Just stop provoking them!

While I was attending school I was told by several teachers that they couldn't help me with the bullying I was experiencing because I had provoked my tormentors. If I would simply relax about the whole peanut thing no one would have to hurt me and everything would be fine. 

I still can't help believing that it was my fault. 

My clothes weren't nice enough. I couldn't wear makeup or dye my hair. I wasn't pretty enough or didn't study hard enough or didn't do enough to hide my allergies. And so it was my fault because I'd provoked them. 

And I'm still sorry.

Am I allowed to cry?

When I was in seventh grade I had a bad allergic reaction while shopping with my father in a store that had several open bins of peanuts. My throat burned and I had trouble breathing, and although I took Benadryl, showered, and changed my clothes, I coughed for the rest of the night. The next day I was terrified to go to school. In the past I'd tried to talk to my teachers about class parties or snacks that were going to be provided during standardized testing, and they'd brushed me off or told me not to worry so much or, in one case, assured me that it would be okay, then later pulled me out of the test because they'd been wrong, but threatened to call my mother when I cried about it. I never wanted to have another allergic reaction, and I didn't know how I could go into a place that wouldn't let me protect myself.
My mother talked to my assigned counselor and to the office staff while I clutched her jacket, thinking that she might relent and take me home if I acted childish enough. I was twelve, and after she'd left one of the adults snapped at me to knock it off. They'd promised my mother that I could spend the day alone in a classroom and have all my work brought to me, and that they would try to work through this with me, but the teacher who was supervising me got in my face and threatened me in a low and deadly voice when I put aside my math to write a poem, and scornfully told me that I wasn't fooling anyone when I started to cry.
The same things happened when I was bullied, when I was afraid to attend a certain class. I would be sick and in pain and never, never want it to happen again, but when I said I was scared I was told, "No you're not. You only want attention, and everyone knows it."
I don't know how to deal with the things I'm feeling now, when I think back to when I was going to school and wonder if people at college will treat me differently, because I've half-believed for years that they were right. That I wasn't really traumatized, that I'm still not, and that I'm just trying to manipulate people for attention. I try not to let people see me when I'm emotional, because what if they realize I'm trying to manipulate them? But don't I have real emotions too? Am I ever allowed to cry?

Oooh, I'm embarrassed.

Poodleface and I went to see a display of Christmas trees in town, and for the second time, someone snuck up on him and startled him enough that he barked.
I am so embarrassed.
This time instead of an adult creeping toward him at a museum it was a small child who ran two circles around him before leaning over and trying to see his jacket. I probably wouldn't be quite as embarrassed, but only a few minutes before I'd been explaining to an event coordinator that my dog is a service dog and has to be allowed in.
I know this isn't my fault, but I feel like somehow it is.

Not good

Here's an article I found this morning. It talks about the recent rise in food allergies in children.

http://www.cnn.com/2011/11/25/health/plastics-perfumes-new-allergies/index.html?hpt=he_c2

I don't like where this is headed. I can say from experience it's very difficult for two people, both with severe allergies, although to different things, to spend time together without making each other sick. I'm not sure how the world will function if this gets much worse.

There aren't enough exclamation points in the world

I get to have candy corn. Incredible, right?
I made a post some months ago about how I could no longer find a brand of candy corn that didn't manufacture on the same equipment that also processes peanuts, and just recently a woman called brilliantmindbrokenbody gave me a link to a site that sells it! I ordered some, and it's delicious! It's perfect! I love it! Thank you!
 http://www.peanutfreeplanet.com/Sunrise_Candy_Corn_p/sunrisecandycorn%209oz.htm

How far am I allowed to go?

While I understand that my school's reluctance and in some cases flat-out refusal to accommodate me for the sake of their convenience was wrong, I have to wonder if they did have a point. Things like regularly wiping down surfaces and reading the label on everything I eat might seem normal to me, but to other people look ridiculously extreme. And do I actually have a right to say that no one around me can eat peanuts ever?
Adults glared at me when I asked them to bring the class candy from one brand and not another, and while that might be somewhat justifiable, where am I supposed to draw the line? I wanted to attend parties, but I didn't want to inconvenience anyone. I didn't know what to do. I still don't.
I panic a little whenever I read about legislation for better allergy policies in schools. "Don't these people know that's inconvenient and annoying? The school officials are going to frown and cross their arms at them! They'll be intimidated! What do they think they're doing???" But that's a stupid response, and I know it's a stupid response, and yet I can't help it because I don't know how far I'm allowed to go.
At what point would you be angry with me?

Rescuing Sage

My mother has always loved dogs and always wanted one, but my father doesn't like them, which is why I was so surprised when he was the one who suggested I have a service dog. My mother hated that she couldn't always give attention to Poodleface, so after I'd had him for a few years my father and I talked it over and agreed that my mother should have a dog too. She decided that she wanted another standard poodle, that she wanted to adopt it from a shelter, and that she wanted to train it to be a therapy dog.

We live in the middle of nowhere and no one nearby had recently rescued any poodles, so she looked at online shelter sites for almost a month before finding the dog she wanted. Her name was Sage. She had brown fur, was three years old and very even-tempered, and had been dropped off at the shelter when, supposedly, she became too expensive to feed. The shelter workers said she was still producing milk and was acting like her puppies had just been taken away, which made them think she came from a puppy mill. Sage seemed perfect; she was in need of rescuing and she had the right temperament to be a therapy dog. There was only one problem. She was in Texas.

Before we could adopt Sage we had to know if she got along with Poodleface, because no matter what happened, Poodleface had to stay. I needed him. So the two of them had to meet. Poodleface had to go with my mother to Texas. And since Poodleface was my service dog and wasn't used to taking commands from my mother, I also had to go to Texas. 

This was just before Easter, and because we were planning to leave only a few days after we'd seen her on the website, there wasn't time to prepare the camper. We were going to have to stay in hotels. I'm uncomfortable with traveling that way because I'm allergic to so many things, and without the camper I wasn't going to be able to prepare my own food. I compensated by filling a backpack with instant macaroni and hoping our rooms would have microwaves. 

We drove

   and drove

      and drove

         and drove. I saw a toll road for the first time, and an amusement park in a city big enough it just stayed were it was instead of packing up and moving every week. I met several people with thick Spanish accents who didn't know what a service dog was, and a lot of people who were helpful and called me "hon." It was weird; no one was nasty about my dog, they were either supportive or uninformed. It kind of freaked me out; I was used to being harassed. 

Poodleface traveled well and behaved himself in hotel rooms, and he ate dog food and chewed rawhides that I left in the back seat for him every morning. I filled a dog dish from my water bottle while we were driving and held it back to him so he could take a drink, and when we stopped for gas we got out and walked around. He sniffed lots of new and interesting things, and in bigger cities with more people he found lots of places to signal on. He was great.

And so was Sage.

We took her home.

For her first few weeks with us she was the most shaky, traumatized dog you ever saw. She loved to be petted and hated to be left alone, and when no one was hugging her she'd take naps under the piano bench. When my mother sat down somewhere she'd get under her chair, and the first time she met my father she shook like a leaf. Her pads were ridiculously soft and she didn't know how to run, and she hoarded Poodleface's toys in her bed whenever he left them out. I laughed my head off when I found her sleeping in Poodleface's bed, with Poodleface curled unhappily on the floor because she'd piled hers with not only every toy she'd been able to get her teeth around but also a ball of yarn and a pair of my father's socks. 

She calmed down wonderfully, though. Now she doesn't sit under the furniture anymore and doesn't panic when she's left alone in the house. She loves to meet new people and let them pet her, and my mother is indeed training her to be a therapy dog. I hope she gets her license. She'd be perfect.