Adopt kittens in pairs, they said. It’s easier, they said. It’s like raising one adult cat, they said.

I initially adopted two stray kittens, because I read kittens do best in pairs. I thought Narumi would be much happier with another kitten to spend her time with, especially being eight weeks old.

I renamed Naru to Supernova (Nova for short), because I didn’t want to have to explain the name to a bunch of small town white people all the time.

Except…Nova was a boy. And they were 11 weeks old, not eight. Nova became Leo, because he took to the name better and I was constantly having to tell him not to jump on the counters. He constantly wanted to be as high as possible, but apartments are too limited for that.

He started out exploratory, and that was easy.

I’m a cat person, but having multiple cats on the farm is entirely different from having more than one cat in an apartment.

He started biting me and scratching my legs — so his sister did, too.

Emotional support animals cannot harm you. You literally have to sign a paper saying that they don’t. Yet, he would take to my legs as scratching posts for attention. He has Siamese in him — fits the Flame Point Siamese coloring and description.

He was a beautiful boy (even though I don’t find white cats pretty) and was sweet when he wants to be. I did train the leg clawing out of him, and then his sister stopped pretty quickly, but more of his behaviors influenced Galaxy.

He didn’t play fight with Galaxy — he fought.

There’s a difference between kittens playing and kittens fighting, noticeable via their ears. He wasn’t playing with her. It was always after I spent time with her. I tried to spend time with each of them evenly, but he wanted nothing to do with me after I’ve spent time with her and everything to do with dominating her.

Galaxy was strong and clearly the alpha of the two, but her defensive behavior increased. She was more protective of where she went. Cats’ instinct is to dig to cover where they’ve been so as to hide their scent from predators; she started to do this more than just the litter box area — with her food, after she slept, and even where she played.

They would have playful moments, but Leo was too young to be neutered and would randomly decide to pounce on her until she growled and hissed at him to leave her the F alone.

He would watch her from afar until she was relaxed, then he’d attack her hind legs and stay through her growling and hissing. My apartment is so small that they couldn’t move from one room to the next without seeing each other. Alternatively, she’d run and hide behind me and try to climb up me to escape him.

When they were consistently hissing at each other and fighting, it was problematic. My new apartment is smaller than my first apartment — so it’s maybe 650 sq ft max.

I grew fearful of him and his jealousy.

Speaking as a DID system, we have littles. We also have little cousins, presumably singlets, who love cats.

Leo liked to hide behind or on top of things and pounce on that which moves. I’d tripped over him because of it, nearly hurting myself in the process. Quick google searches point to attention — but this kind of behavior is unacceptable. I am not the kind of person who is equipped to handle this.

I also should not be scared of my ESA. An emotional support animal is not an ESA if they’re aggressive/mean/attacking the very person they are meant to support! He mostly stressed me out to the point of crying.

Should a little front and want to pet him, they would be traumatized — and that is a deal breaker.

His jealousy also extended to my phone. He would attack my phone, water bottle, and most every other thing I gave attention to.

His aggression was super sensitive to my reactions.

• I have allergies, so of course I sneeze a lot — especially this time of year. Every time I sneezed, he’d give me a look that I knew set us back in our bonding. If I blew my nose, he’d stared at me. I’d held him while I sneezed before, and he scratched my thigh so bad it bled. Galaxy is unbothered by all my allergies.
• After setting up my bed, he walked into my room and hissed. Later, I was approaching him, and he hissed, jumped into the air and hissed again — at me. He wouldn’t let me approach him and was displeased until I put the red plush blanket back onto my bed. I can get like this as an autistic system, but this is some next level catting.
• I got stressed over the bad internet here, and he attacked Galaxy who was just…being a loaf at the end of my feet.
• I couldn’t play with her without him getting jealous and acting out, even though I tried to spend the same amount of time with him. A behavioral trait of Siamese cats is litter box amnesia — so not rental-friendly.

As a DID system, body chemistry — including scent — behavior and tone of voice change between alters.

Cats can sense even the slightest of chemistry changes, and people with dissociative identity disorder change body chemistry on the regular.

I’d just moved into my apartment. I was going through autistic burnout. My apartment is going to change over time. I want to be able to try new hair styles and use my favorite dry shampoo (aerosol) without having to start the whole bonding process over again.

I needed a cat who would be able to adapt to my lifestyle, not a cat whose lifestyle I would have to adapt to. I’m autistic and a DID system. Dissociation is unpredictable, even though I can occasionally do it like a party trick thanks to ✨trauma✨.

Leo wanted to go outside so bad.

• The new travel-friendly carrier I purchased for their vet visit? He didn’t fear it afterward — he lived in it like he couldn’t wait to go out again. Except…he hates travel.
• He would constantly paw at the window. A few times, he ran into the window. I’m in a second floor apartment…
• He’d wait by the apartment door and cry, sometimes scratching it.
• Unless I locked them in the bathroom, he would attempt to run outside when I left or entered my apartment. Of course, Galaxy went from not caring to replicating this behavior.

Running out the door in an apartment complex, in quasi-suburbia, is hella dangerous. He could have been run over or met another Luka Magnotta. I didn’t want to have to worry about him every time I came home or had to leave, because I didn’t want to keep him cooped up in the bathroom every time I had to go anywhere. Doing that to two cats, in that small a space, is also too much.

I’m not going to keep an animal cooped up when I know they’d rather be free outside.

He’ll be an outdoor/indoor cat with the brother of the man whose property he was found on, with one of his brothers and a chihuahua. They live in a rural area, where it’s safer for him to roam. The guy thinks he’s so beautiful, so it works out perfectly.~

Meanwhile, I didn’t want a black kitten because kittens play hide-and-seek, and here I have a night goblin.