I came across an article claiming that pets can become genuine attachment figures, rather than our bond with them simply being a form of affection or “over-attachment.”

I was curious, so I went looking at the original research. The evidence is more interesting — and more complicated — than the headline.

In attachment theory, an attachment figure can serve several functions. Two important ones are a “safe haven” — someone we turn to when distressed — and a “secure base” that gives us enough security to explore, pursue goals, etc.

A 2008 study by psychologist Lawrence Kurdek looked at four samples totaling 923 college students. Dogs showed particularly strong “proximity maintenance” and “secure base” characteristics.

Kurdek followed that with 975 adult dog owners in 2009. When distressed, participants reported being more likely to turn to their dogs than to mothers, fathers, siblings, best friends or children — although romantic partners still ranked above dogs.

Then researchers experimentally tested the idea.

In a 2012 study, 165 pet owners were assigned to conditions involving their pet being physically present, mentally activated, or absent while completing a goal-exploration task. Physical or cognitive pet presence was associated with generating more goals and greater confidence in achieving them.

In a second experiment with 120 pet owners, physical or cognitive pet presence during a distress-inducing task was associated with lower blood pressure.

The researchers interpreted these results as evidence that pets can, at least under some circumstances, perform “secure base” and “safe haven” functions.

But here's where I think it gets especially interesting.

A 2024 Scientific Reports study examined pet co-sleeping in 1,591 U.S. adults. Among people who co-slept with pets, about 60% said their pets had a positive or very positive effect on their sleep.

Yet statistically, pet co-sleeping was associated with poorer perceived sleep quality and greater insomnia severity.

So our subjective experience of what our pets are doing for us may not always match measurable outcomes.

Important caveat: the sleep study was cross-sectional and relied on self-report, so it cannot establish that pets caused poorer sleep. It also defined “co-sleeping” as sleeping in the same room, not necessarily the same bed.

Still, I love the contradiction: an animal may occupy a psychologically meaningful attachment role while also moving around, making noise, stealing half the bed and potentially disturbing your sleep.

For people who sleep with their pets: do you genuinely think you sleep better with them there, or do you know perfectly well they're disturbing your sleep and still wouldn't kick them out? 😄

Sources:

Kurdek (2008), Journal of Social and Personal Relationships
DOI: 10.1177/0265407507087958

Kurdek (2009), Journal of Family Psychology
DOI: 10.1037/a0014979

Zilcha-Mano, Mikulincer & Shaver (2012), Journal of Research in Personality
DOI: 10.1016/j.jrp.2012.06.005

Chin, Singh & Carothers (2024), Scientific Reports
DOI: 10.1038/s41598-024-56055-9

[Trigger Warning: Abuse, DV] The Maintenance Persona: When Your Identity Becomes Emotional Infrastructure for Other People

There are people who do not experience themselves as individuals anymore; instead, they experience themselves as functions. They become the stabilizer, the mediator, the coordinator, the emotional regulator, the tension absorber, and the human infrastructure. They become the psychological equivalent of background operating systems—rarely noticed, constantly relied upon, and only discussed when a malfunction occurs.

The Architecture of the Maintenance Persona

This transformation rarely happens intentionally. It develops gradually through repeated exposure to environments where personal value becomes directly linked to system stability. You learn very early that your usefulness reduces chaos, so you become useful, then indispensable, then invisible. Every dysfunctional system eventually identifies its unofficial support structure, not through formal agreement, but through behavioral repetition. One person becomes responsible for emotional equilibrium, another for anticipation, and another for preventing escalation before it even occurs. Over time, these responsibilities stop feeling optional—they become your core identity. You stop asking, “Who am I?” and start asking, “What still collapses if I stop managing it?”

Predictive Living and Self-Abandonment

Most people imagine emotional labor as reactive, but the maintenance persona is proactive—it is anticipatory architecture. The body automates a continuous scanning of the environment for tone shifts, pauses, tension fluctuations, mood instability, and conversational risk. This creates a strange illusion where you appear “naturally calm.” In reality, enormous amounts of internal processing are occurring beneath visible behavior. The system remains stable because you are consuming the instability internally before it reaches external expression, acting like a surge protector repeatedly absorbing electrical overload. It is efficient and useful, but entirely unsustainable.

The maintenance persona survives because society frequently praises its symptoms, calling you mature, dependable, selfless, and easy to be around. Convenience is frequently mistaken for virtue. There is a particular kind of loneliness that emerges when people experience your functionality more consistently than your humanity. They trust you during a crisis but do not always know you beyond your capacity to regulate environments, creating a relational asymmetry where you feel deeply supportive but fundamentally unseen.

Infrastructure Failure and Recovery

Every infrastructure system eventually reveals its limits through structural fatigue. You become exhausted by interactions that once felt manageable, response times increase, and small requests begin feeling disproportionately heavy. Many people misdiagnose this phase as becoming colder, less tolerant, or emotionally unavailable, but the opposite is happening: the nervous system is actively rejecting chronic over-functioning.

One of the most unsettling realizations in recovery is discovering how many relationships were unconsciously organized around your overcapacity rather than mutuality. People adapt quickly to uninterrupted access to emotional regulation they did not earn, and when those systems change, resentment or guilt projection emerges immediately. Recovery is not becoming useless or eliminating care; it is the removal of compulsory self-sacrifice from the care process. You are allowed to exist beyond usefulness, and you are allowed to disappoint systems that only function through your chronic overextension. Most importantly, you are allowed to stop earning your right to exist through maintenance.

There are people who do not experience themselves as individuals anymore; instead, they experience themselves as functions. They become the stabilizer, the mediator, the coordinator, the emotional regulator, the tension absorber, and the human infrastructure. They become the psychological equivalent of background operating systems—rarely noticed, constantly relied upon, and only discussed when a malfunction occurs.

The Architecture of the Maintenance Persona

This transformation rarely happens intentionally. It develops gradually through repeated exposure to environments where personal value becomes directly linked to system stability. You learn very early that your usefulness reduces chaos, so you become useful, then indispensable, then invisible. Every dysfunctional system eventually identifies its unofficial support structure, not through formal agreement, but through behavioral repetition. One person becomes responsible for emotional equilibrium, another for anticipation, and another for preventing escalation before it even occurs. Over time, these responsibilities stop feeling optional—they become your core identity. You stop asking, “Who am I?” and start asking, “What still collapses if I stop managing it?”

Predictive Living and Self-Abandonment

Most people imagine emotional labor as reactive, but the maintenance persona is proactive—it is anticipatory architecture. The body automates a continuous scanning of the environment for tone shifts, pauses, tension fluctuations, mood instability, and conversational risk. This creates a strange illusion where you appear “naturally calm.” In reality, enormous amounts of internal processing are occurring beneath visible behavior. The system remains stable because you are consuming the instability internally before it reaches external expression, acting like a surge protector repeatedly absorbing electrical overload. It is efficient and useful, but entirely unsustainable.

The maintenance persona survives because society frequently praises its symptoms, calling you mature, dependable, selfless, and easy to be around. Convenience is frequently mistaken for virtue. There is a particular kind of loneliness that emerges when people experience your functionality more consistently than your humanity. They trust you during a crisis but do not always know you beyond your capacity to regulate environments, creating a relational asymmetry where you feel deeply supportive but fundamentally unseen.

Infrastructure Failure and Recovery

Every infrastructure system eventually reveals its limits through structural fatigue. You become exhausted by interactions that once felt manageable, response times increase, and small requests begin feeling disproportionately heavy. Many people misdiagnose this phase as becoming colder, less tolerant, or emotionally unavailable, but the opposite is happening: the nervous system is actively rejecting chronic over-functioning.

One of the most unsettling realizations in recovery is discovering how many relationships were unconsciously organized around your overcapacity rather than mutuality. People adapt quickly to uninterrupted access to emotional regulation they did not earn, and when those systems change, resentment or guilt projection emerges immediately. Recovery is not becoming useless or eliminating care; it is the removal of compulsory self-sacrifice from the care process. You are allowed to exist beyond usefulness, and you are allowed to disappoint systems that only function through your chronic overextension. Most importantly, you are allowed to stop earning your right to exist through maintenance.

The Cost of Untreated Trauma Is Paid by Everyone

Neuroscience shows that healing is possible through neuroplasticity and human connection — but when access to support is treated like a privilege, society absorbs the consequences.

A lot of healing work has historically been locked behind money, insurance, geography, and institutional access.

Yet neuroscience shows us something important:

Many of the mechanisms involved in recovery — neuroplasticity, nervous system regulation, emotional processing, habit rewiring, and social connection — can be influenced outside formal clinical systems.

That matters because millions of low-income individuals who suffer trauma are often excluded from the very systems designed to help them heal.

And society eventually pays the price for that exclusion.

Unprocessed trauma does not disappear simply because it is ignored.

It shows up as:

• chronic stress
• burnout
• addiction
• emotional dysregulation
• violence
• anxiety
• depression
• broken relationships
• lost productivity
• survival-based decision making
• and intergenerational cycles that quietly repeat themselves.

We often discuss trauma as a private issue.

But at scale, trauma becomes economic. Educational. Behavioral. Cultural. Even political.

A society that underinvests in emotional healing eventually absorbs the downstream costs in healthcare systems, workplaces, schools, neighborhoods, and families.

The nervous system does not care about socioeconomic status.

The brain still adapts to fear. To instability. To neglect. To prolonged stress.

But the opposite is also true:

The brain can adapt to safety. To consistency. To meaning. To support. To new experiences repeated over time.

Neuroplasticity gives us an important reminder: people are not permanently fixed by their worst experiences.

Healing should not be treated as a luxury product available only to those with financial access.

Because when healing becomes inaccessible, the consequences never remain individual. They become collective.

The future of mental health may depend not only on better therapies, but on making nervous system education, emotional regulation, trauma literacy, and human support more accessible to ordinary people long before crisis becomes collapse.