Face the Mayday
May is Mental Health Awareness Month and calling it so has decidedly made everyone want to feel a little less aware and a little more focused on mangoes over meltdowns this season. Understandably. But at the dessert buffet that is mental illness, we can have our cake and eat it too! With mangoes!
Sometimes the things we love, turn to ashes and we're reminded of Christ. Some other times, we wonder what the flying flip-flop is wrong with us. How can what we love and have dreamed about feel like fifty five tons of nothing? This is what it had felt like for a while since my move to the farm.
First of all, I was supposed to be 'living my dream'. Horses, round pen to practice Natural Horsemanship in, life on the land.
All nicely laid out before me.
Only here I was, by the day, getting increasingly terrified of working with my horses.
Yes.
TERRIFIED.
I couldn't understand why this was so. How did I go from being able to pick up Django's feet without a second thought and grooming him every afternoon, to designating myself solely to sullen manure cleaning duty while Mani took the horses out? Why did Koko turning towards me while I worked her free in the round pen feel like I was facing down one of the rhinos in Jumanji? How could this be? And what did this mean for my 'love of horses'?
It didn't help that I found myself wanting to violently fling dung at random when I was told I was doing 'hard but passionate, soul-fulfilling work'.
With a mind to find out why the Natural Horsemanship method, Join-Up, felt wrong for me, my search was plentifully rewarded with literature trashing every thing I'd based my life around. It felt great for a total of 23 seconds to see validation of my unease.
When my fart balloon finally drifted down, I was still left with the question of why if Join-Up was 'violent, dominating and abusive' as claimed, did I experience Koko and the horses I'd learned from before, walking by my side on their own? Even though they had the complete freedom to turn the other direction and ignore the ego pants off of me? I saw the partnership and trust between Mani and Django almost everyday and I had to admit that it couldn't be something with the method that was causing such suckage.
I must admit I was relieved because nay-sayers of Natural Horsemanship recommended 1200 acres of undulating land I was supposed to let my horses freely live in to have truly 'natural' lives. I can't imagine even in the most ideal circumstances, 1200 acres of land left to undulate under the noses of Real Estate agents and Esteemed Gas Industries Ltd.
I kept going back to the round pen to work with the horses thanks to Mani who made it exceedingly difficult to let me soak in my sourness. He refused to take the reins (pun intended) and refused to let me quit because as it was repeatedly pointed out, this was what I'd wanted to do all my life.
Locked in fear and frustration in the round pen, not wanting to move or for Koko to move and constantly going "Woahhh" to keep everyone still while my heart pounded and my ears rang, I argued, was NOT what I'd wanted to do all my life.
I tried and failed to explain to Mani whom I was starting to find very thick headed (the irony) that I wasn't able to listen to anything he tried to tell me because I couldn't even begin to listen over all the alarm bells ringing in my head.
Which was when I realized, this was something in my head.
Eureka Forbes!
For someone who's been going for therapy and had previously been on medication for anxiety and depression, I felt like hitting myself for not seeing what was right in front of me. Instead, I just became a very difficult person to be around.
My anxiety was back.
No wonder the constant feeling like being in the second half of any Jurassic Park movie. (I feel I must stop with these chase references but I don't want to).
The exhausting and exaggerated feelings of panic and worry. The aching fear and absolute grudge of mornings. The need to master the Jedi Force choke before Mani could once again tell me I needed to work the horses.
It wasn't easy to admit that I needed to see my doctor again. That for now, therapy, gorgeous pink sunsets, a family financially supporting me, Mani honestly doing the brunt of the work, Winkin' Cow chocolate milkshake, all of this wasn't going to help how my bitch brain viewed the world. That just because I was doing the things I'd dreamed of doing and was 'passionate' about, it didn't automatically mean I wouldn't get ill. (And it didn't automatically stop the Pavlovian dung response to the word 'passionate').
I'm back on medication and things feel a lot more wonderfully even paced like the The Odd Couple II .
With Mani still encouraging (read:pushing) me and our horses being the most patient teachers of all, I've finally been able to atleast get to the point where I can put on my shoes and be in the round pen with them. It doesn't happen everyday and recently Mani's taken to asking one of our nephews to wake me up with the joyous greeting, "Mama wants you to clean the stable!!"(Mama is one of several ways one can say 'Uncle' in Tamil)
I did eventually, to the surprise of everyone (it was one of those birds stopping mid-air, freeze-frame moment), manage to go through a complete Join-Up without vomiting on myself, to the point that I actually enjoyed myself! The credit goes to Koko of course who made it so easy for me to trust myself to trust her. It felt super special to walk and have her by my side and all the while me feeling excited rather than terrified. In that moment the trainer was Koko and I, the student.
I still have days where my supreme intelligence tells me it's better to stay in. When I do manage to fight past that iron curtain to the outside and I see Django and Mani walking side by side, it feels all sorts of fantastic to know that I can get to that point too, with the help of Django,Koko and Mani.
Sometimes the things we love, turn to ashes and we're reminded of Christ. Some other times, we wonder what the flying flip-flop is wrong with us. How can what we love and have dreamed about feel like fifty five tons of nothing? This is what it had felt like for a while since my move to the farm.
First of all, I was supposed to be 'living my dream'. Horses, round pen to practice Natural Horsemanship in, life on the land.
All nicely laid out before me.
Only here I was, by the day, getting increasingly terrified of working with my horses.
Yes.
TERRIFIED.
I couldn't understand why this was so. How did I go from being able to pick up Django's feet without a second thought and grooming him every afternoon, to designating myself solely to sullen manure cleaning duty while Mani took the horses out? Why did Koko turning towards me while I worked her free in the round pen feel like I was facing down one of the rhinos in Jumanji? How could this be? And what did this mean for my 'love of horses'?
It didn't help that I found myself wanting to violently fling dung at random when I was told I was doing 'hard but passionate, soul-fulfilling work'.
With a mind to find out why the Natural Horsemanship method, Join-Up, felt wrong for me, my search was plentifully rewarded with literature trashing every thing I'd based my life around. It felt great for a total of 23 seconds to see validation of my unease.
When my fart balloon finally drifted down, I was still left with the question of why if Join-Up was 'violent, dominating and abusive' as claimed, did I experience Koko and the horses I'd learned from before, walking by my side on their own? Even though they had the complete freedom to turn the other direction and ignore the ego pants off of me? I saw the partnership and trust between Mani and Django almost everyday and I had to admit that it couldn't be something with the method that was causing such suckage.
I must admit I was relieved because nay-sayers of Natural Horsemanship recommended 1200 acres of undulating land I was supposed to let my horses freely live in to have truly 'natural' lives. I can't imagine even in the most ideal circumstances, 1200 acres of land left to undulate under the noses of Real Estate agents and Esteemed Gas Industries Ltd.
I kept going back to the round pen to work with the horses thanks to Mani who made it exceedingly difficult to let me soak in my sourness. He refused to take the reins (pun intended) and refused to let me quit because as it was repeatedly pointed out, this was what I'd wanted to do all my life.
Locked in fear and frustration in the round pen, not wanting to move or for Koko to move and constantly going "Woahhh" to keep everyone still while my heart pounded and my ears rang, I argued, was NOT what I'd wanted to do all my life.
I tried and failed to explain to Mani whom I was starting to find very thick headed (the irony) that I wasn't able to listen to anything he tried to tell me because I couldn't even begin to listen over all the alarm bells ringing in my head.
Which was when I realized, this was something in my head.
Eureka Forbes!
For someone who's been going for therapy and had previously been on medication for anxiety and depression, I felt like hitting myself for not seeing what was right in front of me. Instead, I just became a very difficult person to be around.
My anxiety was back.
No wonder the constant feeling like being in the second half of any Jurassic Park movie. (I feel I must stop with these chase references but I don't want to).
The exhausting and exaggerated feelings of panic and worry. The aching fear and absolute grudge of mornings. The need to master the Jedi Force choke before Mani could once again tell me I needed to work the horses.
It wasn't easy to admit that I needed to see my doctor again. That for now, therapy, gorgeous pink sunsets, a family financially supporting me, Mani honestly doing the brunt of the work, Winkin' Cow chocolate milkshake, all of this wasn't going to help how my bitch brain viewed the world. That just because I was doing the things I'd dreamed of doing and was 'passionate' about, it didn't automatically mean I wouldn't get ill. (And it didn't automatically stop the Pavlovian dung response to the word 'passionate').
I'm back on medication and things feel a lot more wonderfully even paced like the The Odd Couple II .
With Mani still encouraging (read:pushing) me and our horses being the most patient teachers of all, I've finally been able to atleast get to the point where I can put on my shoes and be in the round pen with them. It doesn't happen everyday and recently Mani's taken to asking one of our nephews to wake me up with the joyous greeting, "Mama wants you to clean the stable!!"(Mama is one of several ways one can say 'Uncle' in Tamil)
I did eventually, to the surprise of everyone (it was one of those birds stopping mid-air, freeze-frame moment), manage to go through a complete Join-Up without vomiting on myself, to the point that I actually enjoyed myself! The credit goes to Koko of course who made it so easy for me to trust myself to trust her. It felt super special to walk and have her by my side and all the while me feeling excited rather than terrified. In that moment the trainer was Koko and I, the student.
Koko after Join-Up next to me
Koko showing me how it's done
I still have days where my supreme intelligence tells me it's better to stay in. When I do manage to fight past that iron curtain to the outside and I see Django and Mani walking side by side, it feels all sorts of fantastic to know that I can get to that point too, with the help of Django,Koko and Mani.
Django choosing to walk by Mani's side
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