Hi. This is my first post. I am trying to ride again after 7 years of not riding at all. I gave it up due to my anxiety disorder. Well that and my horse at the time was a bad match and the trainer wasn’t very helpful either. Either way I gave up and am not ready to try again. I did get on horse back for the first time in 7 years a week ago. I was terrified but I remembered a lot of what I had learned. We mostly walked and trotted on a lunge line. That was all I could handle for the day. I have had a hard time getting my second ride. But that should happen in a few weeks. Not quick enough for my liking but owe well. I want to ask for advice about gaining confidence in ridding again. I have been honest with the trainers about how anxious I am. But is there other things I could do? I already do therapy and some medication. I just want horseback riding to be fun again like it was when I was a teenager.
It took me weekly lessons with walking the first half of a lesson on very quiet lesson horses about 6 - 9 months before I could go straight into trot once warmed up and canter without thinking.
You will get there.
Slow and steady. Just take your time and enjoy being on one again.
No hurry, Hopefully you have an instructor who is on board with what you are experiencing.
Just remember it is because you love it!! Good luck.:yes:
Check out Jane Pike’s Confident Rider Facebook group. There is a group that you can pay for and you get a ton of lessons and support about how to ease the anxiety.
Are you around horses any other time except lessons? Maybe visits for grooming, leading gentle animals up and down the aisle to just have your hands on a horse, could be helpful. I believe if you want to ride, all the extra handling time you can manage might be an aid in lowering your anxiety. It is the old thinking “the more you do with a horse, the easier you feel doing things and being with them”. Plus no pressure about being on the horse, steering, using your other body parts correctly to direct the horse. Remember no horse is perfect, they twitch, move unexpectedly. Just expect that they only need to be standing quietly for you with the grooming stuff.
A little bit of horse stuff done often, should help reduce anxiety because horse sessions are not so far apart. Visits are not turned into EVENTS with high expectations because you had to wait for them to happen. Best of luck in you efforts to get back to being horsey.
So, OP, how’s going?
