.Being.Us

Over the last 2 years, you've demonstrated an inability to live independently when exerting your best effort. The burden is falling to your friends to fill in the gaps. We think you should consider a group home. That's what my care team told me recently, and it came as a blow. My roommate was the first to bring it up, as one of those friends who was feeling the weight of filling in the gaps in my ability to care for myself and my dog. My roommate is in her master's program for social work and works with people with autism for a living. When I brought her concerns to my counselor, my counselor agreed with her assessment- I need more supports. So now, my case manager and counselor are searching for good group homes that will take my ESA (emotional support animal) and I by June at the latest, since my lease is up in July. Meanwhile, my doctor has put in an order for nursing and aide care, but we don't know how long that will take to come through. I also set up a meeting...

Mental illness makes it hard for me to tell what's going on with my body. I seem to demonstrate a complete inability to conceptualize time, which may be more related to autism than mental illness, which makes recounting my symptoms to a doctor difficult. I also have trouble recalling feelings, physical or emotional, when I'm not feeling them right that moment. If I don't think to write them down when I experience them, I may not realize later that I have ever experienced them at all. Additionally, I have trouble grasping what has and has not happened. I may have a splitting headache on Wednesday, but by Friday, I'm second-guessing myself so much, I'm lucky to be sure that I had a head on Wednesday. I also used to deal with a tendency to find my identity in and obsess on new medical diagnoses, but this is a thought pattern that I am better , although not perfect, at keeping under control now. As a chronically ill person, it's important for me to be in t...

First of all, let me introduce you to Coco . She's my 1-and-a-half-year-old service dog in training, and she's the light of my life     Even at her current level of training, she's made a huge difference in my life. It's possible for me to go outside now, or even to run to the nearby store for 1-2 items. I know when my asthma is acting up in time to properly medicate and avoid hospitalizations. She stops me from hurting myself by actively interrupting those behaviors and providing alternative stimulation. She helps with so many little things every day. Still, she's not fully-trained. Her biggest barriers are jumping on people who enter our home, her prey drive on walks, and chewing. She's also having trouble mastering retrieval. To be fair, the jumping and chewing are completely resolved when she's getting enough exercise, but, running at my maximum possible level doesn't give her what she needs in that department. Recently, I resolved to become ...