A Belfast mother has revealed how visits from a dog have released her disabled daughter from a life of crippling anxiety that left her housebound for 15 years.
Meta Leonard and her daughter Charlotte, have been effectively trapped in their home since 2007, finding themselves increasingly at the mercy of friends when they needed essentials. And before the help from Assistance Dogs NI, Charlotte has not even stepped into her garden for two years.
Charlotte, 29, lives with autism, bipolar disorder, learning disabilities, schizoaffective disorders, clinical depression, severe separation anxiety and general anxiety which leaves her frozen in fear.
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From the age of 10 to 15, she was hospitalised at the former Foster Green Hospital for psychiatric assessment with mum Meta by her side every day, and when she was finally diagnosed with a condition referred to by clinicians as Four In One, Meta was told her daughter was the only child in the British Isles with this diagnosis.
Meta, 60, said: “We were sent home with the hope that we’d cope but Charlotte couldn’t really cope with anything and as the years went on, things only got worse. Our home quickly changed from being our sanctuary, safe place, our haven to our prison. I would try every day to get Charlotte to step outside, but every day we just couldn’t do it.
“So for the last 15 years we have survived in these four walls, Charlotte sleeping in her room downstairs and me on the settee in the sitting room next door so I could help her in the night if she fell or needed me. In the two years before meeting Assistance Dogs NI, Charlotte had not left our home once.
"I've begged for help for my daughter for 15 years, I have tried every medical and social services avenue and I’m still waiting for help from our care system but nothing is available to us. We were just left to get on with it, I feel we were just abandoned and we floundered. Our only way to survive was to stay at home.
“If it hadn’t been for the love and care of friends, we wouldn’t have managed because I can barely leave the house. People would bring our essentials to us and we lived like hermits for many years. I’ve done it because I love Charlotte but there have been many days when I’ve felt so broken and so sad for her, watching her years slip away, watching hope drift away too.
"But as with many mothers, I had a fire inside me that somehow kept me going and I just kept hoping and praying for a miracle. Now we have found our miracle and Charlotte’s world has expanded beyond all recognition.”
Meta said it was not the medical or social services who came to their rescue after their 15 years in isolation, but a dog, a large Golden Labrador called Lexi, who brought healing with him in gentle, quiet company, in companionship and cuddles and the constancy of his devotion to Charlotte’s needs.
Today Meta says they have been able to leave the house once a week in the company of Lexi, as an assistance dog owned and trained by Northern Ireland charity, Assistance Dogs NI, ADNI.
And she says finding Lexi and the charity uncovered the miracle that has changed their lives.
Meta explained: “We have our miracle because we met a dog, a beautiful dog and he has changed our entire world, given us back a sense of freedom, given Charlotte the ability to let go of her anxieties and given me firm hope for the future.
“It sounds simple, and it has been for us, but the amount of work and dedication that the team at Assistance Dogs NI has put in to Lexi and to Charlotte's visits has been immense.
"When Lexi started visiting Charlotte at our home last April, we discovered that Charlotte was able to cope better with all sorts of situations while Lexi was by her side. The change was almost immediate.
“Assistance dog trainer and handler Gary Jordan brought Lexi to our home and I prayed it would make a difference but I could never have imagined just what sort of help we would witness.
“Now the moment Charlotte sees Lexi, she relaxes, her anxieties level out, she can focus and concentrate, she will chat to Lexi and cuddle him. I see so much of the best of Charlotte coming back to the surface and I’ve a lovely sense of a new young woman just waiting to be seen. She was a keen artist as a child and now she is even starting to draw again.
“Having spent years cooped up in our house, we can now leave our home with Lexi, we can walk on the footpath and even visit the bakery.
"Charlotte can go inside the bakery with Lexi and order a bun, she can pay the staff and she can turn and come back home with Lexi. If anyone thinks that’s hardly something worth celebrating, I’d ask them to think about all the years Charlotte spent prior to this in our sitting room and her bedroom without being able to leave the house.
“It is very hard to explain just how we’ve been coping with Charlotte’s conditions until now, but effectively we have been trapped in our home.
“Charlotte literally couldn’t leave the house, there was a time she would try but the moment she put her foot on the doorstep she would be so anxious and frightened that she would just freeze.
“As time went on the problem got worse, and for the last decade and a half we’ve sat in this house and relied on other people to bring us our essentials.
“But with Lexi by our side we’ve been able to go shopping, not just to one shop but inside shops, into Forestside shopping centre where there are hundreds of people milling about. Charlotte is still in a world of her own but with Lexi by her side, she is calm, very calm and able to communicate.
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“So you can see why I believe in miracles. Lexi has been the miracle we’ve waited for all these years and without explanation, without encouragement, Lexi walked into our home and made life possible.
“He has done something no human being has been able to do, he has brought Charlotte back.”
And while Lexi visits Charlotte weekly, she is not his only client. In the last two years he has seen more than 5,000 children in his schools work and another 2,000 adults and young adults in other jobs with his handler Gary Jordan.
And while he has been helping Charlotte every week for months, her problems resurface as soon as Lexi leaves so knowing the training of ADNI’s assistance dogs costs in excess of £7,000 each.
Meta said: “Assistance Dogs NI is a charity with no government funding so I want to do everything I can to help them as a thank you for the care and help we’ve been given and in the hope others might be able to be helped too. Like all charities they’re feeling the pinch in today’s economic climate and I feel ADNI would be a massive loss to society if they didn’t survive. Their assistance dog Lexi saved our lives.
“If we could have a trained assistance dog at home, Charlotte’s anxiety levels could be steadier at home, she could leave the house with me and her dog as often as we wished. I think there is every chance my daughter could experience happiness and I think everyone deserves that.
“Lexi and Gary showed us that it could be done and now we are working towards having our very own assistance dog. I’d ask everyone to keep us in their thoughts and hope it all goes well so my daughter can have a life after 15 years of being a prisoner in our home.
"And I’d ask anyone who can spare a penny, to think about donating it to ADNI so other families like ours can get some help.”
If you would like to help Assistance Dogs NI help other families, you can donate here.
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