Ableism, “But you don’t look sick!”

Oh how many times I have heard this, “but you don’t look anxious.” or “What’s wrong with you?” obviously since I have a service dog something is “wrong” with me. I try not to complain about my symptoms with family around, the tension, the tingling, the tightness in my chest, the fluctuating heart rate, and other symptoms that can make me feel really bad. As I lay down from my heart acting up I worry about bystanders thinking that I am “dying” or in need of medical assistance. If I didn’t need a service dog I wouldn’t have one, it’s no joke, it takes a lot of time, money, and training to have a service dog.

Many others struggle with this and chronic invisible illnesses. “But your walking, and talking, and doing stuff!” well, we are, but at what cost? How many spoons do we use up just going to small social event? A lot. For some it can take days to recover after doing something as simple as a shopping trip.

We also hide our symptoms, because we do not want to “burden” others with talking about our struggles. or because we don’t want negative comments “If you would just do x and y you wouldn’t have this problem!” or “You’re too young to have that issue!”. If we aren’t in a wheelchair, or on oxygen, or using a cane then we must not be sick. Some have to go through so many doctors and medications to try to find answers, some are successful, others may not find success.

As of right now I will be going to a primary care physcian to have this heart issue checked out, it fluctuates between 90’s and 100’s even when I’m just sitting down. It’s exhausting really as it takes up a lot of my spoons.

So please, next time you see someone with a service dog, or someone tells you they have a chronic invisible illness, believe them. You may not be abe to see it, but they feel it. In a world where you can be anything be kind, because the world can always use more kindness.

Blessings in Disguise, disability and a romantic relationship

The first day I met him was in a special needs/disability church group. He seemed nice, and so I friended him on Facebook. 

We started out with small conversations on messenger. 

Slowly yet surely we evolved to video chatting. Our first date was at the movie “a dogs way home”, I enjoyed the movie throughly and it was a great date ❤️.

Slowly I began to have feelings for him, feelings that I don’t usually have for other people. When he would hold my hand I would feel tingling go up my spine, to be honest I was quite worried at first what was this feeling? But after a while I started getting used to it.

Today I have a promise ring that reminds me he will never give up on me. I love him so much, I don’t care if he is autistic and has cerebral palsy, He is perfect for me. 

We just click on so many levels on the things we have gone through in life. He accepts my autism assistance/medical alert dog Nikki and doesn’t judge me for my medical episodes. He worries about me and makes sure I am ok.

The little good morning messages mean so much to me, he spoils me rotten 😂, and I wouldn’t want to be with any other man in my life. I’m hoping and praying that If it’s God’s plan that we will one day get married. 

For now I want to soak up and enjoy all my time I get to spend with him ❤️, thank you bae for making my life better, I love you so much!

Emotional Memories and the People connected to it

It all started simple enough. I said “I am autistic” to someone who I thought I could trust. Everything started out fine, we all got along, then after a while things started to go downhill. When I rocked in my chair because stimming feels good and helped me cope with my anxiety before I got my autism assistance dog, She said to me “Do we need to go to a mental hospital”, I didn’t understand a situation and because of my black and white thinking and social anxiety I didn’t show her a project because she had said to bring it, but didn’t mention it and kept talking with the other adults. I thought “I’d better not interrupt” and kept quiet. When she realized I hadn’t shown her the project, she became angry. She said “You’re using your autism/disability as an excuse.” This hurt. I didn’t understand.

The downhill spiral continued as I would talk about my sensory struggles and how tiring it was to bear with them. She acted irritated, “Stop complaining about your issues!” I learned to not complain and hide my discomfort. Even if my ears were ringing with pain. Her daughter also became more toxic as time went on, to the point of whispering very loudly “Stop shaking your head!” when I was having a motor tic moment when a camara flash went off. The flow of laughter coming from her mouth and other’s when I startled at a loud noise, not warned before it would happen by others, I jumped. “You sprayed dust all over your dog!” (This was when I was in dog 4H) “Hahahahah”

She kept criticizing me, and her daughter joined in. “You’re not having a panic attack!” “Sit up!” she criticized me so much I had anxiety before almost every class, what was she going to criticize me about today? Was I going to get in trouble? I want to get out of here. Finally my classes with her ended. I was so relieved to get out of that situation. Then the text came, she wanted me to come help groom some of her animals. I tried saying I didn’t want to go, but others insisted. “We already told her you would like to do that” “You need to learn to work out issues between you and others”.

As I prepared to leave, I measured my HR and It was climbing fast, 100 bpm, 110 bpm, 120 bpm, a sense of doom surrounded me, I started having tingling in my hands and feet, and then that slow tense feeling came over me, I started feeling sick to my stomach. As I climbed into the car, that feeling continued. When I was dropped off, she greeted me “Hello! How are you?” I stood there frozen, not knowing what to say. I managed a very quiet “Hi”. I started shaking then and felt like I was dying, she sensed my anxiety and asked “What’s wrong?” I said “I’m anxious” and she asked “Why” and I replied “Because of something in the past”. She asked “What in the past?” and I said “In the past you said I was using my disability as an excuse”. She expression changed, her eyes narrowed, suddenly I could feel the negative energy. She replied “I never said that, I’m surprised at your attitude, I guess you don’t want to help.” She asked why I came and I said “Because others wanted me too” She said “Well thanks! I haven’t talked to you in months!” Well maybe I hadn’t talked to her because I was busy making new friendships and maybe it was because I didn’t want to because of memories of the past. The car came and I went home, I cried all the way home. Others got upset with me “You need to get over this!!” All I could do was shake and cry. It took the rest of the day to recover from that. Since then I am not in contact with her or her daughter anymore. Any time I see her out in public I have a feeling of complete anxiety over my body, my heart starts racing, my muscles tense up, and I want to hide. I was at a voting poll and she was there, I was behind the cardboard at the desk filling out my voting ballot, I heard her voice, my heart started pounding, and my stomach tightened, as she passed me I felt tension all over. Once I was done with the ballot I quickly put it through the machine and searched for the nearest exit. Once I was out I felt somewhat better.

To sum this up, once an autistic person has had negative memories, they never go away. And if enough damage is done, it will cause fear and mistrust of others. Be gentle with autistic people, we are trying.

Service dog training: It’s harder than I thought it would be.

Sorry I haven’t written in a while. Here goes nothing….

Service dog training, it seems easy right? You train the dog, take them out into public, and they slowly grow into a good service dog. WRONG. It’s really hard, harder than I ever imagined. There will always be problems with public access such as people not knowing the laws under the ADA, things such as “It will be too long of a car ride” or “She’ll be a distraction to everyone”. Also you can have big fails too. In my last class Nikki got up during art. So now I can’t bring her back, at least not for a while.

There is also behaviour issues such as barking, chewing, whining, and other things that I did not expect. In public Nikki is usually very well behaved. In her first trip to Walmart she had NO accidents and no barking or whining! But at home it’s a different story. I’m trying a Kong toy and some other things to help mentally stimulate her more so that she will hopefully do this behaviours less.

There are many tasks to train also, and you cannot just “skip” a week of doing them. They need to be practiced every day at the most, and every other day at the least. And sometimes your service dog “forgets” a task and you have to re-teach it to him or her. Nikki forgot her “touch” when I fake startle during training, and I had to re-teach it to her. You may have to repeat a task 10-15 times just to get it right. You have to be consistent and persistent, but in a nice way. I clicker train Nikki, because that is how she was trained to do some things through the center before I got her.

Some day I hope that Nikki becomes a well-behaved Service dog. Both at home and in public. And I hope that I won’t fail again, but I’m pretty sure we will have fails along the way. I just have to press through the good and the bad, the beautiful and ugly, the successes and failures. One day we will be a Pawsome team. For now I gotta keep my head up, even if there are tears and bad days.

Note: My Instagram account is private now. This is for personal reasons. I’m sorry if this offends anyone.