:( (I used to find hugging the animals helped. Particularly the carpet sharks and the half Husky. But to be fair my PTSD happened away from home which made it much easier to compartmentalize as having happened to a different person. Which is maybe not the best way to deal with it but meh.)
tbh to hell with optimizing one’s recovery, shits hard enough. Compartmentalization is legit with some stuff, especially when you’ve already processed it and nothing more can be done anymore, and one can def be too judgy about one’s own healing. I will be hugging the cat snakes now tho, ty
(I have kind of the opposite of the old jokes about "getting a good grade in therapy" as one of my personal weird hangups. It's a long story. Also I have now ADHD'd myself into listing how many different phrases I have used or heard for ferrets over the years.)