Endurance Riding

I have a story to tell. But, even as I write, I am terrified to tell it. I have shared bits and pieces of my past on this blog, but mostly from the perspective that I have “overcome” a painful past and been “healed.” What I haven’t shared is that my personal struggle isn’t over yet, and it may never be.

I have been struggling with anxiety since November. It’s been a struggle of mine before, but something that I have learned to manage pretty well over the last few years. I know what the trigger was back in November, and it was multiplied by the stressors of a sick horse, working night shift as a nurse and managing an exploding business, being a wife, mother, daughter, mentor, friend, and then, as silly as this sounds, coming down from the high last competition season left me with.

Lack of sleep, slacking on my workouts, and eating poorly didn’t help either, and ten days before Whiskeytown, I experienced a panic attack. I was driving, and as I was, I realized it was the first time I had really sat down in a long while. It occurred to me how exhausted I was, and I feared falling asleep at the wheel. The fear of not being able to control my physical body suddenly got me thinking… What if I just lost my mind too? Right here, right now? My entire body was overcome with this tingling sensation and flooded with dread. Nobody around me knew what was going on, but my mind was racing, and I was left feeling weak when the panic finally subsided.

For days following, I beat myself up. For not being stronger. For not taking care of myself. For allowing myself to go back to that place I had left behind years ago…

I also felt guilt. Here I was, with a seemingly perfect life — a great marriage, a dream job, healthy kids, six wonderful horses, multiple personal successes — and I couldn’t handle it.

I love endurance. It’s my passion. And I couldn’t even get excited about Whiskeytown. So I beat myself up for that too.

When DJ arrived on Friday morning, ready to load up Dippi and Zaza and head to Whiskeytown, I was an emotional mess. She told me it was okay if I didn’t want to go, but I told her I had to go. I just had to go, even if I cried through the entire day, the entire ride, and the entire drive back home.

Friday was a struggle for me. I had moments where I felt okay, and then I had moments where I had trouble holding back the tears. I didn’t feel like myself. I was carrying around this fog that, for some reason, just wouldn’t let me go. My mind kept replaying that moment in the car — my moment of weakness, which I just wouldn’t let go.

On Friday night, after the ride meeting, despite my fierce desire to beat everything without pharmaceuticals, I gave up and took a ¼ tab of Xanax. Throughout the night, I’d wake up and take another ¼ tab, until the entire pill was gone.

Saturday morning was completely methodical. As a seasoned endurance rider, it was easy to go through the steps of tacking up, mounting up, and riding on.

The first several miles were quiet. DJ checked in with me, and I admitted that I was “alright, but I just didn’t feel like myself.”

I don’t know what happened, but right before the vet check, I suddenly began feeling a little more like myself. Dippi had gotten herself into the groove of this great little pace, and up, down, up, down, I just posted on down the trail. My little green broke Arab, the one who had two non-completions last year in the only two LDs I took her to, was taking care of me. I had taken care of her last year after a tendon injury, and here she was, taking care of me.

And every now and then, DJ and I would look around at our beautiful surroundings, breath in the fresh air, and yell out, “Present!” when we felt completely in the moment, right there, right then.

After Dippi passed the vet check and DJ and I settled in to our hour hold, taking care of the horses and ourselves, I suddenly realized whatever fog had been following me around was gone.

We headed back out, and as we were trotting down the trail on our last 12 miles of the day, I looked back at DJ and said, “I could go 50 miles today.”

I was back in the game.

The tears came again when we received our completions for the ride. But this time, they were happy tears. Tears of relief. Tears of triumph. And not for completing a 25 miler necessarily, but for not giving up. For pushing through and overcoming. And for allowing myself to be human.

I am slowly learning every day that I can’t always be this superhero I would like to be. I am simply human. And that is okay.

__________

Just a couple nights before Whiskeytown, I had written this down. I never published it on my blog, but it seems appropriate now to share a bit of what I wrote:

My greatest struggle has always been being present. Years ago, beginning in my late teens through my mid-twenties, I was tortured by my past. I could never shut my mind off. It was always running wild with thoughts — the “could haves,” “should haves,” the “what ifs.” I blamed myself for so many things — many things I actually had no control over, and at the end of the day, I had no idea who I was, what I was doing, or where I was headed. I was stifled, and lost. And I managed my anxiety in some destructive ways, which only increased my level of anxiety to a state of panic.

And then came Asali. I can’t tell you exactly what happened when I returned to horses. But, I can tell you that, being on an animal close to 1,000 pounds, who could possibly kill me in a moment, if I fell off or was thrown or kicked or many other things, made me be present. Suddenly, I had to be calm, I had to be quiet, and I had to pay attention. The more I rode Asali, the more she became a mirror image of me. She constantly gave me away, and I’d be forced to step back and ask myself where I was right in that moment — because I certainly wasn’t right there, with her.

Today, my struggle isn’t with the past, but with the future. I’ve always had this deep philosophical mind that questions everything, and this keen awareness of my mortality which keeps me striving for perfection — or at least “better-ness.” While it’s important to have goals and plans for the future, we must also learn to live in the present. Be here, be now. Seems simple, right? So, why is it so difficult?

There are some out there who think my love of horses, and my relationship with them, is more than a passion, but an obscene obsession. Maybe that’s true. But on the back of my horse, with the wind in my hair, the sky caressing my cheeks, the chill taking my breath away, I am nowhere but right there at that moment. Suddenly, the world around me has faded away, and I am a part of the being that is giving me her wings, if only for a moment.

So, my struggle continues to capture that “present-ness” during my daily routines. To quiet my mind of the future and the fears and the unknown…

A quote by Amit Ray says, “If you want to conquer the anxiety of life, live in the moment, life in the breath.”

And so I ride.

Tags: AERC, endurance, endurance riding, horseback riding, horses, limited distance, trail riding

Trackback URI | Comments RSS