I feel constantly anxious that my cat is unhappy or that I'm failing her.
Hi. I (21M) have a 2.75 year old Mishka (large ragdoll) that has been the focus of my time when I'm in my 700sqft apartment. She is a very beautiful but also very... odd cat. I adopted her this January and we've been adapting to each other, but I can't shake this feeling of guilt about her. I hope that this post might give me some clarity, either through reassurance or productive action items.
First, previous home context: she was surrendered to a shelter because at her previous home she was bullied a lot by other cats. For this reason she was recommended to be put in a home that was "quiet" and that she'd do well as an only cat. I, being a single guy looking for his first cat, thought this was a great match.
Her social behavior is an unusual one. She tends to be rather independent, and hides for most of the day proper (8am-4pm), presumably for sleeping. She emerges from her favorite hiding spots nonchalantly, and maintains regular diet and litter box habits, with zero messes (aside from a single irregular bowel movement mishap when she had an upset tummy). She has no problems lounging near me when she's not sleeping, and she tends to sleep by my feet at night. She is just not a very "attached" cat, and I figured this would work in my favor with her not being too stressed when I leave for work.
I work a 10 hour shift 4 days a week with rehearsals after work that I try to stop at home before attending, but that doesn't always happen. I feared this would lead to heavy attachment issues with her, but I'm not noticing especially poor behavior as a result. When I come home she doesn't become vocal as though she was severely stressed that I was gone. She hasn't become destructive aside from occasional wall scatches (they don't leave marks) when she's particularly energetic during late night+early morning energy bursts - and that's when I'm already home. I try to make it my duty to play with her actively for at least 10 minutes a day. My only outstanding concern is she tends to not eat as much when I'm gone, but this has produced no noticeable changes in her weight and she tends to end up eating what I put out for her in aggregate.
I give her access to some cat tree perches and a bed with a view from my 3rd story window (unfortunately it's of a parking lot 😑) and play nature scenery videos when I'm not home for white noise and something to look at. I leave an automatic cat wand toy for her to engage with at leisure when I'm not available to play, as well as some other toys on the ground (that she could take or leave, she's not much of a toy player outside of wands).
At night when I'm sleeping, I tend to leave the living room light on and play a baking marathon video so she has human audio to listen to when I can't supply it. This has reduced the amount of times that she will wake me at 5am because of (what I presume is) understimulation.
I say all of this, and something still feels... off. Sometimes she'll meow and approach me only to realize that she doesn't want my attention. Sometimes I'll try to play with her and I can't find a style she likes so she just watches. Sometimes still, she will wake me up at 5am because she's antsy and I don't have the stamina to sacrifice my sleep to address it.
All the while I have pressure from forums that flip-flop me from "all cats NEED companions" to "some adult cats are hard to socialize and companions might make it worse" to "some adult cats are fine on their own" to "you're a monster for leaving for work" - this on top of the fact that I can't figure out a space for a new litter box and more perches to adopt another cat and would rather not fork another 400 dollars to my apartment for the right to keep one. And it's not like Mishka gives signs that she'd be privy to another cat! She hides for everyone who isn't me! Including other cats!
I want to be told I'm overreacting. And I know all this sounds like I'm not ready for a cat, and I have to promise that in spite of what I've complained about that we've been going strong for 4 months now and she gets a long fine for a substantial part of it for aught I can tell. There are just little things that I worry about perpetually that stack up on top of me recently living on my own and having a weekday job. Growing up is fun, they said (did no one ever).
Thank you for reading through this if you did. Any advice is appreciated.