Hello Athena. Welcome to DS. Sorry for what brings you here, but glad you are here.

I know my anxiety management is demanding enough that I need more than one door to knock on for support. Posting in open forum, like you just did with this post, often helps me keep from wearing out the precious few friends I have with my anxiety dribble. Venting here often frees my thought processes enough that I can make friendlier use of my friend time.

Works for me. . .

Gentle support while you find what works for you. Welcome aboard.

Thank you for the support <3 I do feel like I've been a bit of a burden on the few friends I have managed to keep throughout the years. I'm still pretty young, 24, but don't want to burn bridges when I need them the most.
I am also training my dog, who's name is Athena not mine lol, to alert to my anxious tics and to retrieve my medication if I have an attack. Slowly but surely she is learning.

Hi I’m new to this group too! So far I have seen nothing but really nice things. I have GAD, ADHD, and cyclothymia. I also have OCD tendencies. Mine are more I have to pick scabs and any type of bump on my skin bothers me so much I end up scratching them off. I am going to get a trained dog soon hopefully to help alert for my tics too! I hope your training with your dog goes well! I am planning on getting a pretrained dog.

I wish I could afford a pre trained dog and the wait list for most reputable trainers is sooooo long at least in my area. I'm in New England and while there are a lot of programs that train service dogs, unfortunately there's a long process to get one unless you're blind or severely immobile. Psych dogs are expensive and hard to come by. I do have a friend who is a professional trainer so she is helping quite a bit. Good luck to you!

That’s amazing and I haven’t even started looking I’m from Kansas.

Welcome to the anxiety board at DS.

You've taken the important first step in writing it out.

Keep writing everything out in a private journal to help you sort through thoughts, feelings, emotions, and words. This will help you figure out what works best when to find your calm zone.

With hair-pulling being used as a 'soothing' technique, three things will help you distract this pattern naturally while improving your ability to manage anxiety. Even breathing, moving hands gently and distracting with different words and images.

Best wishes as you find your better balance.

Learning how to be positive and keeping your distance from toxic, negative, and mean behavior people is improving your ability to find calm even in those situations. You are responsible for what you say, do, react, and respond. You are NOT responsible for what others say, do, react, and respond. When you change your response to fit your improving well-being, their usual response no longer fits. It often gets worse before it improves.

When I started using "Therapy Dogs" in the late 70's, Seeing Eye Dogs were the only recognized "Service Animals." Within the framework and availability of the day, training your own dog was part of the therapy, perhaps the most important part in my personal case. My own understanding of "discipline" was quite brutal and inhumane. Training my dog gave me a cognitive understanding of just how ineffective brutality is as a training tool and how to modify my own behavior accordingly.

Fast forward to the proliferation of certified service animals and I believe I am seeing evidence that professionally trained dogs are not deeply bonded enough to fill psych needs for the people they serve. 'Tis the nature of dogs to bond deeply with whomever trains them. Moving them to a new home and owner traumatizes them deeply enough that the dogs, themselves, need therapy more than they can provide therapy.

Just a long way of saying I believe you are lucky that you cannot afford a certified, pre-trained dog. Both you and Athena stand to gain from the home grown efforts. Bond well. Listen to your dog.