The arc of history bends toward emotional support peacocks
wesleyyang.substack.com
The arc of history bends toward emotional support peacocks
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Re: The arc of history bends toward emotional support peacocks
#2I'm interested what happens when the emotional support peacock dies: If the person needing support can learn to lean on a new one, could we have cohorts of emotional support elephants, chimps, spidermonkeys, to "rent" for the trip? Then, we could swap out an allergy-causing Peacock, for a smooth skinned skink at the check-in desk.
Re: The arc of history bends toward emotional support peacocks
#3If a blind woman enters your office with her dog and it poops on the rug you may be rather peeved over the event - but seeing eye dogs are exceedingly rare and blindness itself is a rather uncommon condition. I think part of the issue with ESAs was that suddenly they were everywhere - it didn't come on as a slow adaptation - it exploded like a fad because, well, it was one to a big portion of the population abusing it. I really don't want to comment on ESAs personally since I've led a very happy life free from rape or other emotional distress - but the desirability of having an ESA led to it's adoption at a far higher rate than was likely warranted (along with a fair bit of poisoning the well IMO) and so public opinion turned against it.
Additionally the blind tend to have a harder time interacting with society and a great deal of patience and fortitude is required to hold down a job when vision disabled - this means that the people receiving the benefits of their assistive dogs flying for free generally needed that assistance - emotional damage covers a wider financial range that's less likely to garner any sympathy.
Re: The arc of history bends toward emotional support peacocks
#4One of the key distinctions between ESAs and real support animals is that real animals undergo thousands of dollars of training (normally paid via insurance) so that they are well behaved in public. If ESAs underwent the same training, more people would be OK with them.
Re: The arc of history bends toward emotional support peacocks
#5"That we allowed the proliferation of emotional support animals in the first place tells us a lot about the evolving nature of the civil rights industry...A network of trial lawyers and medical entrepreneurs found a profitable niche in colluding with a growing number of Americans regarding themselves through the prism of victimhood that happens to confer legally protected status onto them."
So well stated. Civil rights movement turned into the civil rights industry.
And the people running much of social media are enabling mental, emotional and moral weakness. Instead of encouraging people to overcome and be better, they foster weakness. That anyone could claim they need a emotional support animal without facing ridicule is beyond me. Surprised the author isn't cancelled for being disability-phobic and spewing hate speech.
Re: The arc of history bends toward emotional support peacocks
#6If a blind woman enters your office with her dog and it poops on the rug you may be rather peeved over the event - but seeing eye dogs are exceedingly rare and blindness itself is a rather uncommon condition. I think part of the issue with ESAs was that suddenly they were everywhere - it didn't come on as a slow adaptation - it exploded like a fad because, well, it was one to a big portion of the population abusing i…
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Re: The arc of history bends toward emotional support peacocks
#7"That we allowed the proliferation of emotional support animals in the first place tells us a lot about the evolving nature of the civil rights industry...A network of trial lawyers and medical entrepreneurs found a profitable niche in colluding with a growing number of Americans regarding themselves through the prism of victimhood that happens to confer legally protected status onto them." So well stated. Civil righ…
> That anyone could claim they need a emotional support animal without facing ridicule is beyond me.
They’re facing a lot of ridicule, but most are willing to do it in order to save money on air travel.
Re: The arc of history bends toward emotional support peacocks
#8> A network of trial lawyers and medical entrepreneurs found a profitable niche in colluding with a growing number of Americans regarding themselves through the prism of victimhood that happens to confer legally protected status onto them
What a statement. Its as if its saying lets just invalidate actual meaningful treatment modalities for ailments we've struggled to treat for decades. This is conservative talking point drivel that has never been true (see: welfare queens, satanic panics, "pussification of america" morning talk radio, reefer madness, etc).
Re: The arc of history bends toward emotional support peacocks
#9"That we allowed the proliferation of emotional support animals in the first place tells us a lot about the evolving nature of the civil rights industry...A network of trial lawyers and medical entrepreneurs found a profitable niche in colluding with a growing number of Americans regarding themselves through the prism of victimhood that happens to confer legally protected status onto them." So well stated. Civil righ…
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Re: The arc of history bends toward emotional support peacocks
#10"That we allowed the proliferation of emotional support animals in the first place tells us a lot about the evolving nature of the civil rights industry...A network of trial lawyers and medical entrepreneurs found a profitable niche in colluding with a growing number of Americans regarding themselves through the prism of victimhood that happens to confer legally protected status onto them." So well stated. Civil righ…
I think you're really fundamentally misunderstanding treatment modalities that allow people to be better, because you're conflating having an injury with weakness. Ex-soldiers with PTSD are one of the best studied.
> A wide body of anecdotal evidence and scientific studies reflects what many already suspected—animal companionship can help support positive outcomes in physical and mental health.
https://www.dav.org/veterans/resources/service-animals/
> Mixed model analyses revealed clinically significant reductions in PTSD symptoms from baseline following the receipt of a service dog, but not while receiving usual care alone. Though clinically meaningful, average reductions were not below the diagnostic cutoff on the PTSD Checklist. Regression analyses revealed significant differences with medium to large effect sizes among those with service dogs compared to those on the waitlist, including lower depression, higher quality of life, and higher social functioning.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5788288/
So either you doubt the realism of PTSD, or you believe that a studied treatment modality is weakness. That begs the question, what is a treatment that doesn't foster weakness? Because I'll guarantee the military tried it for decades and the suicide rate reflects that.
I do note you didn't mention PTSD, so if you would like to move the goalposts, my response is this:
Mental illnesses and their effective treatments don't care about whether you believe in them or not.