Cat with severe FOMO/anxiety meows non-stop to follow whoever is awake - tried everything, at a loss
My cat Squanch (1y) is a domestic shorthair orange kitty and he has an intense need to always be where the active people are. Not just near people - near whoever is awake and moving.
Here’s the situation: I live with my mom. Her cat lives upstairs with her and enjoys his alone time, so Squanch stays downstairs until her cat goes outside, then we let Squanch up. I spend most of my time upstairs so he does get to come up regularly.
The problem: every morning my mom wakes up before me. Squanch hears her moving around upstairs and completely loses it. Non-stop meowing, no breaks, for 20+ minutes. This wakes me up every morning. I’m literally right there in bed with him..he’s not alone..but because I’m asleep I apparently “don’t count.” He needs to be where the action is.
What I’ve already tried:
• Not rewarding the meowing for months - no change whatsoever
• Play sessions before bed - doesn’t help
• Scheduled feeding adjustments - doesn’t help
• Sometimes I give up and lock him in the bathroom when it gets really bad - he meows non-stop the entire time with zero self-soothing
Some relevant details:
• He can never truly relax in general. Always on, always alert, never fully settles (does have occasional naps but mostly very alert)
• EXCEPT - if I put a harness on him he genuinely calms down. The pressure seems to regulate him
• He’s not hungry (free fed kibble overnight and two LARGE meals throughout the day) he’s very food motivated.
• I can’t get a second cat right now (I have another cat but he lives with my partner in another city temporarily)
• I don’t want to use pharmaceutical medication
I’m wondering if anyone has dealt with a cat who is this activated and this unable to self-soothe. Is this just anxiety wired into him? The harness response makes me think his nervous system is genuinely dysregulated rather than this being a learned behavior thing.
Also curious if anyone has tried fully restricting a cat from a space (like never letting him upstairs at all) and whether extinction eventually happened? I’ve seen it work with my other cat and outdoor access, but I’m not sure if it translates when a person is on the other side of the door rather than just a location.
One more thing I’ve noticed: when he’s relaxed and I go to pet him, it actually seems to activate him rather than soothe him. He’ll go from calm to stiff, tail wagging, purring vigorously - not contentment, more like his system just got switched on. And he has never once slow blinked at me. For anyone who knows cats, a cat who never slow blinks is a cat who never fully feels safe enough to lower his guard, even with someone he’s deeply bonded to. So it seems like his baseline alertness just never drops, ever. Touch, sound, movement, it all registers as something his nervous system needs to respond to rather than something he can just let wash over him.
Any experience with similar cats appreciated. Especially the harness/pressure calming detail — hasn’t seen that come up much.
Picture for attention+cat tax
UPDATE: to everyone who thinks I don’t play with him and lock him in a singular room YOU ARE WRONG! He has free range of an ENTIRE 3 bedrooms basement and I play with him to the point of exhaustion 3 times a day. I only lock him in the bathroom once in a while when the meowing gets way too much. I’m reaching out to all of you for help and to reply with attitude and saying I’m a bad pet owner is super discouraging. Disappointed.