I think many people would describe me as calm. But mental health is not a static thing and many days I do not feel calm. There is a spectrum that we all navigate day to day. On my bad days, I joke that it feels like there’s a feral cat in my chest.

Have you ever picked up a cat that really, really, didn’t want to be held? Maybe you thought that if you tightened your grip it would keep it from squirming. Nope. That’s when the claws come out. I haven’t picked a cat up without its permission since I was a kid, and even then, I never had the heart to fight with them much. But I do remember the violent squirming, claws, and the resistance as I tried to tighten my grip on it to get it to stop squirming.

The feelings were both slippery and tight. Soft and sharp. Wanted and unwanted. Desperate for escape but trapped by a force that demands closeness.

This is the best way I can describe what it feels like to struggle with mental health. None of us got out of the pandemic unscathed. We are still in it, yet more and more institutions are feigning normalcy. And perhaps this is why my feral cat is acting up. Something is wrong, and many people are intent on holding the cat. Even though it’s started to bite.

My friend Gareth calls his animal a wild horse. It bucks him in the ditch. Whatever animal you live with or identify with, when it wants out, it wants out. I think it has a deeper wisdom than I can understand. It must know danger lurks nearby. When we get low on reserves or too full of unresolved conflict, we are not well. The scratching spitting, and kicking commences to tell us exactly how unwell we are.

I have sought out meditation, yoga, therapy, and just good sleep in my quest to befriend the feral cat inside me. It still gets pissed. But now I can see its hackles rise before it makes its move, and I have an opportunity to observe myself. Am I overdoing it? What’s going on? What is the feral cat trying to tell me (other than “piss off!”)?

I wish I could say I have a nice little cat, well-trained and affectionate and amusingly aloof. But this cat is battle scarred. It’s seen some stuff. Amazingly, it hangs around. I think it feels safe enough to trust that there is more good to come. There is more love. There is more calm. There is an understanding. A truce, if you will.