Mental illness is normal in 2024, especially in the United States, which continues to go though a mental illness epidemic. The mental health sector of the world is looking at the results of the 2024 general election and noting the corellation not just of social and family dysfunction but intergenerational mental illness handed down through abuse and isolation, as a possible factor in the election results elevating a known threat to US democratic features to President of the United States.
While there may be correlation between mental illness and furry identity (I haven’t seen any data based assertion this is true) that still would not indicate causality. Interest in TTRPGs correlates since gaming can serve to aleviate symptoms, distract from trauma, and give people with social deficiencies a mechanism by which to express themselves safely.
Besides, there is a notable similarity when calling furry identity a mental illness is juxtaposed to the classic assumtion that LGBT+ identities were indicative of mental illness.
That said, some of us are actually diagnosed and contend with symptoms like suicidality and interpersonal dysfunction, so please don’t use mental illness as a subject of derision or contempt. We aren’t 1980s era slasher antagonists.
Fair enough, you may have misunderstood my initial statement. I will once again clarify. I meant to say to stop validating abnormal behaviours that are likely mental illnesses. Now, you can make the claim that if someone wants to act like a furry even though it might be a mental illness, then let them be. But i know that if i ever had a child that exhibited these tendencies, i would want them to seek help for it, because it is NOT NORMAL - at least in my opinion.
Also, I don’t mean to say that there’s a mental illness necessarily causing these tendencies, rather it is the fact that these furry tendencies - the ones that I’ve described - are in and of themselves a mental illness.
It’s entirely possible that i am wrong, and that it is not a mental illness, but i would bet big money that it is one.
Um, a mental illness is defined by being dysfunctional to the patient (and doing things that are odd enough that society throws rocks at them doesn’t count). So if the patient is spending her rent money on furry comics, or is consuming furry media to the neglect of food and sleep, you might have an argument that it’s a mental illness. (And then, in the 2010s, the psychiatric community has been having to consider that exposure to toxic circumstances: overmonitoring at work environments, bad bosses, not earning a living wage, excess rent, may be factors that drive dysfunction externally, figuring more largely in mental illness than internal factors like heredity. But that is bleeding edge still.)
But just a fanatic obsession of cute furry anthros, even if it is extreme, is not a mental illness, in exactly the same way that a man who is sexually and romantically attracted to other men is not a mental illness. Or if we want to get Victorian about it, exactly the same way a woman who refuses to accept her limited place in society is not a mental illness.
So I can assure you from here, the way mental illnesses have been defined since the 1990s, being a furry is not a mental illness.
Mental illness is normal in 2024, especially in the United States, which continues to go though a mental illness epidemic. The mental health sector of the world is looking at the results of the 2024 general election and noting the corellation not just of social and family dysfunction but intergenerational mental illness handed down through abuse and isolation, as a possible factor in the election results elevating a known threat to US democratic features to President of the United States.
While there may be correlation between mental illness and furry identity (I haven’t seen any data based assertion this is true) that still would not indicate causality. Interest in TTRPGs correlates since gaming can serve to aleviate symptoms, distract from trauma, and give people with social deficiencies a mechanism by which to express themselves safely.
Besides, there is a notable similarity when calling furry identity a mental illness is juxtaposed to the classic assumtion that LGBT+ identities were indicative of mental illness.
That said, some of us are actually diagnosed and contend with symptoms like suicidality and interpersonal dysfunction, so please don’t use mental illness as a subject of derision or contempt. We aren’t 1980s era slasher antagonists.
Fair enough, you may have misunderstood my initial statement. I will once again clarify. I meant to say to stop validating abnormal behaviours that are likely mental illnesses. Now, you can make the claim that if someone wants to act like a furry even though it might be a mental illness, then let them be. But i know that if i ever had a child that exhibited these tendencies, i would want them to seek help for it, because it is NOT NORMAL - at least in my opinion.
Also, I don’t mean to say that there’s a mental illness necessarily causing these tendencies, rather it is the fact that these furry tendencies - the ones that I’ve described - are in and of themselves a mental illness.
It’s entirely possible that i am wrong, and that it is not a mental illness, but i would bet big money that it is one.
Um, a mental illness is defined by being dysfunctional to the patient (and doing things that are odd enough that society throws rocks at them doesn’t count). So if the patient is spending her rent money on furry comics, or is consuming furry media to the neglect of food and sleep, you might have an argument that it’s a mental illness. (And then, in the 2010s, the psychiatric community has been having to consider that exposure to toxic circumstances: overmonitoring at work environments, bad bosses, not earning a living wage, excess rent, may be factors that drive dysfunction externally, figuring more largely in mental illness than internal factors like heredity. But that is bleeding edge still.)
But just a fanatic obsession of cute furry anthros, even if it is extreme, is not a mental illness, in exactly the same way that a man who is sexually and romantically attracted to other men is not a mental illness. Or if we want to get Victorian about it, exactly the same way a woman who refuses to accept her limited place in society is not a mental illness.
So I can assure you from here, the way mental illnesses have been defined since the 1990s, being a furry is not a mental illness.