Bessel van der Kolk and Peter Levine think that if you have trauma, you should have a pet. Pets help.

I had a cat when I was five. Cougar. He lived about five months. Apparently he got hit by a car (he probably got hit by my mother), they took him into the vet without telling me, he got put to sleep (or he died being hit by my mother) and they didn't even let me see the body. Then a year later they got my sister a cat. She was two. So I had to feed it, but it was my sister's cat. Because I'd had my turn, it was my sister's turn.

Fucking cat lived to be 22.

We had dogs. They were my parents' dogs. When they died? My sister got a dog. And then when that dog got lonely, the dog got a dog. So technically my sister had two dogs, a cat and 42 gerbils.

Pets help. Unless you are reminded every day that you don't get one.

There's nothing quite like being surrounded by animals that are explicitly and completely not yours.

Particularly when the only photo of you on display anywhere, in any relative's house, is the same fucking photo of you holding that goddamn cat during the brief, shining five months of his life.

So yeah Body Keeps the Score is a deeply insightful book that makes you ruminate for months at a time on why, exactly, you've always wanted a pet but know down to your very bones why you're never going to have one.