A new study published in the CABI journal Human-Animal Interactions suggests that companion animals—including dogs, cats, fish and birds—do not significantly benefit the emotional health of owners with severe mental illness.
In the sense of expecting a dog to make you less bipolar somehow, I think that would be laughable.
Speaking from an angle of chronic, usually severe depression along with transient psychosis, etc., I’m willing to back up that having a pet helps me greatly. If I don’t get out of bed, the cat won’t eat. She refuses.
So I have to get up, and I have to continue looking after her because no matter how sick of this shit I ever get, she’s never done anything to deserve my abandonment. She’s a bright point where I’d otherwise have no real argument for this.
Can also confirm her constant bullshit is a calming distraction when something knocks me off balance, which does do a little bit to keep me from spiraling into what could turn into stressed-induced psychosis if I let it develop into a feedback loop. On the rare occasions it does still degrade, she’s still there in the same way nobody else is.
Honestly, it’s a testament to her breed, and I’m probably stuck only adopting Maine coons forever now just because they’re known to be so compassionate and needy that I don’t have a quiet moment left to sit and make myself worse.
It likely doesn’t help with some, but even the term “severe” is sufficiently diverse enough and the research pool small and ill-documented enough that I think they’re overstating their findings here before they’ve sufficiently finished the work.
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In the sense of expecting a dog to make you less bipolar somehow, I think that would be laughable.
Speaking from an angle of chronic, usually severe depression along with transient psychosis, etc., I’m willing to back up that having a pet helps me greatly. If I don’t get out of bed, the cat won’t eat. She refuses.
So I have to get up, and I have to continue looking after her because no matter how sick of this shit I ever get, she’s never done anything to deserve my abandonment. She’s a bright point where I’d otherwise have no real argument for this.
Can also confirm her constant bullshit is a calming distraction when something knocks me off balance, which does do a little bit to keep me from spiraling into what could turn into stressed-induced psychosis if I let it develop into a feedback loop. On the rare occasions it does still degrade, she’s still there in the same way nobody else is.
Honestly, it’s a testament to her breed, and I’m probably stuck only adopting Maine coons forever now just because they’re known to be so compassionate and needy that I don’t have a quiet moment left to sit and make myself worse.
It likely doesn’t help with some, but even the term “severe” is sufficiently diverse enough and the research pool small and ill-documented enough that I think they’re overstating their findings here before they’ve sufficiently finished the work.