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Mental Illness Service Dogs Essay

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Hello,

Thank you for responding, it really means a lot! I am 16 years old and I have been diagnosed with schizoaffective disorder with the traits of paranoid schizophrenia (including hallucinations and delusions), chronic depression, and generalized anxiety. I have had these mental illnesses since birth and living in day to day life can be difficult and exhausting for me.

I have been doing research on mental illness service dogs for almost a year now and I feel like it would be extremely beneficial for me, especially since I am leaving for college next year. I have a few actions service dogs can be trained to do in mind that I found on a service dog website.

These things include:
-coping with emotional/sensual overload (specifically by providing tactile stimulation to help break the spell of disassociation that is followed by anxiety attacks triggered by overstimulation of …show more content…

During my anxiety attacks I become extremely disoriented and I can get turned around easily, causing me to have a melt down.

-provide deep pressure for calming effect. Especially during times of my hallucinations, deep pressure could help me be grounded back to reality.

-crowd control. Due to my claustrophobic induced anxiety attacks, having a service dog who is trained to stand their ground in crowded situations to form a "personal bubble" would be good for me.

-coping with paranoia by lighting up dark rooms or doing a check around the house if I feel as if someone is inside.

-reminding to take medication. I thought this would be good to add since I have a tendency to forget to take my meds which can cause hallucinations to worsen and my paranoia to increase.

I talked to both my psychologist, Doctor Samantha Jordan, and my psychiatrist, Doctor Sandra Kovachi, and they both believe having a service dog would be helpful for my needs.

Sorry for the really long email! I wanted to make sure I could include

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