Alltagstraum: Assistenzhund
Donation protected
***for English entry scroll down!***
Unverhofft kommt oft.
Eigentlich ist es Schicksal, dass wir Jo, eine sehr gute Freundin, im Studium kennen gelernt haben und ihr hoffentlich auf diesem Wege helfen können.
Jo hat eine sehr besondere Krankheit, die jedoch gar nicht so selten ist, wie man vielleicht denken könnte. Die Krankheit heißt "Dissoziative Identitätsstörung" (auch häufig bekannt als "Multiple Persönlichkeitsstörung).
Diese Krankheit wird durch eine Posttraumatische Belastungsstörung bedingt und verursacht verschiedene Persönlichkeiten, die quasi in einem Körper stecken. Das ist sicher sehr schwer nachzuvollziehen, aber noch schwerer ist es für Jo ihren Alltag ohne Probleme zu bewältigen.
Häufig sind es Panikattacken, Flashbacks oder eben andere Personen, die es ihr mehr als schwer machen ihr Studium, arbeiten zu gehen oder auch nur einfache Dinge wie Wäschewaschen oder Einkaufen gehen zu bewältigen.
Nachdem sie uns von ihrer Krankheit erzählt hat, waren wir natürlich erstmal überrascht und überrumpelt. Und als sie uns jetzt von einem PTBS-Assistenzhund erzählt hat, von den Dingen die so ein ausgebildeter Hund kann und wie sehr er ihr helfen könnte, waren wir einfach nur euphorisch.
Sie müsste nicht mehr alleine sein, denn eine rund um die Uhr Betreuung von uns und auch von Therapeuten ist leider nicht möglich. Sie könnte ihren Einkauf erledigen, ohne Hilfe von anderen Menschen, da der Hund da wäre, um sie zu beschützen.
Aus diesem Grund haben wir uns dazu entschlossen, mal etwas Gutes zu tun und vor allem etwas, um unserer guten Freundin zu helfen.
Wir sammeln Spenden für die Ausbildung und Anschaffung eines solchen Hundes, die leider sehr kostspielig ist. Eine solche Ausbildung kostet ungefähr 10.000€, die natürlich keiner von uns aufbringen kann.
Wir bitten EUCH also ein paar Euro für unser Vorhaben zu spenden. Wir wollen versuchen diese 10.000€ zusammen zu bekommen und ihr den Traum eines Assistenzhundes zu erfüllen.
Dankeschön!
***English***
Many of us struggle with asking for help. As humans in the western world, we tend to think that asking for help makes us seem ‚weak‘ and in this kind of society, in a world in which you have to be a shark to not be eaten, appearing ‚weak‘ and especially feeling ‚weak‘ can come down to a life or death struggle. We are asking for help – right here, right now. Our lovely friend Jo needs you, needs all of us, which is why we are talking to you now.
After a long history of severe trauma, starting in her earliest childhood and continuing throughout adolescence and adult life, Jo is standing at a crossroad. She was diagnosed with PTSD and DID (Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder and Dissociative Identity Disorder, better known as „multiple personalities“) a few years ago and these mental illnesses make it harder every day for her to live a ‚normal‘ life, to get through the day and even finish the most basic tasks sometimes.
We will give you a brief overlook of how to understand Dissociative Identity Disorder because it is a relatively rare and highly stigmatized and misunderstood mental condition. It makes no sense to get into scientific explanations here, so just imagine going through such severe traumatic events that the only way for your soul to survive is to split into different fragments. The more traumatic events, the more often the soul splits and the more individual personalities share the same body. Which means that at some point, you may have babies, children, teenagers and adults sharing one adult body, some of which know about each other, others totally oblivious. None of them can live a ‚normal‘ life.
Can you imagine being pulled into flashbacks of your traumas, sometimes multiple times a day, being forced to relive the memories over and over and over again? Can you imagine randomly losing time, sometimes hours, and not being able to tell where your body was and what it did in that time period? Knowing that those times, in which you blacked out, „you“ were still out and about, although that wasn’t you? Can you imagine people asking you why you were acting so „weird“ yesterday and you can’t even remember meeting them because you didn’t but someone else in your body did? Having to carry around stuffed animals or something similar to calm children because it could happen that you are suddeny not in control anymore and in your place, there’s a child sitting in university or standing in a supermarket? Can you imagine always being scared when alone, and most of the times you’re with others, too, because there’s a voice in your head telling you to „watch out! There’s a bad man behind you!“ and because your social anxiety and fear of the dark and small places and strangers and men make it incredibly hard for you to… live?
All of this and more is everyday life for Jo and the system of personalities she’s part of. We, her friends and also her therapist, are unfortunately no longer equipped to be with her 24/7, help her with all of her everyday chores or just be with her so that she can sleep at night. Therefore, we decided to start a go fund me campaign to get her and her system of personalities a psychiatric service dog. Such a dog would provide them with calming pressure and a sense of safety, a dog would be able to protect them and alert someone if anything happened to them. They would no longer have to be scared or alone because someone would be with them 24/7. A service dog would make getting through life for them easier, they might become able to get groceries without our help or get the laundry from the basement, it might help them sleep and break damaging behavioural patterns. Unfortunately, training and handling a psychiatric service dog is very expensive. The costs would amount to about 10.000 Euros which equals roughly 11.800 USD and there is simply no way for us to handle that.
Jo and Co. need our help and we need yours. If you feel the urge to help us out, it doesn’t matter if you can give 1 or 100 Euros, please do so. Every cent helps and is greatly appreciated. We want Jo, Mila, Laurie and Co. to be able to breathe a little easier, please help us make that happen!
Unverhofft kommt oft.
Eigentlich ist es Schicksal, dass wir Jo, eine sehr gute Freundin, im Studium kennen gelernt haben und ihr hoffentlich auf diesem Wege helfen können.
Jo hat eine sehr besondere Krankheit, die jedoch gar nicht so selten ist, wie man vielleicht denken könnte. Die Krankheit heißt "Dissoziative Identitätsstörung" (auch häufig bekannt als "Multiple Persönlichkeitsstörung).
Diese Krankheit wird durch eine Posttraumatische Belastungsstörung bedingt und verursacht verschiedene Persönlichkeiten, die quasi in einem Körper stecken. Das ist sicher sehr schwer nachzuvollziehen, aber noch schwerer ist es für Jo ihren Alltag ohne Probleme zu bewältigen.
Häufig sind es Panikattacken, Flashbacks oder eben andere Personen, die es ihr mehr als schwer machen ihr Studium, arbeiten zu gehen oder auch nur einfache Dinge wie Wäschewaschen oder Einkaufen gehen zu bewältigen.
Nachdem sie uns von ihrer Krankheit erzählt hat, waren wir natürlich erstmal überrascht und überrumpelt. Und als sie uns jetzt von einem PTBS-Assistenzhund erzählt hat, von den Dingen die so ein ausgebildeter Hund kann und wie sehr er ihr helfen könnte, waren wir einfach nur euphorisch.
Sie müsste nicht mehr alleine sein, denn eine rund um die Uhr Betreuung von uns und auch von Therapeuten ist leider nicht möglich. Sie könnte ihren Einkauf erledigen, ohne Hilfe von anderen Menschen, da der Hund da wäre, um sie zu beschützen.
Aus diesem Grund haben wir uns dazu entschlossen, mal etwas Gutes zu tun und vor allem etwas, um unserer guten Freundin zu helfen.
Wir sammeln Spenden für die Ausbildung und Anschaffung eines solchen Hundes, die leider sehr kostspielig ist. Eine solche Ausbildung kostet ungefähr 10.000€, die natürlich keiner von uns aufbringen kann.
Wir bitten EUCH also ein paar Euro für unser Vorhaben zu spenden. Wir wollen versuchen diese 10.000€ zusammen zu bekommen und ihr den Traum eines Assistenzhundes zu erfüllen.
Dankeschön!
***English***
Many of us struggle with asking for help. As humans in the western world, we tend to think that asking for help makes us seem ‚weak‘ and in this kind of society, in a world in which you have to be a shark to not be eaten, appearing ‚weak‘ and especially feeling ‚weak‘ can come down to a life or death struggle. We are asking for help – right here, right now. Our lovely friend Jo needs you, needs all of us, which is why we are talking to you now.
After a long history of severe trauma, starting in her earliest childhood and continuing throughout adolescence and adult life, Jo is standing at a crossroad. She was diagnosed with PTSD and DID (Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder and Dissociative Identity Disorder, better known as „multiple personalities“) a few years ago and these mental illnesses make it harder every day for her to live a ‚normal‘ life, to get through the day and even finish the most basic tasks sometimes.
We will give you a brief overlook of how to understand Dissociative Identity Disorder because it is a relatively rare and highly stigmatized and misunderstood mental condition. It makes no sense to get into scientific explanations here, so just imagine going through such severe traumatic events that the only way for your soul to survive is to split into different fragments. The more traumatic events, the more often the soul splits and the more individual personalities share the same body. Which means that at some point, you may have babies, children, teenagers and adults sharing one adult body, some of which know about each other, others totally oblivious. None of them can live a ‚normal‘ life.
Can you imagine being pulled into flashbacks of your traumas, sometimes multiple times a day, being forced to relive the memories over and over and over again? Can you imagine randomly losing time, sometimes hours, and not being able to tell where your body was and what it did in that time period? Knowing that those times, in which you blacked out, „you“ were still out and about, although that wasn’t you? Can you imagine people asking you why you were acting so „weird“ yesterday and you can’t even remember meeting them because you didn’t but someone else in your body did? Having to carry around stuffed animals or something similar to calm children because it could happen that you are suddeny not in control anymore and in your place, there’s a child sitting in university or standing in a supermarket? Can you imagine always being scared when alone, and most of the times you’re with others, too, because there’s a voice in your head telling you to „watch out! There’s a bad man behind you!“ and because your social anxiety and fear of the dark and small places and strangers and men make it incredibly hard for you to… live?
All of this and more is everyday life for Jo and the system of personalities she’s part of. We, her friends and also her therapist, are unfortunately no longer equipped to be with her 24/7, help her with all of her everyday chores or just be with her so that she can sleep at night. Therefore, we decided to start a go fund me campaign to get her and her system of personalities a psychiatric service dog. Such a dog would provide them with calming pressure and a sense of safety, a dog would be able to protect them and alert someone if anything happened to them. They would no longer have to be scared or alone because someone would be with them 24/7. A service dog would make getting through life for them easier, they might become able to get groceries without our help or get the laundry from the basement, it might help them sleep and break damaging behavioural patterns. Unfortunately, training and handling a psychiatric service dog is very expensive. The costs would amount to about 10.000 Euros which equals roughly 11.800 USD and there is simply no way for us to handle that.
Jo and Co. need our help and we need yours. If you feel the urge to help us out, it doesn’t matter if you can give 1 or 100 Euros, please do so. Every cent helps and is greatly appreciated. We want Jo, Mila, Laurie and Co. to be able to breathe a little easier, please help us make that happen!
Organizer and beneficiary
Jana-Lea Schuh
Organizer
Oldenburg
Anna Kreft
Beneficiary
