My Rock, My World, My Flicka-Girl

I didn't develop anxiety until my early twenties.

Prior to that, I had sincerely believed that people who claimed to have anxiety were over-exaggerating and being dramatic.

And then I got a taste of my own karma and experienced my first panic attack. That's when I realized how wrong I was to think that people were making these episodes up. I was sitting at a Starbucks when it happened. This sheer feeling of panic and dread came over me. My mouth went dry, my hands went numb, and the room started spinning. I couldn't breathe. Somehow, I got through it. After that, everything in my world changed forever.

Over the next few years, I was able to curb the attacks, but they would still hit the hardest in the middle of the night. I would wake in a pool of sweat, breathing uncontrollably, heart racing. I would lie awake for hours afterward just trying to calm myself down.

Fast forward to the day I met Flicka.

I always loved dogs and would dog-sit for friends frequently, but I had no desire to ever take one in as my own. My newfound relationship with anxiety had stopped me from developing any form of commitment in my life, and the idea of owning a dog terrified me.

I had a couple of friends who owned three mutts and periodically they would take in a foster dog. One weekend they asked me to dog sit their fur babies and a new foster dog named Flicka.

She was a six-year-old Shephard-Chow mix with an orange, caramel-colored coat. She had creamy white paws and a sharp black snout. But I hardly noticed any of these things. All that I could think about was her size. Flicka was the fattest dog I had ever seen in my life! She was a torpedo-shaped animal with a beefy head and short squatty legs. Her belly was mere inches from the floor and her torso was so wide that when you looked down her snout, she looked like a large ball with legs attached.

Her immense body actually intimidated me a little. I had prejudged her based on her appearance. But when I realized her demeanor was so unbelievably calm, loving and docile, I completely fell in love with her.

My foster family friends ended up keeping her for six months. During that time frame, they slimmed her down from a whopping 150 pounds to a big-boned, but normal-sized 80-pound dog. Yes, this girl lost 70 pounds!

During this timeframe, I moved to another state to live with my sister, her two kids and her narcissistic husband.

At some point nearing the end of the six-month window that Flicka had been fostered, my sister stated that she wanted a puppy. I watched her two-year-old son crying and screaming on the living room couch about God-knows-what. Meanwhile, her daughter proceeded to spill a glass of milk at the kitchen table. Her husband came out of his room whining about how he couldn’t have any silence in the house. He immediately let himself out into the garage, slamming the door behind him as he did so.

“Ally, I don’t think you need a puppy,” I calmly replied as she scurried to the table to wipe up her daughter's milk.

And that’s when I mentioned Flicka.

Less than a week later, Flicka had found her new home with all of us.

I couldn't have been happier and immediately found that Flicka gravitated toward me. Perhaps it was because I was the only one who didn't have any commitments to worry about; I had also made it a priority to spend a lot of time with her.

During the first week, Ally made the executive decision that Flicka would sleep in my room. (I also might've encouraged this decision.)

That's when I noticed something incredible. Around the third night, I realized that I hadn't had a single anxiety attack! As the days continued on, I found that I had completely stopped having anxiety at all.

As the year progressed, my sister's relationship with her husband continued to become more strained. Meanwhile, my relationship with Flicka continued to grow. By the end of the year, my sister informed me that she was taking the kids to live with mom for the time being. I didn't really have anywhere to go so I chose to remain with Flicka and stick it out at the house with her husband until she returned home.

But she never returned. About a month later, she informed me that I needed to get Flicka out of the house. She had decided to divorce her husband and that if I didn't take Flicka, he might try to keep her and probably could win if it came down to the law deciding what rightfully belonged to her, or him.

That was when I found I could commit to something greater than myself. From that day on, I promised to do everything in my power to protect and keep Flicka happy and safe with me.

Flicka has traveled with me from state to state. So far, we've lived in three states together. She's currently twelve years old and has an adopted baby sister, a 9-year-old jack Russel terrier mix. Though Flicka's nose has gone almost completely gray, and her eyes have begun to turn milky white, she is the same loving, beautiful creature I took home with me six years before.

She has been my protector and has helped me grow as a human being. She has taught me love, patience, and empathy. She has gotten me through some of my darkest days and has seen many tears shed. Most importantly, she has helped me overcome heart-pounding anxiety and helped me to commit to following my dreams in my life again.

She's my rock, my world, my Flicka girl.