How Emotional Support Animals Saved My Life

I've loved cats for as long as I can remember. Here I am with my friend, Mason, at a local cat shelter. 

I've always loved cats. I've always considered them good friends and fantastic listeners. I always knew I'd have a cat when I became old enough to move out and live on my own. What I didn't know is how much my cats would change me or my life.

A Rough Start

My life had a rocky start. At five months of age, I became a survivor of Shaken Baby Syndrome. From what I've been able to piece together through family members, my foster mother, and the newspaper, the violent shaking resulted in one or both of my arms being broken, a broken breastbone, damage to my optic nerve, and blood pooling in the back of my eyes. While surgeons were able to drain the blood from the back of my eyes, I was left with a degenerative eye condition called optic atrophy. Unfortunately, my vision has worsened over the span of my life thus far. While I'm very thankful for the vision I still have, I'm terrified of how much more vision I'll lose – especially when I notice my condition progressing.

I spent six weeks in the hospital where I developed meningitis and temporarily lost my ability to hear. After I was released from the hospital, I was placed into foster care for approximately six months. I was eventually returned to my parents' custody.

This event has always caused me to feel a lot of shame. I was told that I should never speak the truth about what happened to me. I was told to blame my eye condition on the meningitis instead. I was told that if I told the truth, people would think that I was a bad baby. The shame I still feel over this event is absolutely overwhelming.

As a child, I never felt I was good enough for my parents. I was always compared to my sister. I felt like she was the, “good” daughter and I was the, “bad” one. Everyone could see that we were treated differently, and many people told me about their observations when I became a young adult.

Emotions were not valued in our household. If I tried to express myself, I was either ridiculed or discounted. Even laughter and happiness seemed to be unacceptable.

My severe vision impairment was a source of tension in the home. I always felt like I was in the way. I needed to be right next to the television to see it, for instance, which annoyed some family members.

Verbal and emotional abuse were a constant presence in my life. In addition to that, I felt my parents were emotionally distant. While my father and I have a pretty decent relationship now, we had a rocky one while I was growing up. I know now that he always loved me and my sister, but I didn't feel loved by him during my childhood. My dad expresses love in a less obvious way than I needed him to. While he always said he loves me if I told him I love him, I felt disappointed that I always had to initiate that exchange.

My dad used to be a very angry person. It wasn't until he spent several years with my stepmom, Marie, that he really changed. I credit her for helping him become the person I think he was always meant to be. While I am not as close to my dad as I would like to be, we can now have civil conversations, and he tells me he loves me without me having to prompt him to say it, which makes me really happy.

Lita was a beautiful lynx-point Siamese. She was the first cat to own me in my adult life, and I loved her dearly. 

Relieving the Pain

In eighth grade, my mother had me start school at the Indiana School for the Blind. Though it was a difficult transition initially, I quickly came to see the residential school as a safe haven. I felt I could be myself there. I had friends who understood my struggles with vision. I was actually able to participate in activities with my peers.

At 16 years old, I felt so much pain inside that I began to cut myself. I had lost my ability to identify and express my emotions. If you asked me how I felt, I'd have to tell you that I didn't know because I truly didn't.

Later that year, I was raped by a fellow student. Though I had only confided in one person about the attack, it quickly became school-wide gossip. When my mother found out, she had me transferred to our local high school. Not only had the place I considered my safe haven been ripped from me, my friends had been, too. I felt completely alone in the world.

I struggled through the rest of my high school career. I got good grades and made some fair-weather friends.

Spinning Out of Control

It's important to understand that being “fat” was practically seen as a mortal sin in my family. In high school, I began to eat less, but it wasn't until college that I began starving myself on a daily basis.

I was really happy when it came time to go off to college. I had been accepted at DePauw University.

Unfortunately, many of the things I'd buried came to the surface. I struggled immensely with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) as a result of the rape. I also struggled a great deal with Major Depressive Disorder, something that runs in my family.

Carmine claimed me when he was a mere 14-week-old kitten. He's one of the sweetest, most loving cats I've ever known. 

Once I moved to college, self-harm and self-starvation became my main coping strategies. Any emotion I actually felt needed to be squashed quickly. It was at this time that I began using other forms of self-harm, in addition to cutting, to cope, such as burning, hair pulling, and attempting to break my bones. I couldn't handle the depths of my emotional pain. I was crying out for the love and acceptance I desperately needed and craved – something I felt I couldn't get from my family. I wanted nothing more than for them to love and accept me for the person I was.

Between the flashbacks, nightmares, panic attacks, and overwhelming feelings of anxiety and depression, I struggled to stay on top of all my schoolwork. This was no easy feat, given it takes me longer than the average person to read.

As counterintuitive as it might sound, my eating disorder and self-harm kept me alive. I was often suicidal during my college career, and starving and hurting myself allowed me to release enough of my inner pain so that I could continue to move forward. Though I know I expected too much of them, many friends became the people I turned to in crisis, which was nearly a daily event.

At that time, I wanted to stop harming myself. A friend and I started counting the hours between self-harm episodes, trying to stretch the length of time I could go between each one. While my eating disorder and self-harm gave me a sense of control, I was really out of control. Over time, I had to increase the number and/or intensity of my wounds in order to get the same effect.

Severing Family Ties

At the end of my freshmen year of college, my mother and I got into a very intense fight about me seeking treatment. I wanted to go to a program that tackled self-harm and eating disorders simultaneously, something I felt she didn't understand. The fight resulted in her telling me to go live with my dad. She disowned me. Though I've tried to make peace numerous times over the past 19 years, we have no relationship to this day. I've accepted that nothing I could ever do would be good enough for her, but the lack of a relationship with my mother continues to cause me pain from time to time.

I graduated from DePauw University in 2004. I had enrolled in a Master's of Social Work program and moved to Colorado the following September to begin working on my graduate degree. I felt it was necessary to physically distance myself from my family in order to get well.

Lita was a very affectionate cat. She'd hang out near me, sleep with me at night, and give me hugs.

A New Best Friend

One of the things I had looked forward to the most about moving out and being on my own was finally being able to have a cat of my very own. I had always loved cats. We always had a lot of outdoor cats at my dad's house in the country. When I was in middle school, we adopted a cat from our local shelter and kept her as an indoor-only cat at my mother's. The cat, whom we named Kitty, became a real source of comfort for me throughout my high school career.

My dad suggested that I take Lita with me when I moved because she was the, “friendliest” outdoor cat we had at the time. She had originally been an indoor cat who lived with a friend of my father's before she became an outdoor cat on my dad's farm, so she had already been litter box trained. To be frank, I thought she was annoying because she insisted I only pet her and wouldn't allow me to pet her brothers and sisters whenever I went outside to spend time with them.

Despite my reservations, I packed Lita up and brought her to Colorado with me. She quickly became my best friend. She followed me around my apartment, listened to the most boring social work textbooks on the planet with me, “helped” me eat my dinner, and told me when it was time for bed.

Unfortunately, I lived in graduate housing, and the University didn't allow pets in there. For a few months I was successful in hiding Lita, but the University eventually found out about her. The University asked that I either get rid of Lita or move.

Lita was helping me learn what unconditional love felt like. She was my best friend. There was no way I was giving her up. I planned to move out of graduate housing over Spring break if I needed to.

At the time, I was seeing a therapist. I told her about the situation. She knew how much Lita was helping me with PTSD and depression, so she wrote a letter stating that I needed Lita for my mental health and well-being. Lita became an official emotional support animal, and while the University wasn't thrilled about it, they recognized Lita as an official emotional support animal and allowed us to stay in graduate housing through the end of the year.

Carmine is never far away. He loves being near me. He often sits in my lap and, "helps" me write articles and blog posts.

An Addition to Our Family

Throughout young adulthood, I experienced more sexual violence at the hands of different men. This compounded my PTSD and depression. I continued to struggle with my eating disorder and self-harm. At this point, though, I was able to count the days between self-harm episodes. I was really trying to get myself into a better place, mentally and emotionally.

In 2005, I moved into a new apartment. Not only did the landlord allow cats, but my property manager told me I could get a second cat if I wanted to. I thought this would be a great idea – I spent so many hours away from home between my classes and internship, I worried Lita got lonely.

That summer, I adopted Carmine from Every Creature Counts. Little did I know how this little orange ball of fuzz would change my life forever.

Entering Recovery

In my second year of graduate school, I began seeing a therapist at the Eating Disorders Center of Denver. She and I determined that I would benefit more from their Intensive Outpatient Program than I was from outpatient therapy. However, I didn't have the money to cover the cost - $400 per week that my insurance didn't cover. Because the center wanted payment upfront each week, it was impossible for me to enter the program. It was rather disappointing because I really needed help with my eating disorder.

In October 2005, my fiance at the time moved in with me. Between him and Carmine, Lita, and Emma (his cat), “helping” me eat meals, I slowly began the process of recovery from my eating disorder. The kitties' unconditional love played an instrumental role in my recovery over the years. I am happy to say that I've been in recovery from anorexia for 14 years now. It is no coincidence that I've been owned by Carmine for 14 years, too.

The Turning Point

Even after I got into recovery for my eating disorder, I continued to struggle with self-harm.

However, Carmine made it more difficult for me to hurt myself. He gets very upset if I go into a separate room and shut the door. He will stand outside the door and cry to be let in so he can be with me. I didn't want to cut or burn myself in front of him and Lita, so unless I was pretty sneaky about it, I couldn't just disappear behind a closed door to harm myself. I couldn't stand to hear Carmine crying outside the door. I began to put down the razor or matches, open the door, and pet Carmine instead of harming myself.

Jewel was such a blessing in my life. This is the only family photo I have of all of us together. In this photo, Carmine is on the left, I'm holding Jewel, and  Lita is on the right. Everyone got along surprisingly well. Jewel passed away in August, 2014.

At this point, I was now able to count the weeks or months between self-harm episodes, but when my emotions became too much to deal with, I'd still use self-harm as a way to cope.

The last time I self-harmed was in August, 2010 despite being in a very difficult living situation. Carmine is the biggest reason I've been able to stay in recovery from self-harm. The unconditional love and support he's given me over the years is invaluable. He and Lita filled the gaping hole in my heart; they gave me the love I desperately needed and wanted for so long. Though Carmine provided me a tremendous amount of emotional support, he didn't become an official emotional support animal until 2012.

A Reason to Live

I developed a chronic pain condition in 2006, which left me unable to work. I won my Disability case that year, but as anyone who is on Social Security Disability knows, it does not pay enough to rent an apartment at market value, so I applied for subsidized housing. Unfortunately, all of the buildings had long waitlists, so I had to wait quite some time before I rose to the top of a waitlist.

In 2013, I finally came to the top of a HUD/subsidized housing waiting list. I moved into the building with Jewel, Carmine, and Lita with high hopes of things getting easier. Jewel had come to live with us in 2012 because her former owner couldn't care for her any longer. She required numerous daily medications in order to help manage her chronic renal failure.

Lita loved to be in high places. Here, she's on the top of my desk, laying beside her bed. 

Unfortunately, the building I moved into has deplorable living conditions – it is infested with cockroaches and bed bugs. The pest control methods being employed in the building are useless. At that time, I also found myself in a verbally, emotionally, and sexually abusive relationship. I tried desperately to change my boyfriend, but you cannot change someone who doesn't want to change.

By early 2014, I was suicidal. It was a feeling I hadn't had in several years. I confided in very few people because I didn't want to burden my friends with my problems.

The only thing that kept me from taking my life was my cats. Jewel had been given up by two previous owners. As I mentioned earlier, Jewel had chronic renal failure. There was no way I was going to abandon her in her time of need. Additionally, Carmine and Lita had provided me the unconditional love and support I needed to get into and stay in recovery from anorexia and self-harm. The least I could do was to see out the remainder of their lives. Adopting a cat is a serious commitment to me; I was not going to leave them homeless. Jewel, Carmine, and Lita needed me as much as I needed them.

I began to pick up the pieces of my life. I broke up with my abusive boyfriend. A friend helped me get to other HUD/subsidized housing complexes where I put my name on more waiting lists.

Starting Over

Finally, in 2017, my name came to the top of a housing waiting list, and several friends helped me move into my current apartment building – a much better and safer place to live. My furniture was so infested with bed bugs that I ended up throwing nearly all of it into the trash. Carmine, Lita, and I were starting over in our new apartment.

That October, Lita became incredibly ill. She was at death's door, but with my love, her determined spirit, and lots of medication, she fought her way through it. She went on to live nine months longer than anyone expected she would. Tragically, she died in September, 2018.

The newest member of our family, Tylan, is a rescue from Bangkok, Thailand. He seems to believe his purpose in life is to make people happy.

Lita's Legacy Lives On

Lita owned me for 14 years and had given me so much love during that time. I wanted to give another Siamese a loving forever home in her honor. In October, 2018, I adopted Tylan, a seal-point Siamese who had been rescued from a hoarding situation in Thailand.

I've been in recovery now for years, but there are still times I get the urge to harm myself when I have strong emotions. Instead of reaching for a razor, a match, or a lighter now, though, I reach for Carmine or Tylan.

Carmine enjoys hanging out in cat cubes. Here, he's hanging out in the cat condo on his cat tree.

Love Healed My Heart

You may wonder what will happen when Carmine dies. I'll be absolutely heartbroken, just as I was when Jewel and Lita died in 2014 and 2018, respectively. Carmine is my soulmate kitty, and I cry even thinking of the day he will no longer be here with me.

But I will not allow his time with me be in vain. I will continue forth in my recovery. I will hold tight to the love he's always given me. I will remember the lessons he's taught me. Carmine has helped me become a better person in so many ways, and I will never go back to the person I was before. He helped heal my heart, and he changed my life forever.