Hi there,
I'm new here but I decided to join BeyondBlue as they talked about helping to find solutions to Anxiety and Depression. I am diagnosed with Anxiety and although not properly diagnosed, do sometimes feel depressed.
I turn 14 in December, so I'm still quite young therefore really don't want to take repetitive medication. So for the past year I have been researching other Solutions and for the past 4 months or so, through personal research, I have concluded that the best option for me would be a service dog. I'm young, energetic and love animals. I already have a dog and a cat who often help calm me down if I'm having a panic attack but my dog is nowhere near qualified to be a service dog! An anxiety I get is that I'm afraid people won't see me as "mentally ill enough" or that I don't "qualify" for a service dog that I know would help. I think something that gives me this anxiety may be my mum. And trust me I have a great relationship with my mum but this is one of the few things we seriously fight about. Its that I prefer to have a label on my issues. That is a personal preference I wish my mum could respect. I would prefer to be able to say I have anxiety or I have tourettes or I have depression (not diagnosed with all of those btw-examples) than to have to avoid the question or have to struggle to explain whats going on with me. While my mum doesn't like me having labels on my issues, I can respect it as she is my mum and she probably doesn't like to hear he own daughter define herself as someone with anxiety. She just can't see it from my perspective. Anyways to the question of this forum: I live in Sydney and would really like to soon go to my GP privately and talk to her about service dogs (If thats who I even talk to!) But I really want to know the following. Does anyone have a service dog and want to share some info? Where I have to go or what I have to do to qualify for a service dog? How involved must parents me in the process? Is my GP the right person to talk to? What should I say to her? Do I need to try and "convince" her that a service dog is what I need? Should I bring all my personal research with me? Can a service dog live with a non-service dog? There are so many questions I have so I'm going to sum it up by saying if you have ANY info on getting a service dog please say below 😉
Thanks so so much in advance for any help and please feel free to say something if you're having the same issue x
Tenshi -xoxo-
