Taking Steps

Last grain with bute on Monday!!

I don’t necessarily want or need to share intimate details around the mental health stuff I’ve been working on for the past year or so but this post is about some high level mental health stuff that impacts pony things. I do want to share this level because not only is this a journal for myself about horse stuff and this plays into it but also because maybe someone else out there will gain something from this.

Feel free to skip or read.

I’ve always had pretty high anxiety, ok like really high anxiety. My mom does as well so I’m sure that’s probably part of it. It doesn’t have a hugely visible impact on my day to day in that it’s never negatively impacted my performance at work, I rarely (if ever), make decision based on my anxiety, however, it plays into everything, every day of my life. My way of dealing with it, for lack of having any other answer, has typically been to just force it down and ignore it. For most of my life I’ve thought it was just normal nerves of the type that everyone deals with but it’s come to my attention over the past year that it’s way more than what many people deal with. This led me to seek out therapy. The particular therapist that I was seeing wasn’t a great fit so I’m in the process of finding a different therapist right now but I’m looking forward to learning more about how to manage this.

So, anyone may know the answer to this but how does this relate to pony stuff? I’ve never thought of it as an issue with horse stuff. I’ve never had an issue with fear in the bigger ways that some of my friends have. I’ve had lesson anxiety but that normally goes away once I’m in the saddle so I never really worried about it, and I’ve always thought I was managing it pretty well. Two things happened this past week though that made me take a big step back and realize that I’m just not ok continuing on as is.

Today, snow...

First, on Thursday when the vet was out I was having massive anxiety. I felt almost light headed and definitely nauseous (both normal for me with stuff like the vet visit). If I could have curled up in a tiny ball and let someone else deal with the vet I would have done so. Of course it ended up being ok but I was FREAKING out. I had it tamped down pretty well by the time I got to the barn and brought Katai into the cross ties. I wasn’t thinking about it but Katai was escalating, and escalating. I was standing and talking to someone about the weather (or something else inconsequential) and I looked over to Katai trying to alternate rearing in the cross ties and spinning. Her muscles were all tight and her eyes were huge. There was NO reason for her to do so that day, like any other day where she’s falling asleep in the crossties, other than my anxiety. Plus, then when I handed her off to the assistant (and Katai doesn't like strangers) she was back to being her calm, normal self.

Suddenly I realized that if, in a place that both of us feel safe. A place where Katai is normally quiet and half asleep, she was hose show level escalated, it was entirely related to my anxiety. That means that at shows, where I’ve thought I’ve had a training problem I’ve actually had an anxiety problem. I’ve been walking around thinking that Katai has poor training and poor ground handling at shows and confused because she’s SOOOO good at home and feeling sort of powerless to work on it. I’m sure we’ll have some work to do anyway since new environments do that but the silliness that makes her so tough to handle at shows? Entirely my anxiety. Trailering? Same thing. I know some people say that it’s almost always the person that’s the problem, in this case that is absolutely 100% true. Of course, upon more thought, it may feel like I have it tamped down but Katai and I are very connected and of course when I feel internally like I’m going to die Katai picks that up and also feels like she’s going to die. It’s sort of wonderful in a tragic sort of way.

Second, this weekend I was listening to the Oliva Towers podcast with Jane Pike on cultivating a resilient mindset. I’ll be honest that after my recent therapy experience I was wondering if there was anything to be gained by doing therapy. Then I listened to this podcast and learned more than I ever had from my therapist and decided it wasn’t me, and was more of a mismatch between the two of us. I’m going to be working on some of the things that Jane Pike talked about, and, also working hard to find a therapist that works well for me because I want to improve and help Katai feel better so that we can both have fun at shows.

It’s empowering because it means that by working on that anxiety and finding solutions to that I’ll be solving probably 80% of the handling issue we have at shows where Katai seems to revert to being feral. Then we’ll just have 20% of true training to work on to get her used to calmly following directions in strange places. I know it’s going to be hard work but I’m looking forward to it.

Through the Ringer

Yikes, I was doing better with posting for a while and now it’s been almost a month again. There’s a reason for that but I’m not happy about it. Basically ever since we’ve moved Katai has had random stuff going on. None of it seems to really be related, none of it seems to point to needing the vet, and none of it is easily addressed. Mostly I think she’s, as I’ve mentioned before, a very sensitive flower that’s dealing with a lot of change at the same time and I feel really awful and guilty about that but at this point it is what it is. Everything from a few massive heat cycles, being tired out, muscle stiffness, sore feet, an ulcer flare, not getting enough magnesium so being a hellion, etc. Below is a timeline if you want to read a bunch of boring stuff about pony’s slight offness.

-The week after I got back from the cabin I was only able to get myself to go out and give her supplements a few times throughout the rest of the week. Then the Saturday after (10/5) she was on fire! She felt great and we had a great, if slightly short, ride. I was happy and feeling like she was adjusting finally after being pretty tired and muscle sore for the 3 weeks or so after she moved.

Tiny dog is judging me for disturbing her

-The following week on Tuesday I lunged her in the Vienna reins and she was good but sluggish which is very unlike her. This has been the theme since she’s been on pasture board and I suspect she’s just using a lot of energy in running around when she would have been in a stall before. She’s definitely building muscle and I love that but it’s also tough waiting for her to adjust and get used to having all that additional time to use up energy.

-Wednesday and Thursday that week I did a couple of light rides and had a couple of fellow boarders watch because she was short in her stride but not off and still lethargic. Both fellow boarders agreed that she wasn’t off (evenly short) and basically seemed to think I was making a mountain out of a mole hill. Since I know I’m a bit of a pony hypochondriac I felt better and decided to give her the weekend off.

At least I'm loving my new tack set up?

- On Monday I was going to go out but I got stuck at work really late so she ended up with 3 days off. Then on Tuesday she was lethargic again but I did more of a ride and worked really hard on trying to loosen up muscles to see if it’s just that she was really tight. She did actually make progress! I got lots of snorts and sighs and by the end she had a more normal stride length for how she’s been going recently. She also just felt much looser and more forward. I was really encouraged!

- Wednesday I went out and had a plan to do similar work but when I touched her girth to tighten it (didn’t even get the buckle undone to tighten) she had a massive girthy, pain response. I tried the other side and got a similar response. She’s not a girthy pony, and hadn’t had a girthy response the day before, so it was pretty clear she was having a bad ulcer response suddenly. Strangely(?) enough most of the horses at the barn seem to be having an ulcer issue right now. I’m not sure if it’s just the weather change, or the change from grass to just hay, or something about the hay but it seems to be the norm. That makes me feel a bit better but I also hate seeing her uncomfortable.

-The rest of the week I’ve been out basically treating her for ulcers, putting thrush meds in her feet, and doing blanket changes as needed. S he’s still been tight and lethargic so I’m still not sure what’s going on there but again, no one other than me seems to even notice so maybe I’m just worried about nothing.

Grrr, I really wish they could tell us what’s going on. She’s also either been sore muscle wise or had sore feet off and on. The high anxiety, panicky part of me is worried that she’s having a laminitis flair because of the tiny amount of grass she can get but she hasn’t had an increased pulse or heat in her feet. It has been SUPER rainy though so I suspect she’s just got tender footsies from standing in the muck and rain 24/7. Hopefully she’s not brewing an abscess.

At the cabin, boyfriend is good at helping his grandma <3

I’m getting out there about 4-6 days a week right now to make sure she’s getting supplements, meds, etc. which is tough because as this is happening I’m also dealing with some bad depression. You know what could help that? Having a pony who feels happy, comfortable, and sound and being able to ride and get that form of exercise.

Honestly? I’m really, really, really, really tired of dealing with all of this. I feel like this sort of thing is made worse because of how sensitive she is and yet I wouldn’t ask for her to hide any of this. I just hate having this sort of domino, one thing after another, sort of situation that feels like it’s been going on low key since I was still boarding at Jane’s. Can’t the universe just give us a break and a month where things just smooth out, we can make some progress, and we’re both feeling ok?

I know it’s not fair for her, as another being who’s dealing with her own crap, but I just want this part of my life to be working well right now and to be my rock while I’m dealing with mental health stuff as the season changes.

Mental

Very first time on her back!

I've had a lot going on lately and have still been working a lot to try to figure out why I've lost my motivation and some of the magic of riding and dressage that I was feeling for so long.

A few things have come up that I just wanted to document here for my future self.

First, I was feeling really burnt out after having weekly lessons. I realize that doing that is the quickest and best way to improve but while I very much want to do my best, having such regular lessons, especially as more started to happen in life, was REALLY tough.

Way less inverted

My preference would be monthly lessons or lessons/clinics as needed vs. always needing to feel ready for a lesson each week. Katai also was feeling burnt out and I think a bit body sore on that schedule. She's been WAY more relaxed since we moved to the barn we're at now and all of the behavioral things we'd been dealing with are gone. As I slowly get her stronger and back into more work I'll be curious if they come back but I kind of suspect they won't since I still won't be putting as much pressure on both of us.

Doing this right now has allowed me to feel like I can take a breath and do things like trail ride, do more spa days, lunge, and find a schedule that works for both of us. It does mean that I've been at the barn less but for the past few weeks I've been out there 3-4 days per week which isn't bad by any means.

Such a baby, so tight, so inverted but still a cool picture

Second, my amazing bf and I were talking about how I feel like there's something weird going on this year where time has flown by and I feel like nothing happened. He was quiet for a minute and then very insightfully asked if I thought it was because I was focusing on too many things and spinning my wheels. I was like yes, that is exactly what's been going on but I hadn't realized it until he said something.

With him in my life I've had so many more things going on, meeting more people, and more hobbies vs. just watching Netflix and riding. It's wonderful but also a little overwhelming. I'm trying to boil it down a bit and do those things but not focus on them so much and not spend some much time worrying about things. Instead I've been just going to the barn on a regular schedule and learning to say no to social engagements.

So much more grown up :)

Third, I feel like I've been waiting on a lot this year. I have a few big things on the horizon that are pretty life changing. One of those is that I started interviewing and looking for a new job in January this year. While I started out looking really casually I got close to an offer a couple of times (second in line actually twice for jobs I really wanted) which was tough. It's not that I'm unhappy in my job, just that I'm ready to move on, increase my salary, and have more growth opportunities. After missing out on those two jobs I started looking more seriously and that's been unfortunately taking a lot of my time and energy. It means good things for riding and horse things though since part of the barrier I've been facing recently with this is budget related.