Emotional support animals (ESA) are some of the most valuable animal companions around. While these animals aren’t trained to help their owner by completing tasks, they perform helpful duties by simply providing comfort, companionship, and routine to their owners.
If you are living with an Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) diagnosis, an ESA may be just the thing to help you formulate a routine and start receiving relief from some of your mental health symptoms.
Our article tells you more about owning an ESA for ADHD and the benefits an emotional support animal can bring to your life.
What Is an ESA?
An ESA is any animal that provides support, comfort, and companionship to an individual living with a mental health condition. The routine of caring for them can help establish a greater routine and provide stability where there may not have been any.
ESAs can be any type of animal, and they are not required to be trained for medical relief like a service dog. Most people adopt cats and dogs, but you can adopt a snake, fish, rabbit, bird, or other lovable animal as your emotional support animal. Any animal that brings you relief from your mental health symptoms and that you can care for in your chosen housing is eligible to be an ESA.
Is My ESA Considered a Service Animal?
Emotional support animals are not considered service animals as these companion animals are not trained for service tasks, and they are not required to be dogs (or, in some cases, miniature horses). ESAs will provide their owner with support, comfort, relief, and routine, but they are not trained to perform specific disability-related tasks like a service animal.
For example, an emotional support dog helps their owner get out of the house for walks and provides cuddles, while a service dog guides an owner with visual impairments, opens doors for owners, and brings medication or items to their owner when needed.
Service animals have much more wide-reaching public and private access rights as a result, and more laws protect service animal rights on both a state and federal level.
ESA for ADHD: Benefits of a Companion Animal
An ESA for ADHD brings many benefits to its owner and can significantly impact someone’s life for the better. Below, we’ll outline the benefits that a companion animal can bring to your life when you add them to your treatment plan for ADHD.
- Routine – Caring for an ESA can help you develop a routine and stick to it, allowing you to be more productive throughout the day and providing you with a framework to help you manage ADHD symptoms.
- Improve Planning Skills – Incorporating a routine and planning out your ESA’s care can increase your overall planning skills and time management skills, something that can improve your ADHD symptoms and benefit other areas of your life.
- Comfort – Sometimes, ADHD can lead to feelings of loneliness or social isolation; an ESA to cuddle and spend time with can help alleviate negative mental health symptoms and give you some much-needed support.
- Encourage Exercise – ADHD symptoms can be helped by getting outside, exercising, and burning excess energy. When you have an ESA to play with, train, spend time outdoors with, or otherwise spend time with, you can burn off energy, improve your focus, and increase your bond with your ESA.
- Deal With Emotions – A common symptom of ADHD is emotional dysregulation, something that can lead to mood swings. Your comforting ESA can help you deal with negative emotions or mood swings and provide you comfort as you ground yourself and regain your bearings.
Keep in mind that this list isn’t all-inclusive – your ESA may help you deal with your ADHD in ways that are personal to you. As long as your chosen ESA provides you comfort and support, they can be a qualified and valid companion animal.
How Do I Qualify for an ESA?
Emotional support animals are prescribed for any individual who has a qualifying mental health condition, including ADHD. You will need to schedule an appointment with your therapist or a doctor to discuss your concerns and your desire to add an emotional support animal to your treatment plan. For the most part, a therapist or another mental healthcare provider is the first step in getting your condition evaluated and ESA prescribed.
Once you have an appointment with your provider, you may need to wait 30 days before you can qualify for an ESA, or your therapist may want to schedule several appointments before you are approved for an emotional support animal.
After your approval, your provider will write you an emotional support animal (ESA) letter that states your need, details your ESA’s name and type, and provides their information, plus their signature. Your ESA letter is the only documentation you need to show that your ESA is valid, and without your ESA letter, your companion animal is not protected by federal and state-level ESA accommodation laws.
What Are My ESA Rights?
Emotional support animals have a different set of rights than service animals. This is because ESAs perform different duties for their owners, and due to the fact that ESAs can be virtually any animal – it would be difficult to grant wide-reaching public access rights to many non-traditional animals that are permitted to act as ESAs.
Generally speaking, the most important ESA right to know about is your right to fair housing. The Fair Housing Act (FHA) protects your right to live with your emotional support animal in any qualified area of housing without adhering to pet restrictions, breed restrictions, or pet-specific fees and deposits.
That being said, if your ESA is destructive or destroys property, you will be liable for any damage they cause. There are also a few exceptions where your ESA might not be able to live with you in your chosen area of housing.
Other than this, you can only take your emotional support animal with you to a public pet-friendly space; keep in mind that dogs and cats who are acting as ESAs generally have a better time accessing pet-friendly spaces with you when compared to an ESA like a bird, snake, rabbit, or fish.
Can My ESA for ADHD Be Denied Accommodations?
Your emotional support animal for ADHD may be denied accommodations in a handful of situations, regardless of whether or not you have official ESA documentation. In general, circumstances that can lead to your ESA being denied housing rights include:
- Your emotional support animal does not have a valid ESA letter written and signed by a mental healthcare provider licensed in your state – letters printed off the internet or template letters do not make your ESA valid.
- Your ESA is out of control, destructive, dangerous, or a health hazard.
- Your emotional support animal cannot be reasonably accommodated in your living space, such as bringing a large Great Dane into a small studio apartment.
- Your ESA is an illegal to own or exotic animal – ESAs can be any animal, but these animals are not given blanket legal protections by ESA rights in most cases, nor are they safe to own in most types of housing.
If you have any questions regarding your ESA for ADHD and your accommodations, you will want to check with your state’s specific laws. Housing rights are the most wide-reaching and important law protecting ESAs and their right to live with their owners, but there are certain rules and exceptions to follow that change from state to state.
Can I Have Multiple ESAs for ADHD?
You can potentially have multiple ESAs for your ADHD, but you will need a separate ESA letter attesting to this need for each of your animals. You cannot use one ESA letter for multiple animals, and your therapist will need to ensure that you can safely take care of multiple emotional support animals before they are prescribed to you.
While it may seem tempting to try and care for more than one emotional support animal, it’s generally better to start with one to ensure that you can physically, mentally, and financially care for them before branching out to add more companion animals into your treatment plan.
Managing Your ADHD With an ESA
ADHD can be a disruptive mental health condition and treating your ADHD can take many forms. For many individuals, a treatment plan comprised of therapy, medication when necessary, and an emotional support animal can help them maintain a routine, encourage activity, and combat feelings of loneliness or anxiety.
If you think that adding an emotional support animal to your ADHD treatment plan will benefit you, reach out to your licensed mental healthcare provider and schedule an appointment to discuss your needs.