Getting over PTSD

[the_sandiest_shoes]

I’ve ridden my whole life, with some breaks in my 20s for school/work (34 now). When I was younger, I had zero fear. Fell like 100s of times probably from ponies. As a teen/young adult, helped with training on very green horses, riding them after initial backing and successfully taking them to their first shows, etc. Dealt with all manner of bucking, spooking, bolting, rearing, all that. When a horse was bad, I was the one my coach would put on to work through things.

Then I got a “project horse” when I was 23. He was very dangerous and nearly killed me, several times over. May have had a brain issue - the way he would suddenly snap out of absolutely nowhere, doing near-suicidal things to himself. It’s amazing I’m alive, really. He was so dangerous I was told to euthanize him (ended up negotiating for him to be a pasture pet, but still kinda get haunted by the decision…).

Came back to full time riding in the last year. I realize I have some newfound deep anxiety. I took the schoolmaster I’m leasing to a show a few months ago and he out of nowhere did some huge bucks/bolts. I was fine, my seat is still there, but he’s a big, powerful horse and the naughty behavior shook me. We did well but my coach was surprised at how tense I became at the show after that. She said after my test that my legs were literally shaking. I think the “out of nowhere” nature of the bucks/bolts made my brain remember the scary horse. Not the same thing at all, since I could stop this guy easily enough and it didn’t turn into homicide-mode the way the scary horse would, but my lizard brain somehow couldn’t tell the difference and made me nervous all over again.

Recently my coach helped me buy a young horse of my own - it was great getting her advice, since she screened out any horse she thought would activate my nerves. She seemed to understand better than I did this new PTSD. The 5 year old mare I just bought is quiet - a total angel. She has some very minor spookiness, but it’s nothing. Barely even shies. However, I realize I still have this dumb fear I never used to. I’m fine in lessons, but when I take her out to walk her around on her own and she looks at something, or when she feels “fresh” at the canter, my lizard brain keeps envisioning she’s going to suddenly throw 1000 bronco bucks and gallop off blindly into traffic. Rationally I know that she’s not.

Coach is super psyched for us and wants us to start showing/ try to qualify for championships. I love this angel horse and her potential, however I’m nervous…that I’ll be nervous? The mare has never shown before and I don’t want my unconscious fear to seep into her and give her hang-ups she doesn’t have already.

Has anyone else had something like this? How do you exorcise the demons?

[Xanthoria]

Therapy. Whether you actually have PTSD or another anxiety disorder after a series of bad events, therapy will help you. I had PTSD after living in a very dangerous place, and when it was finally diagnosed I got help… before that, it was not fun…

Specifically for PTSD, there are treatments like Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR), and medications that can help.

And know that this will pass. The very act of reaching out for help is really powerful, and with the right therapy you’re on the road to just enjoying normal show nerves like the rest of the world!

[Rerider54]

Even if it is “only” horse shows nerves… get therapy. It will save time. I had a crazy ( and talented) horse decades ago. He matured and got past his crazy but I ended selling him, taking off 30+ years to have a family. The first year back a very talented horse bucked me off. Not just a little quick thing, but a 20 meter circle of fabulous HUGE talented ballet moves… luckily my current horse is a saint. But I still freeze at shows. Is it from the last one, the one from years ago or from the years without showing? Who knows. A sports psychologist helped.

At first it was EVERY time I went to get on ( even at home) then it was only when I trailered out for lessons. Now just shows, but last year by the end of the year it would work itself out for the second ride of the day. It has returned a bit as we moved up a level and I am not as confident as last year since this level is something I have more done for 35 years, the horse before the crazy one. Logically fo me, facing my fears is probably not as big a deal as for you. But that lizard brain is not logical.

Concentrate on regular breathing. Find a therapist who Believes you. I read a very good article that said most athletes work hours a day on conditioning and hours a day on skills but seldom even find minutes to work on their mind.

[the_sandiest_shoes]

Thank you! This is all very helpful - I don’t know why, but it didn’t occur to me to try therapy for this. I’ll also look up breathing ideas - I’m realizing now it’s subconscious.

At the last show, schoolmaster could feel my nerves even though I couldn’t, and when I did canter/walks he was exploding into the up-transition and then piaffing instead of walk. Of course, his added energy then added to my nerves and it became this stupid feedback loop. We settled down enough to focus in the ring, but it nonplussed me because I never used to be like this (my coach tried singing Kenny G into my earpiece trying to chill me out lol).

[alibi_18]

Good for reaching and it would be beneficial to seek help from a therapist.

As far as riding and showing goes with your youngster;

Seeing is believing.

1. Have your trainer get on regularly, even for just a few minutes.
   Look at your trainer walk and wander around.
   Seeing your trainer walk trot canter here and there will lessen your anxiety.

2. Have your trainer ride your youngster at shows.
   Again, you will see what to expect and be able to rationalized.
   Maybe let your trainer do the 1st show, then do half of it, then on your own (with the possibility/reassurance of your trainer getting on at any moment)…

This is suppose to be fun.

Have fun. Be strategic and safe.

[Wanderosa]

Realize that more people probably become nervous about riding as they age than don’t. So go gentle on yourself. Two things that have helped me personally: 1) making schooling sessions about what I need (the horse is very well schooled so I can get away with this). I do easier things until I get bored and want to do scarier things. 2) Spending the time to really get to know and befriend the horse on the ground. I’m not one of those “la la, animals are my heros” type people that views horses as furry humans. I do see them as intelligent beings that are interested in sharing my world and are interested in allowing me to share theirs if I treat them well. Learning to put my trust in the horse as a partner and not a separate, potentially adversarial entity.

[anon55755751]

I’ve had a roughly parallel track to you in my “riding life”, though I was never a brave rider. Just kept going, despite my fears, which have definitely been an ongoing problem. I have lizard-brain-type fear when jumping that’s probably similar to what you’re experiencing.

I had a 15 year break from jumping, then started again when I was living in Germany for a few years. Turned out my foundation was not actually all that bad, so when the instructor said “go jump that, you’re ready” and it was seemingly huge and scary and I was on a green horse with an attitude and a wicked buck…I essentially delegated whatever confidence I was operating on to my instructor. I focused on breathing and stopped thinking about anything but the one or two things I knew I had to think about to maintain, and let go of everything else. It’s almost meditative, and the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do on horseback. But it worked well for me - I am a more competent rider than I actively believe I am. In order to tap into that skill set, I need to trust my trainer more than myself and more than my fear and shut down the actively obsessive part of my brain before it takes over. If you end up looking into therapy or sports psychology, I think what I do is more along the lines of mindfulness than CBT (which I have not had good experiences with for mental health issues, ymmv). I’ve since worked with an instructor that I have not been able to borrow confidence from, and found my skills correspondingly started to degrade. Point being: It sounds like you’re with the right person to help you with this, but a fully supportive and well-intentioned and wonderful in every other way instructor can still not be the right person for this particular problem, ime. Something to be aware of.

I make mistakes and degrade my capabilities in all my riding when I’m obsessing, or really struggling to find the right thing to focus on to fix whatever problem I’m having at the moment. Work with your instructor to find THE THING, as in the one or two elements (probably position-related) that you can use to ground yourself. They need to be things that you may not think to check-in on in the moment, but that will make a significant difference in how your horse responds to you. E.g. with the canter-walk experience, could be “legs off” or “sit deep” is the right thing. I had a protocol for a while to “set up” my position at the beginning of each ride to be the most productive it could be at that time that went “back straight, free the legs, fix the thumbs, free the arms”, which means nothing to someone else, but was just the right way for me to boil down all the things I needed to do into very minimalist terms that still had a big impact on me.

Anyway, once you know what these things are, you can practice activating them in before lizard brain takes over, i.e. before you start envisioning anything. Practice in “safe” contexts until it becomes automatic, then lizard brain will start to relax. I’ve successfully made a lot of significant changes (IMO) in my (dressage) riding with this technique, as well as retrained myself to deal with spooking from unproductive (pitching forward), to productive (getting my weight down and back and softening contact).

Another thing I do to “snap out of” unproductive hyperfocus (which may not be fear related) is ask myself if I can feel my horse’s hind legs - and not just feel them, but find the rhythm in them. Kindof like how listening to music is helpful, but may also quell some “my horse is about to do something naughty” concerns.

[the_sandiest_shoes]

This is all incredibly helpful. Alibi - I’ve thought of having her show her first, or at least warm her up at the show. Trainer has had a knee injury this month so I’ve been doing all the riding myself so far since she moved to our facility post-purchase (since when we both tried her out during purchase) - that’s actually been good in a way, to let me see that I can ride her myself no problem in a new environment.

Strangewings, that advice is spot-on - I know exactly what you mean. Thanks so much, everyone.

[CanteringCarrot]

Theraphy would help, as well as your coach riding first. That can give some riders confidence as they can watch the horse behave well (ideally) or have the pro work through whatever issues arise.

I’ve had breaks here and there and my confidence isn’t what it used to be, which is probably for the better to be honest :lol: I think as we get older, we are more aware of consequences.

That being said, it is also going to take time. It took me about 6 months to a year before I finally trusted my horse. We always got along well, and never had any major issues, but I found that it took awhile before I fully trusted him. I think we had to get to know each other. I’m not a trusting individual in general, so I told the horse it wasn’t personal! :winkgrin: But seriously, give it some time. I also found that doing ground work helped us get connected. My horse enjoys this and I was able to install some valuable features from the ground.

[Wicky]

I have used EFT, with Jo Cooper, very successfully for fear of even mounting. Jo works over the phone, and specializes in fear related to horses. She is a rider herself. http://www.equestrianconfidence.com/

EMDR probably works in a similar fashion. You can read a little about EMDR in this obituary, written about the developer of the technique. Note how many organizations have decided that it is helpful! https://www.theguardian.com/science/2019/jul/15/francine-shapiro-obituary

[kashmere]

Get thee to a sports psychologist! It sounds more like you have specific anxiety - well earned! - from your scary experiences with your previous horse, which you experience in particular situations, i.e. when you are riding. If the anxiousness and fear is present in other parts of your life, you may consider a non sports specific psychologist. But sports specialists are really excellent at helping people through these kinds of challenges.

The good news is, it doesn’t sound as though you actually have PTSD (disclaimer: I am not a doctor, just someone who has dealt with PTSD for many years). This is not to downplay the effect that anxiety can have on a person and the challenge it can pose - simply to say that PTSD is a real beast to get your arms around and it sounds as though you may be dealing with something a little bit more manageable.

If you do receive a PTSD diagnosis, I cannot say enough good things about EMDR therapy. It was an absolute lifesaver for me. I suffered quite badly for 8 years before discovering it, and it was like angels-singing/doves-flying/clouds-parting epiphany style breakthrough (though, admittedly of the extremely painful sort).

[the_sandiest_shoes]

Thank you! Yes PTSD is just what I call it but very likely an anxiety in general - also not a doctor.

[Xanthoria]

I would agree that it’s unlikely to be PTSD - and thank goodness!

PTSD is hard to understand for someone who hasn’t experienced it, but it’s characterized by intense, prolonged distress, flashbacks, nightmares or night terrors, reckless or self-destructive behavior, and hypervigilance and it never stops - all this usually happens without triggers. It’s a living nightmare.

If you experience stress going to a show, your distress is still real though and I’m glad you’re considering therapy. I hope it gives you huge relief and useful coping mechanisms

[IPEsq]

My current horse got me into this place for a while. I realized in my 30s after a long break that I had more fear than I used to, but I generally could overcome it. My horse went through a lot of issues but it turned into things like rearing even steps away from the mounting block. Charging at other horses. Trying to run me into the fence. A lot of bucking and cow kicking. Going backwards. Charging to the fence then rearing. My seat is still there, but I got quite nervous it wouldn’t be forever. I only had some comfort in the fact that I don’t think he was trying to hurt me at all (or he probably would have). He was trying to get me to stop riding. To freeze. To get frustrated. To stop applying pressure. To give up.

During this time, I developed horrible neck and shoulder issues. I went to PT for that, and we discovered that I didn’t really have anything physically wrong with me. Not that I didn’t have a lot of nerve pain. But there was no injury or anything. He helped me understand that I was just in a heightened sympathetic state a lot of the time. If I slipped a little bit in the mud or something, I’d be unable to sleep for weeks my neck would hurt so bad from bracing to catch myself. Of course this did not translate into trying to be calm and relaxed while riding.

I did some somatic repatterning type therapy, physical therapy, worked a lot on my breathing, worked a lot on mindfulness including doing some mindfulness groundwork with the horse. I begged to catch a ride on anything remotely quiet. I went to Europe and tried a bunch of baby horses who didn’t want to kill me or be naughty, and this helped a lot in helping me remember how to ride.

I also started taking lessons with my horse on the longe line. We did that A LOT. It took a lot of experimenting too with using that to help with his behavior, but since you have a schoolmaster type, I won’t go into all that. Because I wasn’t afraid of charging at another horse or flying into the fence or whatever, I could practice actually riding my horse. His behavior improved as my confidence improved. As my confidence improved and I worked on all of the breathing techniques and such, my neck pain got better. I also discovered I was very low in vitamin D, so I started a supplement for that and the nerve pain fully went away. Not that the horse is a saint on the longe, but it was well within my stickability comfort level, and I also wasn’t so worried we’d hurt someone else.

I’m riding a lot better now. It’s taken quite some time. But I am feeling more like “myself”. Maybe not the guts of the teenage me, but I don’t want to curl up into the fetal position on the horse anymore.

I think there are some materials out there on youtube and such that talks about exercises you can do to try to get yourself unstuck from sympathetic mode. Perhaps guided meditation would also help.

[piaffequeen2]

I had a very bad experience with a horse that bolted with me over some ground rails (broad jumped them) and cleared the standards of a cross rail. I had a huge fear of jumping and cantering.

One of my old trainers recommended a former students prelim eventer. This horse and my new trainer helped with my fears. I was the queen of the perpetual 20 meter circle for the longest time. One day I got brave and went down the long side. I didn’t even make it to E when Sam came to a halt and looked at me. He was like ummm we are off the circle! I was like I got this! And we ended up cantering the whole arena.

Hang in there!