Schizophrenia Support Group
Schizophrenia is a psychiatric diagnosis that describes a mental disorder characterized by impairments in the perception of reality and by significant social dysfunction. Untreated schizophrenia is typically characterized by demonstrating disorganized thinking and experiencing delusions or auditory hallucinations.
I've been getting worse and worse and I worry that I'm going to get to the point where I can't leave my house because I might accidently walk into traffic or that someone could break in and I wouldn't know because I would think it was just another hallucination. Or that I won't hear the phone because I often hear the phone ringing but then it shows no one called. I've also been getting more and more paranoid. I'm terrified of strangers. I've been abused and assaulted in the past. Does anyone know if it would be possible to get like a service dog that wouldn't let me wander out into traffic and would alert to the phone actually ringing and keep me safe? Also I have fairly limited mobility due to fibromyalgia. I started thinking about this when I took my parents' dog for a walk today because I did not have the capacity to stay in the moment and my mind would go away and suddenly the dog would start barking at another dog or whatever and it would bring me back. Or he would tug on the leash and sort of pull me out of the fog momentarily. Does anyone know about service dogs and what kind of help they can offer and who gets them and stuff?
for example a dog can be taught to stop at every stret or step (you define it) and unless you give the "password" (a word form a favorite book, a second language word something that requires you be be "checked in"the dog will cross over and prevent you from moving forward, the problem is, a service dog can be tuaght to "clokc" whiich is when they sit behind you and giving you a buffer from others coiming to you, furthermore you can also teach your dog to poke you or tell you somebody is coming from behind.
a dog can be taught to "clear" a house and turn on the lights so you feel safer going home. the way they are trained is if there was somebody that shouldn't be home they are trained to bark and then you can call 811 for protection.
you can also teach a dog to afirm visual and auditory signals so if you think the phone is rining or an regeneracy siren is going off out train the dog that only when the phone actually rings to come paw you or lay down in from of you.
in addition to the good things a service dog can do there are downsides, you have to be able to focus on them, steward them in public properly (keep them at heel, not sniffing around etc) and a dog will make mistakes and "false alerts" they are not robots, work a service dog while may help you Inesanly you will also get a lot of unwanted attention, questions of why you have them etc. and getting/training a service dog takes a lot of time (2 years working with a puppy,, 1 year of working with an older dog
the "other" bad news is there are very few programs that will train a psychiatric service dog for a civilian, and even fewer that will touch schizophrenia (the good new is as long as you are stable with medications you keep yourself in check (relatively) then there is no reason a person with schizophrenia is any less able to have a service dog than those with Bipolar or PTSD.
two things a service should NEVER be used as a sourse of protection or be able to act aggressively. or stressed. working should be fun, and eventually its a semiotics relationship a true partnership. by the time my first dog (a black lab named Abby we barely had to people spent
I'd recommend becoming member of Service dog central at http://servicedogcentral.org/forum/index.php people can answer your questions and if this is what you think is right for you we can help guide you through the reprocess. to getting a sold well trained dog, it just be won't be fast or cheap if you want it done right.
Good luck in which ever you choose, just doe your research and don't loos hope in your treatment somethings can't be fixed but there are ways of mediating them.