Tenacity and Facing Fears

The other half of my life (and it does feel like it takes 50% of my time!) is being an equestrian. As I share with my clients often, I too was gifted a healthy dose of anxiety, which I address through multiple paths. One of those paths is riding horses. I can have a million thoughts going through my head, but riding demands enough of my brain to, you know, remain on the horse, that it forces out all the other thoughts. Well, that is not COMPLETELY true. Part of my anxiety is social anxiety, so that still comes up when I am involved specifically in my sport, which is dressage. (Most people have no idea what it is, and I cannot easily explain what it is, soooo ask Google?) But I definitely have to battle a health amount of social anxiety as I fumble around in this sport.

I started riding horses in 2013. I mean, I had ridden horses occasionally before, but never in any type of informed way. So, I started riding February of 2013, and by May bought my first horse (advisable? Probably not....but she stole my heart.) I rode Daisy for a year, and started conducting equine assisted psychotherapy with her as my co-therapist. Then another horse was coming into the barn; I took one look at her picture and somehow just knew that she would be an excellent co-therapist, and also that she was meant to be mine. I cannot explain it; it just seemed true. When she arrived, it only became more clear to me, though my husband, reasonably so given the cost of horses, was less convinced. ;) But here's the kicker: Violet had never been backed (often referred to as "broke"). Nobody had ever ridden her. So, sure, that's a great plan....let's take the brand new rider and have her buy an unbacked horse. Yep, great idea. (Hint: it's not a great idea and literally nobody advised this.) Neither of my horses now were typical dressage horses, but someone did say that V could like make it to Grand Prix (the highest level of the sport). So, stubborn ol' me decided that the really bad idea was still what was going to happen, and I bought her a couple months later, and she was started under saddle in spring/summer 2014. 

This pic is an example of the early not-very-good riding. I basically am just sitting up there hoping for the best!

I started to train in dressage in early 2016, and first showed in summer 2016. Let's just say it's been a rough road. Perhaps the main thing I learned from Violet was...how to not fall off...and persistence. That horse can change directions at the speed of light and so from seemingly Day 1, I just had to figure out how to stay on. I had a number of near falls where I literally would be shooting off her side, but would hook my boot under the saddle and pull myself back on her, because, let's be honest, hitting the ground hurts. I have no doubt that everyone watching the debacle of new rider riding new horse was thinking, "What does she think she's doing up there? She has no idea what she's doing." It was true! I didn't have any idea what I was doing. Normal, sane people buy horses that already are trained; that wasn't me. I was just stubborn, I guess.

This pic illustrates getting the job done, but not competently. Leaning forward, horse unhappy.

In 2018, I took a huge risk and started bringing Violet out to San Diego so she and I could train with high level riders....international riders.....another massive challenge to the social anxiety. "Hi, don't mind me over here on the small horse (dressage riders are generally tall, and on tall horses) and no, I don't really know how to ride, just to be clear!" My very first ride in San Diego, I had to go into a ring with an Olympian and the next-in-line for the Olympics. Right. "Don't mind me. No, really, don't look at me. Please." By that time, I had made it up to showing third level, which wasn't too bad, and also means nothing to anyone who doesn't do dressage! (I tried to figure out how to explain the levels 

to my mother the other day, and this is what I came up with. You start out as a high school athlete (Training level and first level), then you become a college athlete (2nd and 3rd level), and then you make it to the minor leagues (PSG and I1), and then you are in the big leagues (Grand Prix). And then those who really excel in the big leagues go to the Olympics.) But I was a college athlete that had never been really taught how to do the sport correctly; I just kinda fumbled through doing it on a fairly fancy horse and so did acceptably enough, but I was not doing it correctly. Then I started training with Emma Weinert, an international Grand Prix rider. I returned to San Diego this winter to train with Emma, and then life happened and suddenly we were looking at moving somewhere, so we might as well consider San Diego so I could work with Emma full-time. 

Fast forward to this weekend. I had spent two years (Nov 2018 to now) trying to learn how to ride correctly, and did not advance up the levels as I worked on that. It was a lot of work as I had to completely change how I rode in order to do it correctly. But I had gotten lucky, and did indeed have a very talented horse, who also is quite unpredictable. 2020 happened, and horse shows were no longer a thing, so my focus was on trying to advance to PSG (Prix St Georges, if you are super bored and want to google), which I have equated to the "minor leagues." My eyes were set on a show called Spooktacular, which was 10/31-11/1/2020. We were gonna do it, no matter what, I thought. Then life threw enough barriers that by 10/27/20, I was being thrown around on horseback and said sadly, "I can't take this (extremely wild animal) into the ring this weekend." Violet had ulcers and had become aggressive and violent. I had given up about 40% and then started Google Image-ing "Persistence." I couldn't really find any quotes I liked, but one thing led to another and I found quotes about "Tenacity" and that is what felt right. And also seemed to describe what one with an eating disorder must have in order to recover. 

That night, I threw one final hail Mary in the form of very expensive medication at her, followed by another dose first thing on Wednesday, and somehow it magically made her sane (it really shouldn't work THAT well, especially since she had been on a less expensive version of the exact same medication). I cautiously thought, "well, maybe?" The next day, Thursday, she was okay again, and I thought, "Well, I guess so?!" And Friday we left for the show, where she also was good. BUT, we had never actually practiced for our "minor league" debut, as she had been that aggressive horse for the past three weeks. Just the next inadvisable thing in line, I guess! Somehow, I had confidence that it'd be fine. That was quite misguided confidence, I'll have you know! ;)

It was basically fine....if you don't have social anxiety, perhaps. I did ride into the show ring on both Saturday and Sunday. We completed the tests without any major issues other than that tiny rear in the back corner of the arena on Saturday (just to be clear, at no point does a dressage test call for the horse to rear, whether tiny or large, so that's a bit of problem). The judge skewered us in her written comments; my social anxiety took off at a gallop! I pondered dropping out of the show for the next day. Some kind friends talked me off the ledge, and we gave it a go again on Sunday. Was it significantly better? Yes, and no. No rearing is always a plus, of course, so that was cool. But again, I knew our score would not be particularly desirable. But this time, the judge's comments were fair and constructive, so the low score was way more tolerable. We had survived. We had done the inadvisable, and we had received a lot of encouragement along the way, and I would not have experienced those things if I had listened to my anxiety and bailed. There were some really cool moments, and a lot of errors. But, we had made it in the ring, she stayed in the ring, I stayed on the horse, and we played the sport in the most basic of senses, on a much larger stage than we had ever been in, with huge room for improvement. Let's just say we wouldn't be chosen as a starter in the minor leagues. We need a bit more practice. ;)

What, you might be thinking, does any of this have to do with eating disorder treatment. Well, let's go back to that Tenacity quote: 

This quote drove me from Tuesday on in the battle to make it to something quite unimportant in the scheme of life...a horse show. This same quote, in my opinion, describes the experience, the process, of eating disorder treatment and recovery. The patients I work with must trust that we, as the treatment team, can share a game plan and a strategy, while they bring the strength and the determination. And it is hard to feel strong while fighting an eating disorder. It is hard to feel determined when there's a nasty voice in your head saying to give up, to not listen nor believe in the game plan. The statistics about eating disorder recovery present as "seemingly insurmountable odds," and certain the ED voice in your head feels insurmountable. But the odds are NOT insurmountable. As I say frequently, I could not do this job if my clients did not recover. I'm not crazy (Hmm, to those of you who know me, keep your opinions to yourself, LOL!). Ok, I am kinda crazy. But I'm not willing to work every day to treat something that is untreatable. Everyone can get better. I don't doubt that for one second. But it sure takes a ton of persistence, stubbornness, and tenacity.

Same message for anxiety. Anxiety also convinces us that thing that are not true, are true. My anxiety convinced me I was being judged left, right, and center. I mean, I was technically being judged...by the judge....but I eventually realized all the witnesses were not judging me as harshly as *I* was judging me. So, simmer down, brain. Anxiety almost led me to not go back in the ring on Sunday, but in the end, I would then be a hypocrite as I allowed anxiety to stop me from facing the fear of judgement. And, sure enough, Day 2 wasn't as bad as Day 1. And even it was terrible and everyone judged me harshly, let's be honest, for me, as an amateur, it's "just a horse show." And lots of times the things we are fearful of are just not that big a deal in the long run; our brains are lying to us. And the only way past, is through. You must prove your anxiety wrong, and it is wrong the vast majority of the time. Whether that is proving that eating x,y and z won't make you gain x amount of weight, or whether failing on x activity does not make you a failure at life. Eating disorders lie, anxiety lies, and you can be tenacious enough to prove that to be true.