I’ve driven to the barn in the middle of the night to check the feed room door – left open in error – and whether I had blanketed a horse – I had.
I don’t know how our barn owner does it. She has these anxiety tendencies, too, and I suspect she both medicates and meditates them into a manageable form.
Fluoxetine (generic Prozac) has helped me a lot with my OCD. It’s still there, but not nearly as bad as it was before.
I somehow missed in the OP that her anxiety is at such a crippling level that it is dominating her life after hours. (It’s there in the post, I just missed it in my first read.)
Thanks to the posters who pointed that out.
A certain amount of anxiety about whether you’ve left the water on or closed the gates is absolutely normal. And pretty much everyone who has every taken care of horses has gone back to the barn to check the water, the gates, the feed room door, etc.
So my suggestions might have been appropriate (our barn checklist is on a white board visible as you leave the barn) for the run of the mill conscientious horseperson; but perhaps not for the OP’s level of anxiety.
@OTTBrider, hope you find some ways to manage your anxiety and enjoy your barn time.
I like checklists. As long as they are checklists and not catalogues or complicated step by step recipes.
Max of 10 items. Make one up and put it on your phone or in your car. You check off each item after you get in your car but before you start it up.
You could have opening checklist too, no more than 10 items. On both if you can cut it to fewer items thats even better. But never more then 10.
Agree this doesn’t sound like this job is a great fit for you, might look for something that helps you, not beats you down. It’s not worth it when you put more effort and care in it then the owners do. If they cared as much as you do? They’d hire somebody full time or reduce the number of horses they are responsible for.
Being an older broad who keeps horses at home, doesn’t have a phone on me every minute, and works long hours, I’ve developed the following (can’t tell you the number of times over the years I’ve turned around on my way to work to ‘recheck the gate lock, etc’)
OP, that is A LOT of horses to have under the care of one adult and two girls. It could be that your mind is now saying “too much”, “can’t cope” because of a huge disconnect between what you would like to be doing and what you can actually do. I know that being “a hard worker” is deemed to be a high virtue in America but 30-40 horses? How many minutes attention does each horse receive from you each morning?
I cannot imagine 30-40 horses. I have two at home and it’s gotten easier over the past 4 yrs finally getting them home but wow you have your hands full.
I do love a good checklist too. My idea would be a final walk through before you leave that everything is in order.
Every day before I leave for work I look at my Nelson waterers and see the stall doors are shut. Every.single.time.
My horses aren’t stalled but have the ability to come into their stalls should they want.
As I helped at the barn this morning, where I’m occasionally an aged working student, I thought about your scene and realized I don’t know enough about it.
You said you’re responsible for 30-40 horses.
What are you responsible for? Mucking, turnouts, grooming, medicating, feeding? Everything?
I’ve worked at several barns in my long-ish life, and never been able to consistently do everything for more than 20 or so stalled horses. If you’re doing nose to tail care for 30 horses on your own, whether you’re supervising kids also or not, that’s way too many. Any marginally responsible person would be worked off her feet and worried all the time.
There are 60 horses where I work and keep my horse. We have a team of cleaners who feed breakfast and lunch. The rest of us feed at night, do turn outs, groom horses who don’t have people for that, longe, and, whomever is WS for the day, fetches, grooms, tacks up and un-tacks, grooms again and puts away several horses for the trainers. If she’s quicker than I am, a pretty low bar, she may also run supplements for the day.
Please help me with a better understanding of what your bosses’ expect of you. I’d love to know what they’re paying you, too. I’ve put up with a lot in the past in exchange for a good situation for my horse.
ETA: “…20 or so [stalled] horses…” Mucking 20 stalls (w/ wheelbarrows, no barn aisle tractor) plus everything else only took less than seven hours if I had competent adult help.
@Scribbler great thoughts…
Still, I’m middle-aged, have been running farms for decades, and I suffer from similar feelings as the OP (except that it IS my farm). When I’m away from the farm or even trying to go to bed at night I will often suddenly develop anxiety about something horse/barn related. It could be over anything. I don’t know what to say except that horses are so fragile and unpredictable that I think that caring for them can sort of mold this anxiety into you.
I use a lot of checklists to ground myself that everything is done and tucked in before I leave the farm. I have a list of all the horses by turnout group, and I run over it, and I have a little “hay/water/grain…” ditty I hum sometimes. I also have learned to be gentle but firm about setting boundaries with clients who want to inappropriately bring their anxieties/or other personality issues to my facility. That may not be applicable to the OP’s situation, but managing other people’s stress and anxiety can be very burdensome.
Anyway, @OTTBrider, I feel for you. I think it is hard to find the sweet spot of being meticulous and caring about your job but not getting overwhelmed by the responsibility or unreasonably hard on yourself for being human and knowing that you will unavoidably at times make human errors.
I’ve thought about your situation more and what I’d do so you can leave and be at peace is this.
You walk and visually confirm everything is OK. This means you walk the same route, the same map. It’s your facility layout and what you need to confirm before you leave. You lay eyeballs on each horse you are responsible for. Maybe it takes 5 or 10 minutes but the peace you mind you get back is priceless.
That they are ok and everything is done. While you are walking this same route, every time you leave, you aren’t talking with anyone. If they approach you, let them know you’re doing your “check” and you’ll get back to them. When you’re done - call or go back to them.
Make a map - make notes if that helps.
This is how you eliminate the anxiety. 
Thank you for all of your responses!
@sami-joe I’ll provide a little more details. Majority of the horses live out and is a combination of boarders, lesson horses and horses owned by the farm or in training. Only 7 of those horses stay in overnight regularly, so I’m not having to fully muck out for that many horses. Care provided for the rest of the horses is just bringing in, feed & check blankets, other things as needed such as meds, turn out clean stalls and feed buckets. Other odd jobs and clean up.
I also teach a handful of lessons throughout the week.
I’ve found that I struggle similarly when I barn sit. I’m triple checking gates I know I’ve shut or staring at the horses I know go out together, worrying that I’m getting the grouping wrong. But I think it’s more because of the recent atmosphere where I fill in sometimes. The passive aggressive, and often unnecessarily put in the group, texts are too much for me and I’m seriously considering not volunteering to help anymore because it can be kind of toxic. And it’s certainly not that no one there has made mistakes while working before…
I talk to myself a lot while I work and try to keep to the routine I know the BO follows. I’ve been on Prozac in the past, and while I never noticed a difference, my family claims it was big. The photo ideas are great!
Has your work always felt this way for you? If not, has anything big changed personally or at the barn that could’ve prompted the feelings?
I’m glad you mentioned texts, I get them often too. Things like “so and so didn’t put horses saddle in the right spot”
That makes it hard to enjoy home life.
With that many people weighing in on your work it often seems like you’re darned if you do, and darned if you don’t.
I agree with the advice of doing things in a strict consistent order each day, not doing anything out of order. I bought a timer for the faucet so I don’t have to drive back home from halfway to work in case I left the water on.
I left a job a few months ago where a coworker was gaslighting me.
I only worked three days a week, and I was not included in the daily texts so I never knew when something was changed until I was in the middle of it, and then gaslighter would make it out that I was an idiot.
Ex, horse getting ABs in feed
I get ready to set up grain, ask if he’s still getting meds, and told today us last dose, so I only put dose in that afternoon grain and not next morning
Next morning there’s AB in grain and Gaslighter goes off that I didn’t put it in there.
I want everything in text so no one can say they told/didn’t tell me something…
That said, unless it needs to be done now, text me about it later.
.
i solely manage 323 acres, miles of fencing/cross-fencing. A lonnnng hilly gravel drive through woods… 25 horses, 50 sheep-w 3 guard llamas, 12 cattle and dogs/cats/chickens. I always shut every gate behind me, even if there are no animals around and i ‘know’ i’ll be coming back the same way. When filling water tanks i do stuff nearby (there’s ALWAYS something to do everywhere). I think it’s my autism? and all the assidiousnqess that goes-with, but i have no question that i’ve done everything that must be done. I flex chores as i go, depending on weather, what’s up with the animals. Some days i train horses, some days i train my dog, some days i work on maintaining the driveway or running the fenceline and removing fallen limb or whole trees! after storms. Nothing ever is the same, herd and location of herds, around here. So there’s no real routine. I just do everything ‘my way’. If there are visitors here, i don’t let somebody open and close the gate. They ALWAYS try, i always say: “thanks, but Please don’t.” My mind is detail-orientated and i really don’t entertain distractions…ie other thoughts just don’t filter through my head. I think about what i am doing and that’s all i think about. In-the-moment sort of. Being present i suppose is the way it’s called. I’m sort of animal-like in that way. Relationship things…boyfriend/girlfriend/parent/associate stuff just does not filter through and distract me. (cause actually, i don’t care about those things LOL…animals and plants and the land…that’s what i care about). So, i suppose i could advise that whenever thoughts of your personal relationships float through your mind at work, click the Off switch. Even if you have to do it 30 times a minuite. People can train themselves to silence of invading thoughts. Yoga might help…
Yes, I try to see, touch and hear each thing (a stall door closing for ex) too so it registers on/in many levels/senses.
This is a really critical point. I’ve only worked in one system where the program director seemed to devote more time to her own spa treatments, fabulous haircuts, and pursuit of her own dressage medals, than she did to the condition of the school horses and barns. I see now that she was fully burned out, but it was pretty gross for more than three years.
Because I loved my coworkers and the students, and my horse got to live out on the side of a hill with his pals, an almost unheard situation in Southern California, I stayed as long as I could.
The director and I finally fully fell out over her ignorance of labor laws. After I left, she promptly retired. Turned out for the best.
I find that routine helps. When I go in the barn, I do things exactly the same way every single time.
When I do stalls I go down the row doing all the mucking, then all the rebedding, then all the haying, then dump buckets, then all the watering and THEN I close the doors. When I do turnouts I start the water hydrant when I go out to put out hay and turn off the water hydrant before I turn horses out (sooner if it’s not that empty). THEN I rake/sweep. Before I leave the barn I check all the gates and turn off the outdoor light. If I left the light on (which I can see form the house) I know I’ve missed a step and can go check.
When I do night check, same routine. I feed hay, do water, pick stalls, and the very last thing I do before I turn out the lights is check every single stall latch.
I do NOT like people even talking to me while I’m doing it (with the exception of my husband who I seem to be able to ignore LOL) - I can do 40 horse feeds with different supplements etc. UNTIL someone is standing talking to me and then my brain goes sideways.
I also have cameras where possible so that I can check, and the horses are within viewing distance so I can see immediately if something is awry. But I really think that the routine is what works for me. I’m rigid for a reason. It’s kind of like brushing my teeth after I take a shower. I do it every single time I take a shower and that way I never forget or get too lost in thought.
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