When I first started college, like many others, I was expecting that these would be the greatest years of my life. I was expecting to have my best friend as my roommate, I was expecting to have a tight circle of friends that I never had a reason to question their loyalty, and most of all I expected to be happy. I didn't expect my anxiety to spike, I didn't expect my PTS to flare up again, and I definitely didn't expect to be told the chances of me dying were higher than the average 20-year-old.

I pride myself on being able to roll with the punches life throws at me. After all, I've been taking swings for as long as I can remember, and I'm still standing. Trust me, there have been times where I was broken, on my knees, and unsure if I was going to get up again. Somehow, though, I managed to get on my feet again every time. When I was a freshman, 1,000 miles away from home with no friends to support me and with no one who knew anything about my past, I found myself extremely lost. The one thing that got me through was having to keep a tiny fur-ball alive, too.

My roommate and I may have parted in a less than amicable manner, but I will forever be grateful to her for having a fear of dogs. She pushed me to adopt a cat as my Emotional Support Animal (ESA), in an effort to help lessen my recently traumatic anxiety episodes. That's what I want to focus on in this article: ESAs.

My ESA, Maelee, has treated my anxiety attacks more than I would like to admit. I try my best to present an "I'm fine" attitude to everyone around me, a tactic that has proved fatal to my relationships with others, and it forced the habit of nearly every time I was alone, I would have a minor to severe panic attack. Most of the time it was small bouts of hyperventilating, and after taking my inhaler I was fine. A few times, though, the panic attacks were so severe it required hospitalization. I realized after being forced to be away from my home environment and ponder my actions that this was a path I could no longer continue on. It sounds weird saying it out loud, but I have to say a big part of this transformation was Maelee. How could a cat be responsible for a mental metamorphosis, you ask?

I realized that if I were to keep letting myself get out of control just to prove to everyone else that I could handle myself, eventually it would be too late for me to help myself get through it. Eventually, I would have to call on someone to help me and it would increase the burden I have on their lives. And, if the worst were to happen to me, that leaves a two-year-old kitten without anyone she's familiar with. Without her family. I know that an ESA is meant to provide love and care when their person is having an anxiety attack, but Maelee is not known to be the most cuddly of creatures. Instead, she reminds me daily that there is someone out there who needs me to wake up in the morning.

There are many people out there that want to disregard anxiety, and such disregard the need for ESAs. I'm here to say that anxiety is not something that is within my control, and without my ESA I may not be the person I am today. I may not even be writing this article today.

Not to get too dramatic, but I may not have even been standing here today. To the people that forge letters to get their dogs into restaurants, to the parents that scoff at their child requesting a guinea pig to help them feel more complete, and to the airline staff that roll their eyes when I present my ESA prescription to the ticket office, thinking I'm just trying to get Maelee on the plane for free, I'm encouraging all of you to think about what it may be like to be in my shoes. To be in anyone with anxiety's shoes. Can you imagine what that's like?

Can you imagine what it's like to question everything you say? Everything someone else says? Everyone you read or think? Can you imagine what it's like to forget how to breathe? Can you imagine what it's like to want anything to make the pain inside your head go away? Can you imagine what it's like to just want to shut your own head up? To stop thinking? To stop feeling?

Can you imagine what it's like to have all of those feelings go away the second my cat rubs her head on my knee? Can you?

I encourage everyone to think about these things the next time they want to pass judgement on someone, for there's no telling what their head is saying to them, too.