Nope, closed, done

OP, you don’t have to rent your own apartment to get out of the house. Do seasonal/resort work. It comes with housing, meals, sometimes uniforms. I did this, at a dude ranch, national park, and a mountain resort. All you need is a bus ticket. They always picked me up at the bus stop.

Or volunteer work. Volunteers of America is great, and there is the Peace Corps and VISTA, which is the Peace Corps in this country. I did that, and set up a free neighborhood health clinic, all by myself.

Your college placement office is a great resource for this, or look them up yourself.

For resort and seasonal, Cool Works is very good. I even saw a Buddhist center looking for staff on there. (I think you could use some Zen in your life!) And AFAIK, all of these “volunteer” jobs pay a salary, and generally have housing, too. When my friend was in the Peace Corps, she had her own house with a housekeeper.

College students often do these jobs, as summer jobs, to earn money or have adventure, or whatever. Talk to other college students or staff, and you could find out a lot.

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One mass reply before I continuously flag this untill it gets removed:

  1. Yes I know it was dangerous to try to remove the bridle, to be honest I wouldve been happy for the police to be called and considered doing it myself. because I have tried to report her for abuse multiple times (to both me and the horses) and maybe for once the law would care

  2. Some of you are being downright horrible. Like I get being upset that I could’ve harmed my mom and did make the situation worse for Mercy (pretty sure I even said that in the post, I wrote it really fast so possibly I skipped that) but some of you sound like you drink snake venom as water.

2.5 the bridle thing was something she’d done to me before so that clouded my judgement on just how dangerous it was.

  1. Yes there was a bit of Black Stallion/Flicka-ness in his purchase, but I had trainers lined up to help with him and was actively getting help for him. when I say he is mentally scarred I mean it. Not every horse comes off the track just with “track manners” and athletic behaviors. This horse had panic attacks on trailers he was so nervous. It wasn’t excitement, it was whites of his eyes fear.

  2. No he actually couldn’t canter, didn’t matter what lead, that’s why he was sold, he could barely canter for 5 strides without constant “encouragement” from a whip or spurs. He didn’t show any signs of pain except for this which why when it didn’t improve much with practice I went with “something has to be wrong, let’s get a vet” and my mother resisted

  3. For fear of my identity being known I’m not going to answer any “do you drive/are you a student/do you work/etc” questions. The attention this post has gathered already has terrified me. I wish they made it easier to take posts down.

I know I need to get out of here, and I am working on it, but it is very hard to do. I can’t simply drop everything and disappear. As for rehoming him, I don’t have the power to do that. Sounds like some of you missed the giant “she basically stole my horse” part of this.

I came here just to get a few people to maybe be a bit sympathetic and to tell my story before my mother’s gaslighting twisted the memory. This got way bigger than I intended and I’m not worried for my identity. Thank you Scribbler and Beo for your comments and thank you Beo for sharing your story. I hope I can turn around and be like you :purple_heart:

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You stated your name was on his “papers” , I’m not sure if that means JC papers or bill of sale or what, but whatever the case is that makes him legally yours and you can sell him, move him, etc whenever and wherever you want. So yes you do have that power

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I think you need to breathe really deeply here. COTH can be tough, but no one wants to harm you.

People are asking those questions in order to help you get out of the situation you’re in. I’ve seen some harsher replies, but most people are trying to help - keep in mind text doesn’t really read the way it seems.

It sounds like you and your mother are in a very very toxic cycle. This should be primary concern #1. I understand your concern for the horse, but it will not get better until you get out of that cycle. And for what that’s worth, you are the most important thing here.

The law…the law is not always good with matters of abuse, despite all of us wishing it to be so.

I wish you well. Get safe, get away from the situation, and get yourself straightened out. You can’t put on an oxygen mask for someone else (even a horse) without the oxygen mask being on yourself.

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I learned this in couples therapy yesterday. And also why are they escalating. What outside factors are influencing my behavior and reaction to the situation.

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I agree that you need to get out. That saying I do not know what your disabilities are.

Share housing is cheaper than renting if you have that over there.

An ebike or a an escooter are much cheaper than a car and you do not need to pay registration (at least not here. With one of those and wet weather gear, you get yourself a job. With the money you buy a car to be able to work to earn money. You sacrifice buying anything new, pay TV, hair cuts, etc, etc, until you have yourself settled.

Only when you are totally settled for a couple years can you consider getting a horse and a been there done that horse sounds much better for you.

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OP, this is a horse board, and when someone describes and to some extent justifies attacking someone on a horse, ripping away the reins and taking off the bridle–even if the person is a horrible person–people are going to react strongly to putting someone (and the horse) in a highly dangerous situation out of rage. You also speak with a great deal of confidence about how to retrain an OTTB, despite not having a massive amount of experience, while there are a number of people on the board who have retrained many, often in a professional or semi-professional capacity.

You say you’ve spoken to a therapist before, and it sounds like you’re in a situation where your family is economically secure, but there is something going on emotionally that needs to be addressed. I don’t know what’s right for you personally, but I agree with everyone you need an objective eye on your situation from a professional counselor, and, ideally, some distance from your mother. Even staying with a family member or friend for a few months to sort things out. (And ditto the objective eye on the horse, if you keep him, but first you need to get stable yourself, before you can help the animals in your life.)

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We all wish you well. You aren’t seeing your own role in the mess you’re in. Maybe one day you will.

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I have not read all the comments tbh. But I would have a trailer, and a good amount of ace in a syringe ready to inject. Love on him…stick him discreetly…load him…and FLY LIKE THE WIND!!! Of course if you do not have a boarding barn, or your mom and dad will come take him back, unfortunately you are SOL. I am really sorry you are dealing with this…

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Well - thing is if law enforcement was called it’s likely everyone involved would’ve spent some time in a county jail (or whatever Canada’s equivalent to that is). It’s also not entirely likely that they’d have been able to do much, if anything about the horses. No clue what laws in Canada are like but in the USA horses are technically considered livestock and it practically takes at least a few dead animals and multiple extremely thin ones for any action to be taken re. getting them out.

Well. You know now and were I you, I’d never do this again and try to be the bigger person.

We only know what you tell us re. what the horse is like and it does read, to those of us on here w/experience around racehorses, like you didn’t realize the differences between a racehorse’s experience and a typical low-level all-around sporthorse’s experience.

You can almost definitely answer that w/o everyone and their dog figuring out your identity unless you’re that certain folks you know personally are on here and can figure this out.

I’m just gonna say this: if you don’t want attention don’t post your business online this goes for if you’re afraid of having your identity found out, etc.

I agree there were a few posters who got judgy but I think a lot of us are trying our best to help you out.

I’m also gonna say straight up, I was in an UGLY barn situation when I was about the age you are now. I was absolutely bullied/verbally abused and the horses were probably abused albeit maybe not in the legal sense. I got out of it. You can do this.

This, also. I can see both sides, I do feel for OP, but I also see where others are coming from.

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Bingo.

Guaranteed anyone who knows you like your family would absolutely recognize you (if your story is true) and details like being able to drive won’t dox you.

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I know you came on here wanting to help the horse, but you’ve got to help yourself first. There’s a reason that people on airplanes are instructed to put the oxygen masks on themselves first, and then on their children. You’ve got to be capable yourself first, then you can try to help the horse. Even if ownership of the horse is clearly and legally you, you’ve got to have money and clarity of thought. That’s why I suggested a job away from your parents, so you can heal and get some perspective. Ideally, after sufficient time with a therapist.

ETA: Horses are an expensive hobby. You’ve decided/realized that keeping them at your parents’ is not healthy; and say you have no money to take care of them yourself. Time to let them go, if you’re not going to be earning enough to take care of you and horses both.

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Yes thank you I know I need to help myself first. I know I fucked up. I know I did something dangerous. I know I came across more confident in my writing than I am in real life, that’s just how I write. I am selling the horse and leaving. Everyone can stop replying now because it is keeping me awake that people won’t just read my last reply and consider it done.

Yes none of you are going to hurt me. Yes anyone who knows me would know this is me. At this point I’ve stopped caring and want it all to go away. Yes I know this is the internet and that will never happen. Because for some reason COTH is the one place where you aren’t allowed to delete your own posts.

Any more replies are just going to get a copy paste answer until some mod takes this down or closes my account. Goodbye.

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You can go into each post and edit it to remove the text can’t you?
It won’t help if someone has quoted it, but it will in effect remove your words.
Everything sounds overwhelming and I hope you can get the help you need.

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QFP

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You can do it. You will do it. :heart:

Mods won’t remove posts you flag unless they break community guidelines. But you can edit your posts and remove anything you’ve said. In your case, I understand removing what you’ve posted might help protect you against any future attack on your person. Click the pencil button at the bottom of your post to edit.

Not sure if sharing my experience will help, or not but here goes because I do really feel for you, OP. When I was your age it helped me to write down everything I felt. Then highlight it all and hit delete. It was cathartic for me to get it all out and then just watch it get erased. That was my little space to say how I felt safely, free of judgment or retaliation. But once you hit that delete button, it’s over and gone – you gotta let the ugly emotions and feelings go.

Let that shit go. It does us no good holding onto it. You cannot control what other people do or what other people think. You can only control how you react.

When I was in counseling, my therapist asked me if I’d ever made a sandcastle as a kid and watched the tide or a kid come in and ruin it. Well, sure. She asked me if it was smart to fight the tide or even put my castles by the tide. No, of course not. “Well, put your sandcastle somewhere else… or, let the tide wash over you and just rebuild. You’re a grain of sand, the tide doesn’t matter to you.” That really stuck with me in a way that “let it go” never did.

Dysfunction perpetuates in negative feedback loops. It will enmeshed you both in the same toxic, dysfunctional cycle. For a lot of people, it is impossible to break because of generational trauma, mental health barricades, stressors, poverty, poor health and/or living conditions… It doesn’t make you or your mom a bad person. You’re just in survival mode. We’re not thinking more than five seconds ahead. We’re only thinking about how we can survive by fighting, or flight. And this permanently changes how we behave (if we don’t do something about it). Every interaction is colored by how we are only trying to survive and get out of a dysfunctional, effed up situation. Think of how genuinely awful and dysfunctional something needs to be for you to feel that your ONLY recourse is to take off a horse’s bridle… and think of how genuinely dysfunctional something needs to be for your mom to grab you by your hair, push you, and run away. That is a toxic feedback loop, that is survival at its worse, and will happen again if you don’t break it.

So break it. Every person has body language. You can read a room before you ever walk into it. Learn to see when your mom is having a bad day/mood, because that will transfer to you. Can you avoid her that day? If so, do it. And if you can’t avoid her that day, learn how to get out in a way that doesn’t provoke reprisal - maybe she needs something at the grocery store… Maybe you need to go to the library to study. Or, if you can’t leave, I bet there’s a fence at the opposite side of the property very far from your mom that needs fixing… During those bad days, do not retaliate when her anger is directed to you. You’ve seen ducks in water. Let that roll of your back.

Learn to see when you’re having a bad day too, because it’s not just about your mom. It’s about you, too. When you’re having a bad day, don’t even engage. There are days I come home from work so burnt out I don’t even interact with my horse because I know that “bad energy” will transfer.

And as impossible as it seems in this moment, learn to emphasize with your mom and show you are emphasizing with her. Just think: what awful things must have happened to her, with her parents, to make her this way? Nothing takes the wind out of a controlling person’s sails like not fighting back. With hyper-controlling people, they’re not escalating their behavior so you can be subdued: they’re escalating their behavior to get a reaction out of you, because they are expecting retaliation and they’ve already drafted their reprisal. When you are feeling cornered, take a huge breath. Count to five. Ask yourself if what is being asked of you will matter in ten years? Two? If not, just do it. Chances are the things your mother is trying to control you over are stupid and arbitrary, like where you put the leadropes or how you coil up the hose. So what? The moment you don’t give them that reaction is the moment they lose power over you. This element may be difficult to avoid if your horse is on your parent’s bill; it may be for the health of your relationship and self, that you give up Mercy and/or remove the horse element from your situation.

And… finally… learn to walk away. I can’t speak for your family or your experience, I can only speak of mine. I walked away for a few years by moving across the country. I had no money, I lived below the poverty line for years, but I made it happen. There was so much of the world I hadn’t experienced, and living in a new place without the support of my family gave me some hard truths and cold perspective. And I learned that I did really value my parents, even if my relationship with them was rocky when I left. Eventually, I came back home. It wasn’t easy in the beginning - it was downright awful, actually. But, there were several factors I could control. I could control my own reactions, and if I felt that I was having a bad day, or my mom was having a bad day, then it was better to leave and/or not show up at all. Feel that you are on edge? Leave, go grocery shopping, take a walk in the park, whatever. Just get yourself out of that situation before it blows.

It might surprise you to learn that now my parents are my best friends. I see both of them every day. Every now and then, things can get a little tense and when they do, I just take a big breath and let it go. It doesn’t matter, whatever it is, it isn’t more important than my mental health, my parents’ mental health, or our future.

And just remember, when you feel your back is up again… Repeat over and over: It takes two people to fight, it takes two people to fight, it takes two people to fight… Good luck. :hugs:

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OP, your feelings are valid. Your perceptions, however, may be blurred.
I do hope you find an exit from the current situation and soon.

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Sorry OP I don’t buy it. The name of your thread before you changed it was about encouraging us to attack your horrible monster mother.

That’s not how you get the sympathy you look for.

Call your therapist, talk to them. You need their help right now.

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OP beowulf is a long standing, respected member of this community. She has posted two very excellent responses , open and honest. Print them out and read them often.

Go forward and become yourself, when you are standing up on your feet, you can then build a lifestyle you desire

until then you will need courage and strength and I wish you well. The twenties are a real tough decade, many of us have been through it

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