I am a 24-year-old who graduated with my bachelor’s in psychology in May of 2025. In the middle of the second semester of my third year of college, on March 4, 2024, I sustained a traumatic brain injury, landing me in the neurology ICU for 5 days and the hospital a week. I have also been diagnosed with Autism, PTSD, Generalized Anxiety Disorder, and ADHD, impacting my daily living. These are considered invisible disabilities, so while these disabilities might not be immediately apparent to observers, they significantly impact daily life.
A psychology nut, I am currently reading the DSM-V (Diagnostic Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders). I joke that it is the psychopathology version of a dictionary. My interest in psychology was sparked in middle school when I came across the book Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World that can’t Stop Talking by Susan Cain. As a queer mental health advocate, I love sharing my story to break the stigma around mental disorders and to be a person of representation for the LGBTQ+ community. I also crochet and run a small business called “Spectrum Stitch,” the name stemming from my autistic and LGBTQ+ identities. The slogan is “Representation and advocacy one stitch at a time.”
With these combined diagnoses, I struggle with things such as meltdowns, task initiation, sensory overwhelm, hypervigilance, and anxiety attacks, to name a few. Due to the TBI, my sense of smell has been lost, so I am unable to smell if there is smoke or other scent-based warning signs of life-threatening situations.
I am fundraising for a service dog that will be task-trained to assist with these challenges. A couple of these tasks will include alerting to rising distress before a meltdown so I can have an external awareness and take steps to calm down before it is full-blown (such as the dog performing deep pressure therapy to help me ground and lower heart rate), and it will alert to dangerous scents (ex. smoke). Owner-trained service dogs have a washout rate of 50%, at which point the owner would have to start from scratch, including financially. To avoid this, I am in need of a service dog already trained by a program. Service dogs are not covered by insurance, and most accredited programs that train service dogs to meet my needs are located out-of-state, which raises the price tag even more.
I hope that, in getting this service dog, I will be more able to function in daily life with less anxiety, sensory overwhelm, hypervigilance, and the fear of being unable to detect signs of life-threatening situations. In reducing these barriers, I plan to go on to graduate school to receive my Master’s in Clinical Mental Health Counseling, then pursuing my licensure to be a Licensed Professional Counselor and become a therapist for young adults.
I have chosen to fundraise with Help Hope Live in part because donations are tax deductible for contributors, and donations can and will only be used to cover medical and related expenses, including obtaining a service dog.
If you are able, please consider making a donation and sharing my story with your friends, family, or community groups on your social media platform. Every donation helps me move closer to getting a service dog to help me continue on my journey of living with a TBI and mental health disorders.
Thank you to everyone for your support.
