“Myles” of Service

     Until recently, my repertoire of life-skills gave me the ability to successfully manage my intermittent anxiety so that I could function normally in life. Like most people, I worked hard, enjoyed great times with friends and family, traveled, managed my finances, enjoyed hobbies, and was always looking for new ways to enrich my life. Anxiety was something that I had never actually identified with or considered to be an issue that required my attention. That is until my mind and body were bombarded with extreme symptoms of dreadful thinking, dizziness and unexplained panic that ultimately consumed me. My life as I knew it essentially stopped. I existed in a perpetual loop of stress hormones racing through my body causing unexplained bodily symptoms and, of course, generating more fear. Like most adverse things that I have faced in my life, I made a decision to approach this new condition in a logical, well-tested manner. Most evidence-based research at the time showed that psychotherapy, coupled with anti-depressant medicines (SSRIs), were the most effective treatment of anxiety, so I embarked on a newly found mission of putting this anxiety stuff behind me.

     I was familiar with the benefits of talk therapy, and had also seen the effectiveness of medicine in treating people with both depression and anxiety. These two approaches seemed acceptable to me so I embarked on my own individual therapy and scheduled an appointment with a psychopharmacologist. The well-known SSRI, Celexa, was prescribed to me and I began my regimen, as advised, with a very small dosage that was to be increased with time. Surprisingly, the side effects that I experienced after taking my very first dosage so severely increased my panic symptoms that I made a frantic call to my doctor and climbed into bed to ride out the storm. This led to a series of bi-weekly appointments – each offering a different prescription of intolerable anti-anxiety medication intended to calm down my central nervous system. As each new pill failed to provide relief, my doctor finally informed me that she had no other medication to offer me. Her intuition was that I had linked my anxiety to medication and it was the anxiety that was interfering with the effectiveness.

     One can only imagine the disappointment and terror that I felt when my doctor calmly looked at me and very directly said, “I don’t have any more medication to try.” I remember thinking that this meant I would forever live with these uncomfortable, overwhelming feelings of fear and panic that were stealing my life from me. For some reason, I remembered that in one of my many appointments with my doctor, she had casually mentioned her involvement with the organization, Puppies With A Purpose, and discussed how dogs had been proven to be an effective tool in helping people who were suffering with anxiety, and other psychiatric disorders. At the time, I didn’t really embrace the idea because I was living in a “no pet” building and didn’t understand the laws and rights associated with psychiatric service dogs. Later, when I asked her about it, she explained that my specific disorder would qualify me for a service dog, and provided me with details regarding my rights to obtain a service dog, even in a “no pet” building. I left her office that day on my newly altered mission, complete with contact information for local professionals who could help me locate and train a dog to help me.

     My individual psychotherapy continued as I began the process of finding a dog to help me cope, and my anxiety symptoms remained a constant presence in my day-to-day life. After meeting with a woman who specialized in training psychiatric service dogs, I located and adopted a dog who I quickly named Myles because he had traveled many miles from the “Shaggy-Dog Rescue” in Texas to his new home in New York City. I will always remember that day when my friend drove me north, about a half an hour out of the city, to pick up Myles, who was being delivered by way of semi-trailer truck along with many other rescue dogs from the south. As he sat on my lap for the first time on our way back to the city, he looked intently and questioningly into my eyes for an extended period of time. I remember feeling somewhat cautious, as I was trying to read him and watch his reactions, knowing very little about his temperament. After a minute or so, he sighed heavily and rested his head against my chest as if to say, “I’ll stay.”      

     Anyone who has experienced an anxiety disorder understands how pervasive one’s focus becomes on the anxiety itself. It is a vicious cycle of fearful thoughts—hormonal reactions—bodily symptoms— more fearful thoughts. It is, in fact, the symptoms brought on by the overstimulation of the central nervous system that causes many people, including myself, to withdraw from the outside world and remain in the safety zone of one’s home. Needless to say, having a dog to walk quickly breaks this pattern of avoidance, and this was the first accomplishment of Myles in his role as my unofficial service dog. I can still remember how uncomfortable and unsteady I felt during those first few weeks of walking Myles, wondering how I was ever going to survive this new responsibility.

     It didn’t take long for me to appreciate the distraction that walking Myles provided. It was hard to remain focused on my own anxiety when my new companion was exhibiting anxious signs of his own in response to his relocation – a loud, fast-moving city. Myles chased unfamiliar objects like motorized wheelchairs, lunged at dogs that he deemed threatening, and became crazed by the frolicking squirrels in Central Park. I feared that there was no way that he was ever going to be trainable, yet also noticed that I was beginning to look at life a bit differently. Nearly every walk with Myles brought a bit of new insight related to my anxiety. The controlling, perfectionistic nature of many anxiety sufferers, like myself, began to shift as Myles had his good days and his bad days. I found myself easing up on my expectations of him and relaxing more with life, in general. Change was now more acceptable for some reason. Unknowingly, Myles also reminded me that staying with him in the present moments of our walks together was a simple antidote to my fears of the future, which had previously haunted me.

     As my outlook on life improved and my anxiety symptoms began to subside a bit, Myles was enrolled in a rigorous behavior-training program designed to ready him for certification as a psychiatric service dog. Three days a week, his trainer picked him up early in the morning and worked with him, teaching commands that were easily transferrable. I learned how to reinforce his good behavior, respond to his negative behavior, and after several months of hard work, Myles finally earned a vest that allowed him to be at my side whenever I needed – restaurants, cross-country flights, doctor’s appointments and even at work.

     The recovery from my anxiety disorder has been a lengthy, ongoing process that has caused me to greatly change how I view life. By identifying the underlying factors of my anxiety in therapy, I have also been able to make some important behavioral changes in the way I have been living. I am convinced, however, that it is what Myles entered into the recovery equation that has been the most valuable. Along with helping me to exhale and relax as I began to increase my interaction with the outside world, his presence gently forced me to shift my focus to something outside of myself. Myles was probably the most helpful when I would struggle to contain the irrational fears that would unexpectedly surface. From the very beginning, he seemed to have an intuitive way about him and would come close to me when I was the most vulnerable and really locked into my fear. “Thankful” wouldn’t come close to expressing the feelings of gratitude that I have for Myles, and for the opportunity to experience such a connection with a dog, my psychiatric service dog. I am also thankful for an organization like Puppies With A Purpose that works hard to educate people on the undeniable usefulness of dogs as support for those who are struggling with emotional and psychiatric disorders.