My favorite childhood memory was when I was gifted, Peaches the kitten for Christmas when I was 8. It was such a perfect moment! My brother and I came down the stairs on Christmas Morning and saw a sweet little kitten in a basket under the tree.
It was perfection but like with most good things there was a catch!
The catch:
I WAS TERRIFIED OF ALL ANIMALS!
I was even scared to touch the kitten. You may be thinking, who gives a child terrified of animals a brand-new kitten on Christmas morning? My answer for that: the smartest parents in the world!
Let me give you the back story!
When I was a tiny, I was around a lot of animals. My grandmother had a house full of birds, cats and dogs! This is one of my favorite pictures of me with my grandma.
She loved animals and she instilled that love of animals in my mom and me. I too loved animals as a small child. While we didn’t have pets at home, my grandma always did.
Around the age of two my love for animals turned into a fear of animals. I had a “traumatic experience.” In hindsight it wasn’t really all that traumatic but as a small child it changed the next 6 years of my life.
One day, I was outside in our backyard with my mom when our neighbor’s German Shepard jumped the fence and charged me. I’m told this particular German Shepard was very kind and not mean, he probably just wanted to play with me, but that moment altered my sense of security around animals for years to come. The dog did not hurt me in any way physically, but that experience initiated a fear of animals within me. That fear continued through the age of eight.
It was bad, I couldn’t go outside if my neighbor’s puppy was out. I wouldn’t visit friends without prior notification that their animals would be out of sight. It was hard but it wasn’t a hardship that my father was unfamiliar with. My dad did not grow up with animals, he was not a huge fan and his mother was terrified of dogs. What is something you were scared of as a child or something you are fearful of now? Tell me in my DMs on IG!
But since my mom did grow up with all of the animals, she knew that she had to do something to get me over this fear.
She convinced my dad to get me a kitten for Christmas in hopes that it would help me get over my fear. Did it…long story short-YES but the road to that point wasn’t easy. Let me take you back to Christmas morning. I was scared to hold the kitten. I eventually agreed to hold the cat, but he had to be wrapped in a blanket, so I wasn’t touching him.
But ultimately my mom’s plan worked and here I am just a few short months later holding Peaches without that blanket. The more comfortable I got with Peaches, the more I was able to go outside with my neighbor’s puppy and visit friends without prior notification that their pets were out of sight.
Peaches lived for 18 years which is old for a cat. He passed away when I was 26 years old. I went on to adopt 2 more cats, inherited a dog when I got married and later adopted another dog. Check out this link if you are ready to adopt a pet!
Animals were my first babies and I hate to wonder how much I would have missed out on if I was still scared of animals.
That’s the thing about fears, while they may seem irrational to some people, they are REAL, and they are often sparked from an experience or a story or a misunderstanding…BUT they can be overcame! As adults our fears often change but they are still present.
Read more stories about me here!