Pets - the best therapy

When I was in the mental hospital the first time two years ago, one of our group sessions was on ways that could help alleviate depression. One of these ways was owning a pet. Pets provide unconditional love. As long as they are fed and cared for, you are pretty much guaranteed that they will love you in return. They also gives you someone else to invest in, to live for. You have to get out of bed because the dog needs walked, or the litter box needs scooped, or whatever the need may be. When you own a pet, you have at least one being in the world who needs you.
So when I got out of the hospital, Jason, the kids and I went on a hunt for a cat. One of the pet stores in town had several cats from one of the cat adoption agencies on display. We watched them for awhile and of course the kids were drawn to the kittens, the young, feisty ones. Jason, however, was drawn to a big, fluffy cat with no tail. She seemed very mellow and relaxed, but when we asked about her, we were told that she was part of a bonded pair. If we adopted her, we had to adopt her counterpart as well. After talking it over, we decided to go ahead and do that, and we brought Kaia and Mama Cat (named by the agency, not us) home with us. They were 6 and 5 years old, respectively.
While I knew it would be nice to have a pet, never in a million years would I have guessed how therapeutic they would be, not only for me, but for Jason as well. Mama Cat took awhile to get acclimated, but once she did, she turned in to a great lap cat and she and Jason bonded strongly. She relaxes him when nothing else will. It's funny to watch. No matter how busy Jason is, she will force him to stop working, sit on the couch and pet her for a few minutes before she will allow him to carry on with his day. If he doesn't, she stands at the foot of his desk and meows and if that doesn't work, she jumps up on his desk and sits on his keyboard until he gives her the loves she wants! I find it so amusing how something as small as Mama Cat can have a big man like Jason wrapped around her little claw, but she owns him and there is no doubt about it. And in owning him, she relaxes him and brings him the sanity he has so desperately needs during these difficult times.

As for me, the cats have spent hours with me, snuggled up in bed, during my illnesses. Mama Cat likes to come over and lay on my face when I'm getting ready to go to sleep. She used to lay on my chest, but once I came home from my bilateral mastectomy, she quickly learned that she could no longer do that!! OUCH! 
And then there's Kaia. I love Kaia. She's my cat. She allows others in the family to pet her, but she and I have a bond that the rest of the family doesn't have with her. She's not a lap cat, but she likes to lay next to me for hours on end and I will pet her while she rumbles away in contented purrs. She's a Japanese bobtail, so she is a very vocal cat and she and I will have conversations. I will talk to her in English, using her name, and she will respond to me in "cat". On some of my really rough days, I have sobbed my heart out into Kaia's fur and she has proven to be very absorbent :-).
If you are hurting and need some unconditional love, I highly recommend a pet. It has made a world of difference in our family and I bet it would in yours too. It is easy to underestimate the power of unconditional furry love.