PrintThe author describes how horses helped her through a difficult struggle.
I grew up in an eclectic country home in the coastal hills of Sonoma County, Calif. Nestled in the grove of Redwoods and the Russian River Valley, I’m blessed to live in one of the most beautiful places on earth.
However, it wasn’t until I was 8 that my mother and I settled into the place that I still, to this day, call my home. My family moved around quite a bit when I was a young child.
When I was 8 my parents divorced, and I was torn between living in two households. Fluctuating between my secure country home and my father’s chaotic house in the city, I felt torn apart. My living arrangements didn’t become stable until I was a sophomore in high school, when I began living full-time in the little house with my mom and stepdad.
It was at age 8, too, that I found my love for horses at the European Pony School in Santa Rosa, Calif. The barn saved me, even then, as my parents’ recent divorce had devastated me. The ponies were the one consistent thing in my life; my routine riding lessons proved to be the structure that kept my head above water.
When I was 11, my mom leased my first horse, Mickey, who tragically died in a pasture accident just two weeks after our first show. When I was 14, my mother purchased me my first horse, Red. Our partnership deepened as he became the buoy in the choppy seas that were my life, and the barn became my safe place, the shelter from the storm.
The necessity to sell Red became apparent as my goals as a rider and his capabilities grew further apart. Although it was the right thing to do, the sale of my horse became a contributing factor to the decline in my health. There were two long months between the sale of my best friend and meeting Shorty, my horse of a lifetime.
The second I laid eyes on him, the small, gleaming bay Holsteiner gelding, his demeanor seemed to ask of me, “Am I the one?” The answer came from my heart.
Around the same time, a small, chestnut off-the-track Thoroughbred, Scarlett, came into my life. A fragile young mare, she seemed to be a mirror image of my struggles. Though a beautiful mover, she was easily frazzled and disconnected. Ironically, the more I struggled with my weight, the harder of a keeper she became. With my decline in health, she seemed to follow.
Entering Treatment
Though I struggled with my eating disorder for many years, it erupted when I entered college. At age 18 I’d fallen deeply into my eating disorder. No longer able to ride because I was so sick, I’d lost my motivation for life.
My mom and step-dad wrestled with the situation, and they decided to send me to a residential treatment facility for eating disorders in order to save my life.
Going to treatment was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done—that and leaving my horses behind. In reality, I’d already left my horses behind long ago. Due to my failing health, it was no longer safe for me to ride, and my mom explained to me that not only was I endangering my own safety but that of my horses, too. The truth was, I was using them for my own “vanity;” the strenuous workouts in the saddle aided my weight-loss obsession.
Treatment was hard. I went from riding two horses six days a week and not eating, to no riding and sitting at the table and eating six times a day. Not only was I distraught from my increase in food, I was devastated by my lack of equine companionship.
