Halfway through the first month of my first semester of college, it became clear that having an animal around bettered my mental health considerably. When I was in the public school system I had an emotional support dog (and, in middle school, a lizard), but due to time, space, and money circumstances it was seen as impossible for him to join me here at Wells. I got by okay, Oddline, other campus traditions and my classes kept me busy, but not as well as I or my therapist had hoped, but there isn’t really anything to do about that so I just trudged along.
Then over fall break, I saw a post about a pair of kittens the night after I had a panic attack over how alone I felt and I knew I needed to meet these two jelly-beans.
After getting approval for an ESA (Emotional Support Animal) and keeping in contact with the person who had ‘rescued’ the kittens and given them to the local SPCA, one warm Saturday I met a tiny black kitten with a white jaw, chest, and paws who was called ‘Milky Toes.’ She climbed her cage as I reached out and rammed her head into my hand and sneezed.
It was love at first sneeze if I say so myself!
When I brought her back home to my dorm it took a lot of getting used to for me and the way I lived my life at college. No longer could I keep my door wide open, a kitten streak of black fur could sprint out and down the hall if I did. No longer could I leave my room early in the morning and not come back until late at night, I had someone to look after and love waiting for me back at the dorm. No longer could I keep my snack supply out because though tiny – my fur baby’s teeth were sharp and could tear through most bags and containers.
But it changed my life in the best ways too.
Oddwina was named after a tradition that I love with all of my heart that’s taken place at my college for what seems like forever. The oddline represents the qualities of the people I want to become someday, and we have two mascots named Oddwin and Oddwina, thus ‘Milky Toes’ turned into Oddwina.
I have intense insomnia and have vivid night terrors and sleep paralysis, so because of these things I rarely spend a full night asleep without terror or anxiety. I also have an amazing roommate who I would hate to wake up with any of my shenanigans at night that I do when I’m alone like reading or playing video games, so I often am left to my own devices to figure out how to distract my brain. With Oddwina I now have a kitten purring on top of me luring me to sleep, promising that she’ll be there to protect and comfort me from anything that could ever hurt me. I’ve even caught her wandering around the room doing patrol as if she were looking for anything that could hurt me. And when I just can’t sleep she’ll still curl up next to me and let me read to her silently.
She also helps not only my mental health improve, but the mental health of my friends as well! Because Wells has an honor code, me and my roommate feel comfortable leaving our door unlocked 24/7, which means it’s often that we find Oddwina helping our friends feel better, taking naps with them, doing homework and studying, or even just distracting them from the woes of everyday life by playing with her, and I’m so happy that my friends also get to feel the support her presence gives off. A few of my professors have even invited Oddwina to join a few classes, and last semester she even was allowed to wander the room while we did our written final to calm us down and let us laugh at her antics.
I have an extremely scattered brain and find routine extremely challenging, but because of my anxiety, I often feel terrified when there isn’t some sort of routine and often crave one. When Oddwina was born she was thrown in a dumpster with her brother and mother and raised in an extremely dirty environment for a few weeks, making her most likely to have a troubled immune system for the rest of her life. Having an ESA with a special need makes me have to follow a specific routine because if I don’t Oddwina might get sick, and through her routine I’ve started to craft my own roots of one!
As the weather gets nicer I have been finding more and more ways to engage Oddwina with the outside world that surrounds me. So far I’ve been able to go into every building here at Wells and let the people around her be comforted by her crazy energy. Just yesterday Oddwina and I went for a car ride and saw a cute gully and creek that’s down the road from my college, and I discovered that my Odd-balls car anxiety just comes from her being in a crate every time I drove with her, but when she is loose in the car she purrs away and stares out the window. Though I’m happy she enjoys that, it is quite unsafe! I’m looking for alternate ways to help her stay calm in the car but also stay safe, soit provides me a great example of how emotional support animals help your brain deal with problem-solution skills as well.
Another thing that Oddwina helps me out with is me and my friends’ course load! For a psychology class last semester that I wasn’t even in, one of my friends asked to borrow Oddwina for two or three classes to study how the class would react to having a foreign animal present in a classroom environment. It’s something that I really appreciate in Oddwina, though she is the loudest and most vocal cat that I have ever known, she loves to meet people and see new environments and explore, she just is going to meow about it loudly!
Oddwina and I are still young when it comes to Wells, and we will grow with sister Wells throughout our time here.