some may find upsetting.
Hello and welcome to the first post on the Calico Catch-Up monthly column!
I’m Aimee and I’m very proud and honoured to have been asked to write this column for the Daily Mews! The column’s title was inspired by my calico kitten; Emmy, but I’ll be starting off by talking about my first cat; a black, British Shorthair named Saffy.
The decision between my Mum and I to add a cat to the family was a little bit impulsive and very unexpected. I’d spent the years before Saffy hearing nothing but complaints about cats toileting in people’s gardens, digging up plants and hissing when you’d walk by one.
Which is why, as soon as I was old enough to be somewhat responsible for a pet, we added a hamster to the household!
It wasn’t until my Mum and I were on holiday and met a friend of a friend’s big, fluffy cat that I fell head-over-heels in love and managed to convince my Mum that getting one would be a good idea!
We found Saffy through our local pet shop and because she was only one week old, my Mum and I visited her and her litter mates every week until she was old enough to leave her Mum. We picked Saffy from all the other black British Shorthairs because she would always sit on my lap and fight off any of her littermates who would try to take her place!
Having a cat in our lives for the first time was a huge learning curve for us and I think we were surprised to discover that as she got older, Saffy was definitely became one of those cats that’s quite independent; she was very much a ‘you-can-cuddle-me-only-until-I-say-so’ type of cat!
Regardless of how fussy she was with human contact, she was still great company!
When my Mum was at work and I was home alone, it was great to just know there was another presence in the room with me and when I went through a trauma aged fifteen, she was a huge source of comfort for me.
At the time, no one knew what I was going through, but I felt able to talk to Saffy – that might sound silly that I was having such a deep conversation with my cat, but it was helpful. I was so afraid that I’d be judged as soon as someone knew what had happened to me, but Saffy had no preconceived ideas on the trauma and I felt reassured by this.
Sometimes I’d get home from School and my Mum would be at work and I’d just bawl my eyes out to my fluffy best-friend! The amount of relief I felt at having the ability to still do that was inexplicable, but it wasn’t the same as confiding in a human. The secret of my trauma grew and grew until I was detained under the 1983 Mental Health Act and sectioned to a Psychiatric Hospital.
Then, in 2012, a suicide attempt saw me end up on life support in Intensive Care and when I came round from the coma, I was admitted to a Psychiatric Hospital over 100 miles away from home.
Until that point, I’d spent twenty-one years living with my Mum and we’d had Saffy for about seven years so my relationships with them both were strong and special and they each meant a lot to me. While I was an inpatient, I would call my Mum every night and she’d put the phone out to Saffy so that I could talk to her too. My Mum also used to send me photos of Saffy on social media and when I was finally granted leave from Hospital to go home for a weekend I cried with happiness when Saffy still recognized me and fell asleep on my lap.
Sadly, on Christmas 2016, Saffy began having trouble breathing and on Boxing Day she was taken to the vets where they discovered a mass around her vital organs.
My Mum and I made the difficult decision to have her put to sleep later that day. The little comfort we had was when the vet explained that they usually don’t catch these tumours until the cat is in pain; so for us to have spotted the symptoms so early on – and before she’d experienced any pain from it – was testament to the love we had showered her in for her entire life.
Aimee is 29 and lives in Northumberland with her calico cat; Emmy, and Lionhead rabbit; Pixie. After being admitted to a psychiatric hospital for two and a half years, she created a mental health blog and it now has almost three quarters of a million readers. Aimee wanted to start this column because she’s very passionate about illustrating the benefits animals can have on your mental health.
Cats Protection Tyneside Adoption Centre 