Justmehere
Sponsor
About 4 years ago, I rescued a temperament tested shelter pup, and trained her to be my service dog. I had trained other dogs, but this one was for me, and at the time, it was solely for the purpose of trying to do anything I could to manage my PTSD symptoms. My dog has helped me significantly.
A year later, I was diagnosed with a progressive eye disease that can cause visual impairment at any moment. This disease typically causes full and permanent blindness in a matter of months to years. While there is no cure for the eye disease, they have fully halted the progression of the disease. It's very rare to be able to do this, and it's been wonderful. My eye sight in my right eye is near perfect most days. My left eye has no peripheral vision, and that's gone forever, but what I can see is 20/20. I can't drive yet, but my doc says I might be able to in the near future.
Because I don't drive, most people in my life know about the eye condition. They assume my service dog will be future guide dog if I go blind - which is true - I would go back to training my sweet dog for guide dog work in addition to PTSD work if things go south again.
But now that the disease has been halted, and I may be able to drive again, people are beginning to ask why I still have the service dog. I don't want to tell them it's because of PTSD.
Yesterday, on my birthday, I was at a BBQ at a church. I had been asked to organize it by people not knowing it was the same day as my birthday, but I did it anyhow. It was fine with me to do that. I don't know if it seemed weird to other. I almost don't care. I don't much like my birthday, and I wanted to spend time with friends anyhow on my birthday. So I organized it and it went off well. While everyone was sitting around after eating, stupid stuff happened. A 32 year old guy who knows I have the vision issue, a small group leader in the church, who also tends to act like a teenager from time to time, was trying to tease me? I guess. He was flashing the glare of the sun off his watch towards my face. I was turned away, talking to someone else. I happened to turn my face his way, and then I noticed the glare and held up my hand to block it. I looked at him, not thinking it was intentional, and he said, "I've been doing that for like 5 minutes and you didn't even notice!"
I was stunned. I remarked, "um, yeah, I have total loss of peripheral vision on my left side." I held up my hand to show him where my peripheral vision starts on my left side, and where it starts on my right side. I didn't feel defensive, just more like... I dunno. I responded to him like I would have a teenager who was being obnoxious.
He said, "it's not that bad - " and then he cut himself off as he held up his on hand in the same spot and the said "actually, that is bad."
I asked him to not do that again, and he said he was sorry. "I didn't realize you couldn't see in that direction." I wanted to emphasize even if I could see, please don't shine crap in my face, but it didn't even seem worth the effort.
Later, someone else commented about how silly it was that my dog could be considered to be a guide dog. She had her jacket off and was playing like a normal dog, as she is allowed to do if her jacket is off. Others were petting her and throwing a ball.... they expressed how much they love the dog, but one person said, "but do you really need her as service dog?"
They didn't know I had PTSD, and I really didn't want to go there, especially not after the other person did the crap he did about flashing a glare in my face.
In that moment, I wish I could have done something to demonstrate the real limits of PTSD and how my service dog helps me overcome it to be someone who doesn't seem disabled at all...
Instead, I just said I was going to go check on bringing out desert.
Now it's the day after and I may run into some of these people again soon, and I don't know what to say. If even one or two are a-holes even about a visual impairment, I'm very hesitant to trust they can handle "hey, I have PTSD too"....
I am tired of a lifetime of trying to hide my diagnosis from the world, but I'm also not in a place to take on all the stigma and crap about it from uninformed people.
Any suggestions or thoughts?
A year later, I was diagnosed with a progressive eye disease that can cause visual impairment at any moment. This disease typically causes full and permanent blindness in a matter of months to years. While there is no cure for the eye disease, they have fully halted the progression of the disease. It's very rare to be able to do this, and it's been wonderful. My eye sight in my right eye is near perfect most days. My left eye has no peripheral vision, and that's gone forever, but what I can see is 20/20. I can't drive yet, but my doc says I might be able to in the near future.
Because I don't drive, most people in my life know about the eye condition. They assume my service dog will be future guide dog if I go blind - which is true - I would go back to training my sweet dog for guide dog work in addition to PTSD work if things go south again.
But now that the disease has been halted, and I may be able to drive again, people are beginning to ask why I still have the service dog. I don't want to tell them it's because of PTSD.
Yesterday, on my birthday, I was at a BBQ at a church. I had been asked to organize it by people not knowing it was the same day as my birthday, but I did it anyhow. It was fine with me to do that. I don't know if it seemed weird to other. I almost don't care. I don't much like my birthday, and I wanted to spend time with friends anyhow on my birthday. So I organized it and it went off well. While everyone was sitting around after eating, stupid stuff happened. A 32 year old guy who knows I have the vision issue, a small group leader in the church, who also tends to act like a teenager from time to time, was trying to tease me? I guess. He was flashing the glare of the sun off his watch towards my face. I was turned away, talking to someone else. I happened to turn my face his way, and then I noticed the glare and held up my hand to block it. I looked at him, not thinking it was intentional, and he said, "I've been doing that for like 5 minutes and you didn't even notice!"
I was stunned. I remarked, "um, yeah, I have total loss of peripheral vision on my left side." I held up my hand to show him where my peripheral vision starts on my left side, and where it starts on my right side. I didn't feel defensive, just more like... I dunno. I responded to him like I would have a teenager who was being obnoxious.
He said, "it's not that bad - " and then he cut himself off as he held up his on hand in the same spot and the said "actually, that is bad."
I asked him to not do that again, and he said he was sorry. "I didn't realize you couldn't see in that direction." I wanted to emphasize even if I could see, please don't shine crap in my face, but it didn't even seem worth the effort.
Later, someone else commented about how silly it was that my dog could be considered to be a guide dog. She had her jacket off and was playing like a normal dog, as she is allowed to do if her jacket is off. Others were petting her and throwing a ball.... they expressed how much they love the dog, but one person said, "but do you really need her as service dog?"
They didn't know I had PTSD, and I really didn't want to go there, especially not after the other person did the crap he did about flashing a glare in my face.
In that moment, I wish I could have done something to demonstrate the real limits of PTSD and how my service dog helps me overcome it to be someone who doesn't seem disabled at all...
Instead, I just said I was going to go check on bringing out desert.
Now it's the day after and I may run into some of these people again soon, and I don't know what to say. If even one or two are a-holes even about a visual impairment, I'm very hesitant to trust they can handle "hey, I have PTSD too"....
I am tired of a lifetime of trying to hide my diagnosis from the world, but I'm also not in a place to take on all the stigma and crap about it from uninformed people.
Any suggestions or thoughts?
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