Pets and executive dysfunction

For those that do not know, executive dysfunction is the term used to describe when people with mental or physical disorders/disabilities lack the mental energy to do necessary tasks. Often referred to as not having enough "spoons" to be able to do things.

People who suffer from anxiety disorders, autism, mood disorders, and even physical disorders or disabilities often can feel the struggle of not being able to get things done. This can involve going to work every day, going on errands like grocery shopping or picking up prescriptions. This also largely involves one's self care. People may struggle to be able to force themselves to do necessary task regularly enough to take proper care of themselves and their homes. This can involve brushing your teeth and hair regularly, getting out of bed, practising proper hygiene, taking medications every day on time, cleaning and tidying one's home, or otherwise being able to tend to the obligations in our daily lives that we all have.

When people experience executive dysfunction, they may not have the energy, the energy may be taken up by stress, anxiety, and/or depression, or one may simply just lack the will. What makes executive dysfunction different from laziness is the fact that when people experience executive dysfunction, they cannot force themselves to do tasks no matter how much they want to or know they need to. They freeze up and just cannot make their body do what it needs to for the task to be worked on. 

There have been many findings, both by psychological experts as well as individuals through their own experiences, that having a pet is the best drive to help people who suffer from executive dysfunction. Having a pet forces one to have a routine. If you do not get up to feed, water, and give attention to your pet, the pet's health will suffer. Often times the pet will force you to get up and follow a routine before their health suffers from neglect. 

This is not what is the driving force in most cases, however. Rather than the pet forcing you, people are driven to stick to a routine for the sake of their pet just because the pet is family to them. The pet offers them comfort and they form such a bond that people find they are able to break through their dysfunction for the better of the pet.

Executive dysfunction is a vicious cycle. The neglect of one's life, home, and body leads to guilt that makes existing depression worse. People often feel they are not worth the self care or don't have enough drive to break through because they are the only ones that suffer. The drive to take care of a pet is often found to be incredibly stronger than the drive to take care of one's self. One would think if someone struggles to take care of themselves that having a pet would be a horrible idea because they would neglect the pet as well. This is found to be vastly untrue.

Pets are much more than social companions. The social companionship drives many of those with executive dysfunction to be able to function. If they do not take care of their home and their pet, the pet will suffer. They force people to have a routine and a strict routine is the best solution to minimize the inability to go about daily or otherwise regular tasks. When we have to stick to a routine for the better of a dependant pet, it makes it easier for us to create and stick to a routine to take care of ourselves and thrive in life. Even just having a fish has been shown to have a massive difference in the experiences one has with struggling to complete daily/regular tasks and chores. Having a pet is not just for the better of people who are lonely that live alone, but for those who struggle with executive dysfunction, therefore society and supports for those with disabilities need to be more supportive of people with mental disorders or with disabilities in general having pets. These pets are not being neglected. The concept that pets of people who struggle to take care of themselves are neglected or will be neglected is a stigma. 

"But I don't....."

Society is infected with contagious narcissistic tendencies. Part of becoming humble is to recognize these tendencies learned from society. One that I am focusing on in this post is people's tendency to use themselves to invalidate others.

What I mean is people use their experiences, symptoms, etc to determine how others should be. On social media you can make a statement about "most" of a certain group has a certain behaviour or trait and there will always be people piping up saying you're wrong because they don't fit into the description you just explained.

Every day we should be making the effort to recognize that everyone is different. Everyone is not you. Your experiences, symptoms, traits, do not disprove statements of "most" made or disprove what others claim they experience. 

You can have anxiety disorder, but not everyone who has anxiety disorder will be like you. In fact it is extremely rare that someone would be exactly like you. There are different severities and there are many symptoms that not everyone with anxiety disorder has. I'm just using anxiety disorder as an example because it is popularly used to invalidate others who have anxiety disorders that have differing struggles.

Everything in life is a spectrum. The most important part of understanding that things are a spectrum is to picture it like the colour circle on a computer program where you select a colour and shade, rather than picturing the term spectrum as a horizontal rectangular colour gradient. The spectrum does not represent severity of the disorder overall, but more so represents that out of a long list of symptoms for said disorder, people will not have all of them and will not experience a common severity across all of their symptoms. One may have certain symptoms in extreme severity whereas others are barely noticeable or not even present. How are you to scale overall severity of someone's case of a disorder this way? You can't! 

We need to stop viewing the validity of others in reference to ourselves. This also goes for the concept of people invalidating or minimizing other people's pain and suffering based on scaling it in reference to their own. We need to stop telling people that their suffering isn't much or somehow doesn't count because it is not as severe as one's own or others, example the "There are starving kids in Africa" line. 

Every single person with every single disorder has a list of characteristics unique to themselves. No 2 people with the same disorder are alike. We need to stop rating the validity of other people's experiences based on our own.

In general we need to stop judging how others should be, based on how we are. We need to stop judging what is right and wrong based on whether or not we do it or would do it. (Example: judging the way someone dresses or their lifestyle choices.) Just because you wouldn't do it or you would feel a certain way if you did, doesn't mean others who do things are in the wrong. These are all matters of opinion. If people are not negatively affecting others, they are not doing something wrong. Just because you like one thing and dislike another, doesn't mean those who like what you dislike or dislike what you like are immoral in any kind of way. Doesn't mean they deserve to be looked down on. The concept that others have to be like you in order to be a valuable human being and to be deserving of respect is a narcissistic tendency. It's like the whole pineapple on pizza debate; there is no right or wrong and there is nothing wrong with those who have preferences different than yours, even if it is different than majority. Right and wrong is not determined by majority. Majority of people can still be wrong or majority of people can have an opinion where no one is wrong on that matter. People show so much unnecessary hate towards people who are not deserving of it. This hate is not only toxic to society and toxic to other's mental and physical health, but it is toxic to your own mental and physical health.

Remember from my other post about projection, the act of looking down on someone for any reason is projection. Even if you're looking down on someone that you have judged to be a bad person. Even if someone is a killer, looking down on them is projection. If we weren't projecting, we would instead look deeper for sufficient evidence rather than coming up with answers so quickly and based off of so little. We would have compassion to ask why. What happened to this person to lead them to do this? Only hurt or unwell people hurt people. This biased way of thinking is what leads to heavier people being stigmatized in every possible situation (At a fast food restaurant being judged as they must always go there. Limping, disabilities, or other visible medical conditions such as hyperhydrosis, being accredited to their weight). 

In order to be a humble and compassionate person, we need to learn to accept and respect our differences.