From the age of 14, I have seen a total of 4 counselors. Two specialized in Post-traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) therapy. By 19, I was officially diagnosed with PTSD and Persistent Depressive Disorder. By 22, I was told my PTSD was manageable enough that when I took the test again, it wouldn’t show up. What tests don’t show are the lasting effects of PTSD that transferred to my depressive disorder and why, at the age of 26, I still continue to seek out counseling.
The reason I am writing about this is because in my years of counseling, two of my counselors recommended that I get a service animal. At the time, I was completely against taking medication for my depression. I had experienced what it does to people when they have to go off for long periods of time, or how it interacts with other drugs. One of my parents, who doesn’t remember everything from my high school years, suffers from Major Depressive Disorder, and during my junior and senior year of high school they were in and out of the hospital and often taken off their medication. They would have terrible mood swings because of this. So, my counselor, understanding my position on medication, helped me research the benefits of having an Emotional Support Animal or ESA.
I had originally wanted to put Manchester through service training, but because of the amount of money involved and not knowing that I could train him myself, he remained an ESA. Manchester is a purebred Pembroke Welsh Corgi, registered with the American Kennel Club and we get regular updates on what is going on in the dog world. One of the headlines was “U.S. Department of Transportation Proposes New Rules to Define Service Dogs for the Purpose of Air Travel.” The law would allow airlines to decide if Manchester is a pet or a service animal. It would also require that anyone with a disability must fill out forms to certify that their animal is a service animal and has completed the required training.
According to the AKC, there were concerns about ESAs on flights by people with disabilities, airline employees, airline stakeholders, and passengers to ask for changes in the laws. According to Airlines for America, the amount of people traveling with ESAs rose from 481,000 to 751,000 by 2017. As someone who has a mental illness and can’t afford the training, because I want the best for my dog, I am largely being affected by this new policy. It is so easy for people to go to a doctor or counselor and say, “I need a dog, I have a mental illness” and no questions are asked. They get a form signed and they are jet-setting with an untrained pet. It happens a lot, so I completely understand why this law is coming into place. But for myself, I have had a documented mental illness since I was 14 and to this day, it is still well documented.
My one request for the US DOT would be that they should allow those who have an ESA for financial reasons because the training is so expensive for service training, that they allow us to show documentation of our mental illness as well as the other things they require. As far as what I will do, I will work on training Manchester as a service animal by myself as much as I can. If you have comments about this new law, you can submit them to the DOT by going to their website http://www.regulations.gov. The docket number is DOT-OST-2018-0068.