Junior Rider Seeking Advice With Trainer Drama

juniordilemma you owe her nothing.

I would beg you to have your parents review safe sport and consider counseling to get through your feelings.

From what you wrote it sounds like you were groomed and you are going to need help with the aftershock.

You are a smart young woman and there is no shame in seeking help to work through what just happened.

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You should commend yourself for your courage, seeking advice and prioritizing yourself. Please do not be hard on yourself or blame yourself. I reiterate the other user’s suggestion to seek counseling for support. There is nothing wrong for seeking counseling, especially after what you have been through.

One final thought—if the trainer contacts you I would direct all contact to your parents. Unless it’s an immediate safety risk, I cannot think of a reason why it’s appropriate for a coach/trainer to yell at a student, especially a minor. Her reaction was inappropriate and I would encourage you to not engage with her anymore because of that. You can simply reply: ā€œplease contact my parent(s)ā€ or better yet, I would block her number, tell a parent, and have them deal with it.

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And block her on social media but have friends screenshot it if she posts anything derogatory about you. Your parents may need to step in on your behalf. She will try to poison the well.

I’m so sorry you are having to grow up so soon.

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I’m so sorry to hear this. clearly you are more mature than your trainer.
I do hope things pan out so that you can continue to interact with horses, and am glad your parents are in the loop.

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I am so sorry to hear that it ended this way and that you are not able to get closure with your horse, but please do not blame yourself. While it was not sexual abuse, she clearly groomed you in a very similar way and it was emotional abuse. You are not ā€œplaying the victimā€, you were a victim of an emotionally abusive and manipulative person. Please don’t downplay this to yourself - she started emotionally manipulating you when you were only 12.

Best wishes to you in mentally/emotionally working through this situation and finding a healthier barn to ride at.

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Shnikies!
An end in terror is better than terror without end.

The quote above just stands out.
Just know, it is very difficult for people to leave abusive relationships.
There are so many reasons. If it was easy, nobody would be in one.

Many hugs to you. That was a tough step to take. You will need some time to lick your wounds
You are a brave woman, and you will master this as well.

Remember: Predators can smell the blood in the water. They have a knack for singling the wounded gazelle out.
You were taken in, I am sure she fit a need at the time.

Many more cyber hugs.

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I’m very sorry you had this experience. I hope you will get help from your parents to find the best way to put it behind you.

At the same time, I’m going to say congratulations. You stood up for yourself, learned to say no to poor treatment, and behaved like the bigger and more mature person from the sound of things. Well done. Good job by you.

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You are getting taken advantage of….your work should either be paid to you as dollars per hour, or those dollars being put as a credit on your monthly lesson bill, NOT going towards just ā€œridesā€ ….what you are doing is effectively paying your trainer a lease fee in order to ride if she’s making you work off your riding! I help muck on weekends at my barn, it’s paid by the hour and those hours I work are shown every month on my board and lesson invoice as a credit….this is how it should be done! Also, you are still in school, and working 6 days a week? Nope, sorry, she’s taking advantage of you. And even with non horsey parents they should recognize you aren’t being compensated fairly!

Edited to add,I just read you handed in your notice,good for you and for standing your ground! There are much better opportunities out there for you! (And ones that will give lunch breaks!!!). Block her on any social media etc, your refusal to bad mouth her will speak columns to your integrity because she may try to bad mouth you….do not stoop down to her level! It’s a small world and I’m sure other trainers recognize how she treats her ā€œemployees ā€œ!

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I’m so sorry. I remember when I finally left my abusive trainer it was like the worst breakup I’ve ever had. It’s ok to grieve the loss of your lease horse, your old barn, and the relationship you had with your trainer.

I’d also recommend seeking counseling. It’s great to talk to friends and family too but I remember when I was going through this that it just felt like nobody else understood the gravity of the situation. I mean it felt like I just had a nasty breakup but with a parent. I remember feeling ā€œI had idolized this person for my entire childhood and early adulthood and this person had taught me so much and now it’s all just gone?ā€ It’s still hard for me to think about now tbh.

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Not a ton to add just want to send hugs and healing thoughts as you recover from this situation. Take care of yourself, seek help to process what you’ve been through and realized. You sound like a talented hard working rider that any trainer would be lucky to have, and don’t deserve to be in an emotionally unsafe situation. Best wishes :heart:

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Based on OP s mention of A Shows, I suspect there are several Safe Sport violations including the meeting in private which ended badly.

Closed door meetings, abusive coercive or demeaning behavior ( public or private) . There are also rules about on line and media contact. Not only bad for our OP, but the other juniors in her sphere

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I agree with everyone in this thread that your trainer failed abysmally in her duty to a minor employee/client and is emotionally unstable. The fact that she is making a minor feel responsible for holding up her business, and reacts to the perfectly normal request of a teenager to prioritize applying to college versus working by emotionally terrorizing you is, well, nuts.

I realize it’s not a perfect analogy, but can you imagine if a high school student was working at The Gap and wanted to reduce her hours to write college essays and the store manager reacted in a similar way, saying the employee was ungrateful and was letting the team down?

It’s so sad because the fact that she ā€œhasā€ access to a horse you love, she knows she still can have some emotional pull over you.

It’s really disgusting how some people can get so far in ā€œthe businessā€ while treating others, especially young people, in such a manner.

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One positive out of this.

There are toxic personalities in all walks of life. Learning how to identify them, and extricate yourself from them, are skills. You’ve now had that experience and developed that skill, and it will serve you well later in life.

I’m sorry to say that this is probably not the last time you will encounter a person like this. And now you know that, and you know how to handle it.

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I’ve been reading this whole thread just getting more and more impressed with your ability to communicate, and to take feedback on board.
Like everyone else, I am so sorry that this happened, and that you are being put through such an emotional wringer.
I’m glad you came here and got good advice and wisdom from a lot of folks.
Please don’t berate yourself for not seeing, or not accepting the hard truth about what was happening to you. I do wish another adult at the barn had stepped up to help you extricate yourself, or at least to give you some of the advice you’ve gotten on this thread.

I am sure, really sure, that you will have many years of riding great horses, making great friends in this world, and working with really good professionals who treat you well. Be careful, and get help from more experienced adults, as you navigate your way forward in the near term. It will get better.

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OP I am so sorry that you ended up getting the full force of a psychopathic trainer. I am glad that you have supportive parents and were not on the other side of the country as a live in working student.

This kind of trainer is not uncommon. There’s another thread right now from a grown woman who owns her own horse and pays all her own bills. She was getting married and then moving out of state because of her husbands job. The trainer still did the angry jealous number. The thread is called ā€œTelling my Trainer I’m Leaving.ā€

Once you are out, guaranteed other horse people will start telling you crazy stories about her. Guaranteed she has treated former workers and clients like that. It’s never just you.

Now that you’ve been through this you can think about spotting the warning signs in new places.

Most trainers aren’t like this.

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Cyberhugs for you.

With your attitude you will go far. There will be many great horses in your future.

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OP, you should be really proud of yourself for taking a VERY hard step and walking away from a huge part of your life.

It sure sounds like this trainer has some issues… maybe a touch of a personality disorder of some sort. People with narcissistic personalities can be INCREDIBLY manipulative, and often engage in certain relationship dynamics that really wear the other person down, over time. A child/teenager navigating a relationship with a narcissistic coach? That’s going to be BRUTAL, unless the parents are constantly in the middle of the situation, monitoring everything the coach says, and constantly enforcing healthy professional and emotional boundaries. I’m not trying to judge your parents’ role in this situation… I just am observing that if you are dealing with a coach like this… the experience will not be positive or healthy unless a VERY assertive, VERY involved, VERY aware parent keeps a close watch on the coach all the time, and constantly corrects inappropriate behavior. If that isn’t happening, a narcissistic coach will inevitably emotionally steamroll teenaged athletes. :cry:

It sure sounds like this trainer has blown past important emotional/professional boundaries when interacting with you (a teenaged student) over the years. That’s not OK, and not your fault. Please don’t blame yourself for not identifying unhealthy dynamics earlier! You are not even an adult yet, and you were a young teen when you first started riding with her.

Counseling might be really helpful for you in the aftermath of this situation, but if you are feeling overwhelmed right now, don’t put extra pressure on yourself. Same with SafeSport reporting. Take care of yourself first right now (gentle hug). Talk to your parents. You can do counseling in a few months, or whenever the time is right for you. For now, I’m just glad to read you are talking with friends and trusted adults. That’s really important… abusive relationships can be very isolating. I hope the start of school also offers some important structure and balance to your life right now - these final years of high school ARE important, and it’s totally appropriate for you to redirect focus to grades and college applications. That’s incredibly stressful in and of itself for someone your age!

So keep your head up, keep on talking with the key support people in your life, and please don’t blame yourself so much for this situation. Hopefully, as this chapter of your life closes, a new one opens, and you will have new riding opportunities with a different barn and coach, that are much more positive.

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Truth.

Counseling can be useful in the aftermath of situations like this because qualified professionals can really help people to talk through key points that you remember during the course of your relationship with a toxic/disordered person, and how there were specific behavioral ā€˜red flags’ worth noting.

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@juniordilemma, If I were your parents, I would be SO Proud of you. Not only were you mature going into this whole fiasco, but you have also grown immensely because of it. There will be other trainiers. There will be other options. Maybe not immediately, but they will be there when you are ready to start looking. You might have to ā€˜kiss a few frogs’ first, but you’ll find a good fit. Just remember all that you have come through.

Congratulations!

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@foggythistle there are not enough hearts to like your post.

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