I adopted one of my cats back in 2016. She was still a young cat, I'm sure not a kitten anymore. She looked super scared and quiet (not even a meow) when we got her and during the whole drive home. At home, she was always trying to hide in every possible place and sometimes we couldn't even find her. It was like this for days. We had this room we didn't use a lot so she kind of made it her own and never left it, the poor thing hid under a shelf there for weeks and weeks.
We already had an older cat by that time so to make them both used to the smell first (and because we thought it would be an issue if their 'meeting' was too sudden) we separated them. Took the chance that the younger cat didn't leave that room and let her stay there with the door closed while the other cat would sometimes stand outside sniffing and hissing. I know it doesn't sound like the best thing to do, but I obviously went there lots of times a day to check on her, give her food and water but it was still hard to make her get comfortable enough to leave the shelf. I want to point out that not even once I forced her to get out of her hidden place, I respected her and gave her time.
As the time passed, she started leaving the shelf and I'd find her doing other stuff when I opened the door to check on her even though she immediately ran back into the place after she saw me. I mean, it was progress. It was during that time when I started petting her, I took the chance to do it while she was hiding and though she even purred, it was still hard for her to give in and get out of there.
When the cat started getting more sociable me and my mum decided to open the door, let her free, let her meet the other cat and see what happens. Her reaction was nothing like we expected as she acted super interested in our other cat and even happy, nothing like she acted around humans. It was like she was relieved to see one of her own. Ever since then she started worshipping our older. All of that made me think that it was worthless and simply stupid having her closed for so long and that made me feel bad.
After that, she started walking freely around the house, constantly following the other, but she would still always run away whenever she saw one of us walking around, we simply couldn't be close to her and even petting her was hard. However, we kept thinking it was a beginning phase and that she was still getting used to things so we had to be patient with the little one. I even tried those biscuits that you give cats while petting them so they associate the petting with the biscuits but it didn't work.
3 years passed and she still runs when one of us is walking in her direction even when we are just doing other stuff. She simply can't stay calm, it's like she lives in constant anxiety. She's always on a pillow in our living room with us in there but you can't get any close to her because she will run like you're about to kill her. I feel like she doesn't like me, I wonder what made her like this. I must say though that (rarely but it happens) she lets me pet her and she even purrs, especially at night when they're sleeping. She doesn't seem bothered at all like she associates her bed, the place she sleeps on, to good things and isn't scared anymore. But besides that, forget it.
Is this how normal cats are? Scared creatures? Was I just used to having a sociable, clingy and calm cat? Also, is it possible that she might be traumatized and suffered any abuse or been towards a very bad and scary situation? The guy who gave us her is my mum's friend and we don't see him as a pet abuser since he has loads of them but you never know.
I don't think I've ever seen a case like this one. People I know that have cats have never complained about such thing. I can't have her on my lap or do anything at all, it's pretty frustrating. Needless to say that whenever we have visits she disappears or stays under a bed until those people are gone.
So advice would be veryyy appreciated <3 I'm not sure what to do, is there any other ways to train her to like me besides biscuits? How do I show her I mean her no harm? Will this get better with age?
Thank you in advance :)
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from Pets https://www.reddit.com/r/Pets/comments/coriqj/i_think_my_cat_is_traumatized_and_will_never_like/
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