I had a VERY bad riding accident in May. I was practicing a dressage test with a horse because my final for my equine science class was to perform a dressage test. The horse i was riding at the time was a Haflinger who had been being a real bugger the entire lesson. I went to finish one last thing and my horse came out from under me and I came off and landed incredibly hard on my back. I got the wind knocked out of me and as soon as the instructor helped me get my breathing under control,i felt this really intense,sharp,burning pain in my lower left back.I actually ended up blacking out for about five minutes.-I remember the riding teacher telling me over and over "open your eyes,you need to open your eyes"as i was coming too.It got worse,because my legs were pointed to the left when I fell and the riding instructor told me “I think you’ll be more comfortable if your totally on your back so try to move your legs” and when i DID try to move my legs,I felt this sharp burning pain shoot from my lower back into my legs.I’m normally known as a tough rider and i have a VERY high pain tolerance,but this pain was enough to make me yell. Finally after about ten minutes the pain in my legs went away and my actual equine science teacher came down to the ring. the first thing she said to me??“I’m NOT calling an ambulance so you need to suck it up and get back on.You didn’t break your back because if you did you would NOT be talking to me”.As a result of that injury I never went to a hospital to get it checked out(my mom refused to take me, she believed what the instructor said about me just having a sore muscle), my back was swollen for about a month and you could actually feel bone below the swelling, and I was off the horse for over a month until I could ride pain free.My point in telling all of this?It is now nearly October and i STILL have nightmares about the accident.I also have nightmares about some of the other riding accidents I’ve had too.And I’m now a very cautious and nervous rider and I’m trying to get past that.I also refuse to ride Haflingers. Because my 2 worst falls have been while I was riding the Haflinger i mentioned above.AND I had to switch barns back to my old barn.
Good stuff!
Great stuff you guys! I think fear can be good. Self preserving, protecting, keeps us warm & safe and prevents us from doing stupid shit we’re not prepared for or really wanna do! Listen to it; acknowledge it; talk to it; take control of it; use it to your benefit and conquer it if you must…one step at a time…sometimes 2 steps forward and 1 back but keep moving forward. Stop whenever you want until you get the confidence to move forward again. I use humour and talk out loud to myself! A nervous giggle is a giggle nevertheless!!! :winkgrin:
Feeling challenged is different from feeling scared of something. Learn about what you want to do. Knowledge is power!
First, your teachers are MORONS and should be bitch slapped until they see stars.
You NEVER move a person with a suspected back or brain injury.
There’s a time to walk it off, and a time to go to the freakin’ hospital. Hit your head or black out? Get checked out. Suspected back/spinal injury? Get checked out.
It’s a few hours of your life sitting on a gurney while nurses cluck over you, versus the possibility of being paralyzed or sucking your food through a straw for the rest of your life. What appears to be a minor back injury now - may well be something you have to have surgery on later in life, or may force you to hang up your spurs.
Sorry - this type of crap pisses me off because it’s perfectly possible to have a serious injury and be walking and talking. So please bitch slap your teachers for me - and afterwards suggest they take some good first aid courses from the Red Cross.
Being scared after an injury is normal. PLEASE go to the dr and have him/her look at your back - if nothing else tests can act as a baseline should you experience pain or discomfort as time goes on.
If your nerves are getting the better of you, don’t hesitate to seek the assistance of a sports psychologist. check this out http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC164909/
Sometimes an athlete (and riders ARE athletes) have difficulty overcoming the hurdles the mind puts up after a defeat, injury or bad accident. Fear is normal and helps keep us safe - but fear can get out of control and hinder us as well. The sports psychologist can help redevelop confidence, help you visualize success, and give you perspective.
Sorry to blather on but I’m angry at your teachers. Get your back looked at and seek help if you need it. Good luck. 
I’m getting started again after two really bad falls that both left me feeling (as I was catapulted into the air the first time and slingshotted into the ground the second) “this is it. I’m dead”
Luckily for me, I wasn’t.
They shouldn’t have let me move the second fall. I had passed out, and could not move my lower body for about 5 minutes. I believed that I was permanently paralyzed. Somehow, I got up, and as I drove home, I almost passed out again…then couldn’t get out of the car.
I took a trip to the hospital (didn’t drive myself) and had a lengthy rehab due to my injuries.
I’m riding again - a school horse - in the ring. It takes anti-anxiety medication, and I still have panic attacks before I get on. They are getting better. While I’m actually riding, once I get out of the walk I’m okay - but the walk is what scares me the most - because that’s when I was launched the first time, and it nearly broke my neck. I was very lucky to have survived the first fall, and the second felt like a warning.
Slowly - I’m trying to replace bad memories with good. Slowly, I’m trying to regain my balance, which feels AWFUL.
Slowly, I’m going to get better and ride again.
Up until this year, I received just minor injuries riding or working with horses. In March I was thrown and tore the ligaments in my ankle. I’m definitely much more cautious. My biggest issue now is that one of my horses suffered a heart attack while I was riding. This happened in July and now everytime I ride, I feel the horse is going down on me. I hate the fact that fear has replaced the joy I always felt in the saddle.
this is a great thread! I am putting my mare up for sale as of last night, because I cannot trust her - she is too spooky for a 56 yr old lady who is not 100%.
I had a stroke in 2007 and just bought this mare to replace my draft x bolter. 
I have recovered 98% but tip to the right a lot. not good
today, while I was hand-walking her prior to mounting, waiting my turn at the mounting block, she spooked, reared and then bolted almost over me. Over what??? nothing. I can’t lunge her because she gets higher than a kite. She has reared on me in the past while on the lunge line. Today, I did not want to lunge her until she was tired because I want to sell a sound horse.
Now I am good and nervous when I get on her and I am taking anti-depressants for another reason! LOL so I should be calm no??
this behavior makes me nervous. I cannot get on her and trust her now. I was just getting over being nervous from my gelding and learning how to canter again.
I worked with a most excellent psychologist that specializes in working with riders to overcome fear that was killing off my confidence and my love of riding. I did EMDR, which is very simple and worked very well for me. there is a decent description of it on wikipedia. It was developed for treating PTSD, and I think that many folks with riding accidents in their past have a form of PTSD, in that the accident is very “present” and the brain constantly (either conscious or not) thinks its re-occurence could happen any moment. after the EMDR, its really just a memory, no longer capable of evoking sweat and rapid heartbeat. I like to visualize putting it back in its file-drawer
Another thing with the accident I had is as I had said I have had my share of
injuries and have been able to shake them off and get back on.
When I broke my back, I couldn’t get back on and I really feel that because I couldn’t get back on it is part of my problem with PTSD. Only thing is when I back flash and have the nightmares I can NOT see from my elbows down
during the back flash. I know exactly what I did with my hands but when I back flash I can’t see them wich is scarey, it lead me to believe that I had done something bad with my hands when infact I KNOW I didn’t.
I deal with severe pain every day because of the severity of my injury
that if I get hurt or have a headache I will flash back. I have had
Docs tell me the reason is because my brain can only handle the pain
from my back, any added pain puts my brain on overload and I naturally
flash back.
This past spring I came off a friends mule. Mule spooked when she did
I knew I was past the point of recovery so I just let go and dropped
to the ground. I layed there with my eyes closed for a few minutes,
got back up found a place to get back on and got back on. I didn’t
think about if I was hurt or not getting back on. I just got back on.
By the time we got back to the trailer I was in so much pain I couldn’t
stand it. For a few weeks after I would flash back. About a month
after comming off the mule I rode that same mule for ten days on a big trailride and didn’t have a problem one.
I for one always called my horse BOMB PROOF he wouldn’t spook at anything.
Well the day I came off my horse, he was totaly freaked out by something.
I do not know what and will never no what it was that caused him to go
all rodeo bronc. I have realized that I can not change what happened and
I came to realize that he is a horse and no matter how much we would like
to call our horses bomp proof in all actuallity they ARE NOT. I don’t
care how much training a horse has they can and will buck, kick rear
spook at any given time. We as riders, every time we put our foot in
a stirrup take the risk of getting hurt. But as horse owners I believe it is a risk that we tuck to the back of our minds and enjoy our horses as much as possible.
Just last week I saddled up my horse and rode out alone, ended up riding to the spot where my accident happened. My horse was fine. I had no problems with him, accomplishing this almost three years after the accident was a mile stone for me.
I have just in the last week had a phycologist agree with my Doc on
the diagnosis of PTSD with depressed mood.
Again I have accomplished being able to ride my horse because of the small goals I set forth to accomplish. My next big goal is taking my horse on an over night trailride.
Oh and I also need to mention one of the biggest things that have helped me is journaling. Every night before going to bed I write in anote book how
I felt that day, what I did and what I want to accomplish the next day.
I go back when I am having a bad day and read my journals and instead of feeling sorry for myself, I try to smile and continue on with my day, dealing with my day as it is presented to me. OP you may also want to try journaling as it does help you to release pent up feelings and by re reading
it helps you to say to yourself “Ok I got this accomplished so what can I do next?”
Journal writing is a wonderful idea!! I should try that for my occasional anxiety. It has been several years since I suffered a broken leg leading a green horse from a pasture. She spooked and ran circles around me before bolting on top of me. I have also done a hypnosis audio CD that helped me relax at night before bed. But I still get flashbacks and anxiety once in a while. It will just hit me… I have improved from what I used to do. I would have rapid breathing/sweaty palms/near tears before every interaction with a horse to do ground work or ride… Healing really does take a long time, physically and emotionally. I’m glad to see I am not alone…Other non horsey people and some horse people don’t understand the fear you can still have.
“Attitude is a little thing that makes a big difference.”
~Winston Churchill
I second WateryGlen’s suggestion to see a psychologist for people with lingering anxiety if it interferes with riding or if it might preoccupy you as you ride since horses can sense anxiety and be made uneasy by it.
I manage research grants for a living including some on post-traumatic stress treatment. Excellent very specific protocols for post-traumatic stress have been developed. Unfortunately not all therapists or even sports psychologists have been trained in them.
If you are interested in finding providers who are likely to be qualified this is a decent potential source
Just check the PTSD box on this link
http://www.abct.org/Members/?m=FindTherapist&fa=FT_Form&nolm=1
Ask about the person’s training. They should have had supervision by a licensed supervisor on a number PTSD treatment cases that were successfully resolved. Treatments generally involve having the patient describe the accident or trauma in vivid detail, either writing it down or recording it and then reviewing it repeatedly each session. Anxiety usually rises during the retelling but because it cannot sustain itself indefinitely it eventually drops off and the body learns to no longer be afraid.
Some researchers are using a medication called D-Cycloserine which speeds up this process. It is actually an old antibiotic but taking it right before an exposure session speeds up the extinction process.
Researchers don’t know why some people experience acute or chronic post-traumatic stress after and accident but they do know experiencing severe pain like some of you have mentioned is a risk factor.
If you are reluctant to seek treatment, scared of going, think you don’t need it, don’t have the funds for it etc… you may try writing down and/or recording and playing back the story of the incident to yourself over and over. It is important to recall everything in as much detail as possible and to do it over and over. We don’t know why but the very act of retelling or writing (this is known as bibliotherapy) helps the mind adjust to/come to terms with the incident. By not talking about it (avoiding it) we spend a lot of mental energy on avoiding anything that remind us of the incident and this can last for years. This is why people can come back from a war and 5 or 10+ years later can still be having a flashback if they hear an explosion or helicopter.
If you have a hard time starting the process or writing the journal entry you might want to go back to the scene and take a picture. The picture can be a way to stimulate your recall. You can discuss what you were wearing, what you did leading up to the accident, who you were with, what kind of day it was, what you did before, what happened, what you thought, what you felt physically and emotionally and what happened afterwards.
One way to deal with the problem is to give up horses and I totally respect that especially if you have children who depend on you. But even giving up riding may not be a successful resolution since the minds of people who have had trauma sometimes overgeneralize. A belt buckle that reminds them of a stirrup leather that reminds them off the accident could 10 years later trigger anxiety. Also some folks do this for a living or its their true love and giving up may not be feasible or desirable.
Finally I am a relative beginner adult. I’ve been taking lessons for 1.25 years from a highly qualified dressage instructor. Horses didn’t scare me but being paralyzed from a fall terrifies me. I make every attempt to manage the risks related to riding by riding a well trained schoolmaster on good footing, letting my instructor know if I need to take it easy that day and trying to be hyper-mindful when I’m working near the horse or am on the horse so I’m not thinking about anything else but watching out for him and me. Its no guarantee something tragic won’t happen but I feel like you have to do this around a 1200lb living creature who also happens to be a jumpy prey animal.
I got bucked off the (mostly!) steady-eddy kind of pony I was riding at the time earlier this year, and it really set me back a bit. I’d actually had worse falls injury-wise, but psychologically this was harder. It just so happened that the pony sustained an injury shortly after it happened and I got to ride a bunch of different horses, which helped so much even if it was a bit of a cop out.
I get super-anxious doing things that I haven’t done in a while - ended up cantering on a new pony after not cantering for months (due to horses/me being NQR for a while). Really had to shut off my brain and just do what I know I’m physically am capable of. And it turned out wonderfully and I had a great lesson.
