Mental Illness and Animals

[Catherine]

Quote:Yet even though I know that about them, I am always amazed by their capacity for forgiveness, and the readiness with which they will often start anew after even horrific events. They do not mooch about and feel self pity.

Animals do seem to have a better capacity for getting on with life. They grieve very deeply and then they carry on. Animals who suffer terrible injuries do the best they can to carry on with life. Maybe they forgive better than us because they had no mistaken idea that bad things never happen.
Dogs forgive people over and over again.

Animals do get depressed the way people get depressed. I don't know enough about Flint, but I do know we mistake grieving for depression.
At a certain point the grieving person is depressed as part of the normal response. You should feel depressed, there has been a loss and it can't be fixed. I think if you treat grief as depression it doesn't help.
In the old days there were rituals around grief that allowed for its expression. People now days do not know how to grieve. Maybe we will have to learn from animals.

We shall have to start treating military dogs for PTSD when they return. They certainly suffer as much as any other veteran. Animal "psychiatry" is a whole new area to think about. I do think we will learn to help ourselves when we learn to help animals.