Can you talk to animals when you go mute?

Post Reply New Topic

Just curious, for those of you who have verbal shutdowns and periods of muteness due to overload/stress, can you talk to animals, e.g. your pet cat? I have a dog in my house and I have found that when my voice for the most part wants to shut down, I can still easily chat to her (but probably not if I thought someone could hear me).

I can talk to animals all the time, regardless of whether I'm currently mute. However, I've actually found it easier to communicate with my cat when I don't say anything. I sometimes communicate with my cat by way of purring and little headbutts.

I would love to be Doctor Doolittle!

Yeah, talking to animals all the time would be awesome, although kind of annoying when you're lying awake at night because a dog won't stop barking but you can actually understand it!
I'd like to be an Animagus like in Harry Potter-maybe a cat or a wolf or a raven. [I nearly typed 'worf' instead of 'wolf' ]

i just find talking in general uncomfortable, so i wouldn't want to say anything to animals in the first place, especially as they can't understand me.

I can always talk to my cat easily, but usually if I've gone mute I still won't. I'll just pet her and headbutt her instead.

Honestly, I never thought going mute in social situations would be one of the most common, worst feelings and biggest problems I'd have to deal with...

I prefer spending time with animals. I guess i communicate with them, but i wouldn't call it "talking". It's a level of communication more primitive than language. Spending time with animals and communicating with them helps me calm down and lowers my anxiety and stress levels considerably.

Your question reminds me of this sweet Zen Koan...

Two Zen monks are standing on a little bridge in the middle of a garden looking down on the Koi fish swimming below. The first monk says, "Look how happy the fish are!" The second monk says, "You don't know if the fish are happy or not." The first monk says back, without looking up, "You don't know, if I know, if the fish are happy or not."

This is thinking about "Theory of Mind" in it's purest form. We don't KNOW what is going on in other people's mind. But... BUT, other people's minds are going on. And that is THE problem... or one of the major problems for us/me, and that is I just can't imagine what it's like in other people's minds. Sometimes I get a glimpse in TV shows, and novels... and poetry... movies.

(What is theory of mind? It is a person’s ability to imagine the interior life of another person. This includes understanding why someone else does something, how someone might feel in a certain circumstance, what might be important to that person: in short, it is the ability to put oneself in the mind of another person and see the world from that person’s point of view. Theory of mind means being able to create a theory about the way another person’s mind works.)>>> http://www.goodtherapy.org/blog/asperge ... nd-0831125

I'd rather say I feel how animals feel. But that feelings are highly possibly just my imagination. I consider dogs, cats like me I feel that..but still this feelings are highly possibly just my imagination.

Yes, but I don't see how it's really related.

I talk to animals in sounds instead of words. They always act very responsive to it. Whereas a human would just stare at me with a puzzled look.

I guess that's one reason why I posted about it. I know next to nothing about selective mutism, or any mutism related to autism. I had assumed that it was a shutdown of the verbal system due to stress, and so the act of actually verbalising is impossible (or very difficult) when someone goes through it. But it doesn't seems the case...it is actually an aversion to verbalising to other humans, or in certain settings only, not verbalising in general. Though I would still assume there are cases of full mutism where one simply cannot verbalise at all for a period of time.

It is probably anxiety-based mutism since you can talk but not to other people who are more likely than animals to judge you.

So are there any mortuary-technicians here who talk to dead people?

yes commncaute with pet are easier....
I i TOUCH THE CHEAR AND I say Go up AND SHE GO UP ...
ONCE I SAY abouut me

I bet many do without having any mental issues

It's normal to talk to people, animals, objects, most people do it