Page 862 - Total War on PTSD

Griffin had bad hind legs...they are a little bad balance wise. Griffin doesn't go to school with him because Griffin sits down and Mikey runs around a lot. He is a high functioning Autistic/ Asperger's. He goes more to school for interaction than he does for education because he is high function, he is already on upper junior high school level work and he is only in the fourth grade. He is nine going on ten and he is working on stuff fourteen-year old’s usually work on. They pretty much tell him to spend Monday and Friday on him academics and the other days are for socialization. Well, Griffin helps him with that socialization when Mikey is out of school so that can go to a mall and places like that. By people naturally wanting to walk up to my son Griffin because of seeing this cute little dog with him, it forces my son to open up and communicate. This way he can start using his skills. He saw me do the same thing with Bayley too, so this also serves as a reinforcement with Mikey and Griffin.
Now with Madison, there was this little bit of being aggressive or angry, it allowed me to, when people walked up to me, to be unapproachable...to tell them to leave me alone...and to have Madison reinforce that response with a growl. That actually caused me to have more PTSD. No one wanted to approach an angry dog, or if she was reacting a certain way, I would respond off of her. Well Bayley kind of looks like Jersey Cow and she's soft and cuddly, cute, and also PTSD trained. This meant that she was trained to put herself between me and anyone who approached me. That has allowed me to get out of my PTSD 'shell'. By having this cute dog, naturally people are going to want to ask questions about her, about the breed, about Service Dogs in general, and being hypoallergenic, etc. I am actually allergic to dogs; I have more seizures with my other dogs and I have to take allergy medication which actually causes seizures.
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