My therapist told me to make a geneogram, a family tree of traumas. I didn’t see how it would be helpful, I thought, since in the end it was my responsibility to withstand what my ancestors passed down. I pondered this as I pried my cat’s jaw open and shoved a pill inside—her first dose of Prozac.  

 

The alcoholism, the anxiety, the depression, the suicide…what did it all have to do with me, anyway? I carve some curls of butter onto a plate and set it by the cat food as a peace offering after she swallowed the tablet dry. I quickly google how cats get anxiety. It’s all environmental factors. Gently, I rub my shoulders where her claws had dug into my skin. She’s very trusting. We call her a puppy-cat for the way she cuddles and comes when her name is called. But she still gets a little nervous when medicine is involved.  

 

She’s been clingy since we adopted her. I knew she was the one when she jumped from my boyfriend’s arms to walk across his shoulders and perch around his neck. That was eight years ago. She feels like my child. I love to insist I gave birth to her, that she actually came from my womb and not a cold cage in the shelter. Then I could plop her right at the bottom of my family tree: Duchess Diana Razavian, birth date 2015. Death date, hopefully never.  

 

She sleeps most of the day after her medication. I can’t tell if it’s normal or not. I avoid my journal but continue thinking about the geneogram. I was supposed to include not only pathologies, but also characteristics, such as perfectionism or workaholism. I take a Ritalin and get back to my computer. The focus was little today and the task list long. I sneak glances over to Duchess during Zoom meetings. She’s still sleeping soundly, breathing deeply. “If she’s anything like her mom,” I said to a friend last week, “she will love SSRIs.” My brows tense as I try to remember my own side effects after starting antidepressants.  

 

That night, she sleeps soundly next to me. No knocking down everything on the shelf, no scratching at the door or biting at her paws, no screaming for food in the early hours. No urine outside the litter box. Quiet, sleep, and purring. I feel a little guilty, as if I’ve drugged her into submission. I joke with my husband that she’s having many revelations about her family and is eager to get back to her therapist. And I wonder if, on some level, what I’ve said is partially true. I created her environment. Did I make her this way? Or was the clinging kitten we brought home born like this? Which family tree was bearing the fruit of her anxiety?  

 

I’ve told my husband for years that I don’t trust myself to have children. Not with what I bear now, and what I might pass on for them to carry. He says I’m not my mother, and I’m not my grandmother. But I am, in a way. I don’t believe in the idea of being born a “blank slate.” And to be raised is to be filled. If I filled a child with parts of myself, they would be too young, too vulnerable, to sort the good from the bad.  

 

However, I realize as I glance again at the cat, if I believe this then I believe the geneogram may be of more use than I thought. I was no different than my cat. My environment was created for me under the branches of my family tree. I couldn’t escape their shade completely. I imagine Duchess stretching out in the sunlight shining through to the grass. She may be the only name I will add under mine.