Hello! I’m Odie, and i’m a 14, nearly 15, year old who struggles with a variety of mental health conditions, such as autism, ADHD, tic disorder, dissociation disorder, OCD, eating disorders, and chronic anxiety and depression (quite an impressive list unfortunately.)
Recently i’ve been looking into getting a service animal for my psychiatric conditions, but i’m not sure how to go about this as i am so young. i have a psychologist who i see every 2 week—to-couple of days depending on my mental state and take 2 types of medication regularly (one for ADHD and the other for anxiety), but i feel a service animal would benefit me a lot, specifically regarding my dissociation issues, OCD and depression.
I think one of the main reasons i’m scared of talking to people about this is because i’m afraid of other peoples opinions and people seeing me as lesser than them or ‘dumb’ because my ideas are either not well thought out or i don’t present and portray them well, thus making it hard to even bring this up with people in the first place.
i love my mum, but i don’t think with her would be a good place to start in this, as she’s not well educated and i’m afraid she’ll think i just want it for the attention or because i think it’s ‘cool’ to have a service animal (which is absolutely not the case.)
i already have a dog and a cat, but my dog is 12 going on 13 and is nowhere near fit for the job. i do have NDIS funding for myself however so from what i know that could possibly help with funding?
if anyone has any information or tips on this subject anything would be useful at the moment.
