SOCIAL ANXIETY AND THE PROBLEM/BENEFIT OF LABELS

Sorry my capslock got stuck and it was such an experience un-locking it that I decided to leave the title capitalized.

I have a writing assignment to write an op-ed about something that we know about and care about and about something that has some differing opinions. Naturally I chose something that I am not super comfortable talking about, social anxiety and service/companion/emotional support animals. And in my research I've learned that pretty much no group of people involved agree with each other or have a very clear idea of what they are talking about. Which is super duper reassuring to me.

Even the official psych definition of Social anxiety is a little bit loose and up in the air and varying studies have slightly different definitions and qualifiers that they are working with so it's difficult to compare them. The name that most people are calling it though is SAD (Social Anxiety Disorder) which I think is just a really unfortunate acronym. Especially because it's also already used to describe Seasonal Affective Disorder---I think.

There isn't really fixed definition of social anxiety itself except for a general consensus that it must exist if everyone is talking about it. But there also aren't any clear rules or definitions of what makes a service animal. The ADA is vague and then there's all sorts of debate about whether or not animals who just serve to support someone emotionally are really necessary. Like maybe some people could get behind a dog being supportive but a ferret is pushing it.

And I get it from like the logical point of view, there should be assurances that these animals aren't going to be disruptive to other people nearby but how do you quantify what is disruptive and how can you prove that an animal isn't going to be disruptive on paper?

Also, when someone has a mental illness filling out paperwork and justifying the support that you need and don't fully understand is absolutely no fun and fills you with doubt about whether or not what you're feeling is real or worth anyone else's time. At least that was my experience.

Essentially this post is just complaining about how no one knows anything and I have no idea how people would get more definitive knowledge rules while making sure that everyone had the support and individualized care that they needed. It's one big wibblywobbly mess.

Here's a picture of Harriet being cute:

 

Things have changed....

I was reading over some of my old posts and I feel that things in my life have really changed. I look back at old little me and think, "wow, if only you knew."

So, here's what's new. I have been diagnosed with social anxiety. That's not really new because I think that's something I've pretty much had since fourth or fifth grade, but now I know that it's real. Which means that I allow my feelings to have value and meaning. Which honestly sucks, it was so much easier when I was operating under the impression that I was a vulcan.

To help me with my social anxiety I was prescribed to have an assistance animal (That's why I went to the therapist originally) and now I have a puppy. Her name is Harriet. She's a German Shepherd mix thing. She's an adorable pain in my ass. She's about 14 weeks old. Here's a picture from when I first met her back in September:

When Harriet and I first met

 

 

 

 

 

It took about a month to actually bring her home to my dorm (Yes, I am still attending Soka). This is a picture from when she first moved in:

Harriet when she moved in

And here's a picture from the last weekish:

Harriet and I from the past week or so

As you can see she is absolutely adorable. She even has a facebook account, you can be friends with her if you want. :) Her name's Harriet Lief. Harriet's Facebook

Her only problem is that she doesn't like to hang out with me when I am anxious, which means that as an assistance animal she sort of sucks. I think it's just a puppy thing that she'll grow out of, because the rest of the time she's stellar. She's sleeping next to me right now.

Part of acknowledging my emotions is that I'm much more aware of when I am unhappy and generally down for no particular reason and being aware of what makes it worse. One of the things that made it worse, substantially worse, exponentially even, was my Chinese class. Oh MyGod, it was awful. I hated that class and doing all the homework. Honestly, I don't think anyone is actually reading this, but I'll pretend you know me. I am not one to give up in school. I do my best and my best is frequently pretty good. But I was straight up failing this class. It got so bad that one night I just cried on the bathroom floor for 2+ hours and wasn't able to pull myself out of my dramatic pit of despair. It was after that night that I decided to withdraw from the class. That's right, I backed out, gave up, extricated myself.

I've felt a lot better since, I mean I'm still not cured of all my problems but getting rid of that class certainly made the rest of my issues at least more confrontable.

Having dropped Chinese I now have more time. I was taking 4 classes now I'm taking 3. That means that I can do things like train my puppy and write. I am going to try to do nanowrimo.

I haven't written since I learned that there was actually something different about me, and I feel like having a mental illness makes my art (writing) more meaningful, which I'm pretty sure is BS. But anyways, we'll see how it goes.

Another part of all this self-discovery I've been shoved into has been realizing that I should just succumb to my nature and concentrate in humanities. I've always enjoyed my humanities classes the most (unless Dr. Gruhn was teaching biology) and I should do something I like. I'm good at other stuff, and I can pretty easily get day jobs, or just work at Kovar's (which I honestly don't want to do my whole life as much as I enjoy working there).

I have this likely erroneous idea that I can't be successful/happy/have any noticeable income unless I find a way to insert myself into Corporate America. So maybe I want to be an editor or a publisher at some major publishing corporation. Like Scholastic, or Harper Collins, or Penguin. Those would all be decent jobs that I wouldn't be ashamed to tell my friends and family about.

 I think that's all for now. I'm doing nanowrimo so I'll be writing a lot but I'll try to post on here every once in a while. I think that it would be good for me.