According to the Animal Planet website, Sandra believes that cats are evil and can change form. It's unclear from the clip whether her irrational fear is the result of a traumatic past experience, or some deeper mental issues, but the show's psychologist, Dr. Robin Zaslo, takes Sandra and a friend to the ASPCA, where the poor woman cries in fear when faced with a room filled with cats and kittens in cages. Even though they are secure behind glass, with basically no chance of getting out, Sandra is convinced they are going to escape, saying of one particularly adorable cow kitty, "He's just staring at me. He would get me if he could."
As ridiculous as her fear seems, I feel really bad for Sandra, and anyone else who goes through life unable to appreciate the joy and sweet innocence a cat or kitten can bring. It remains to be seen if the exposure does anything to help ease Sandra's cat-fueled paranoia, but hopefully one day she'll be able to face her fears and realize that in the world we live in, Fluffy is the least of her worries (also, a lot of people are commenting it must be really hard for her to be online without coming across cat videos!).
Does this look say "Take me home!" or "I'm coming to get you!"?
Via BuzzFeed / Animal Planet
6 comments:
I used to be scared of cats (not that scared though) when I was a child (can't believe I'm admitting that).
It's sad, imagine a life without the joy of kittens (actually don't, it's too horrible)
It is sad that something happened to instill this kind of fear in her. I was bitten by a dog as a child but my parents made certain to make sure it didn't turn into a phobie - and we had dogs as I grew up. Hope she can get some help (though I am not sure I would want that kind of help on TV).
Once I had to walk a person that lived near me home due to a cat being near a trash can on her way....She was so scared. I was like 'really'?
I often fly with my cat in the cabin with me and once, not long after 9/11, I was flying from Washington DC to San Francisco and was seated behind a man, who when he heard my cat meowing under his seat, obviously had the same fear as this woman. He was seated next to a woman with a small dog and he was fine with that, no fear at all. I will have to say that the airline attendants handled with situation with calm and grace, as because of flight restriction we could not leave our seats for 30 minutes (until we were out of the restricted air space of DC). The man was quite hysterical and they did their best to keep him calm and in his seat. And as soon as they could, they moved me to a seat away from him. Yes, his fear was irrational as phobias are, but it was none-the-less, very frightening for this man.
I don't get the fear of cats like that. My mother in law is the same way and will scream like a maniac when she sees one. It's just ridiculous and annoying.
Kittens and cats are so precious and beautiful, I don't understand how anyone can be scared of them.
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