Separation anxiety? How can I help my cat?

Hi!

I´ve been having problems with my cat crying/wailing for hours at a time when she´s left alone.

I adopted my cat two years ago (she´s three now) from a very small cat rescue group. At the time, they had almost no money and were about to close, so the tiny flat was full of uncaged cats being left alone for hours at a time. My cat arrived there as a kitten (6 months old) and stayed there for six months fighting other cats over food and space until she was finally adopted.

As a result of this past trauma (on top of her previous owners that abandoned her when she was a kitten), she is very easily scared and hates other cats. She bonded with me very quickly though and is very happy in her new, clean, spacey home.

The problem is when I inevitably have to leave. She cant stand being left alone, she sometimes grabs my ankles to try to stop me whenever I get up to go to the kitchen or the bathroom, follows me everywhere and cries whenever a door is closed with her outside.

This gets especially bad when I go to sleep. I´m a light sleeper and have trouble falling asleep, so I always let my cat out of my bedroom and sleep with the door closed. She is pretty lazy and sleeps most of the night but for the past few weeks, she´s been crying outside my door, everyday, starting at four in the morning.

I get up for work at 6:30 but she wakes me up at four every night. She wails and cries and scratches the door for HOURS and DOES NOT STOP.

I once got up, opened the door, held her in my arms (she loves to be carried on my shoulder) and pet her for a while and it did make her calm down and go back to sleep but I cant imagine this being a viable solution? I feellike that would only encourage her to keep crying because that´ll get my attention *sigh* I just want to sleep again

​

Have any of you experienced separation anxiety issues with your adopted animals? Any tips to help her feel calm and secure?

submitted by /u/ZeraNaomi
[link] [comments]

from Pets https://www.reddit.com/r/Pets/comments/erc4wx/separation_anxiety_how_can_i_help_my_cat/