The 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.

Over the years I experienced many therapeutic aspects of riding, but I was never formally introduced to equine therapy until my stay at Mirasol Center For Eating Disorders, located in the beautiful desert of Tucson, Ariz., in January of 2009.

The work I did at Mirasol was incredible. Knowing my love for horses, they arranged for me to do equine therapy at a local barn. I went out to the barn excited, nervous, yet confident in my ability to handle horses and their needs.

I was intensely fascinated and enthused by life at an alarming speed. Sam, the therapist, handed me the halter and asked me to go out into the field to catch the horse—both she and my therapist watching me.

So I did what I always do. It’s like walking, putting one foot in front of the other, so habitual, so instinctual, so ingrained that we go about walking without thinking about it. I slipped into the field and ran my hand down his sleek muscular body, stopping at his chest as I hit his favorite scratch spot. I stood a while and watched his head lower and his eyes soften.

I took the lead rope, as I always do, and placed it around his neck, and let his head slide into the black halter with a leather crown. I buckled the halter and took the lead rope, like I always do, and walked him out of the pasture, just like I always do. I do this like I always do so well that it’s like I don’t even consider it doing something at all. These ways of going, of walking, of reading, the way in the life of a horse is so instinctual that I never think twice.

I led him to the round pen and tied him up. I couldn’t help but think that his brush set was a box filled with my own tools, my own ability to care for myself, for my horse, my own assurance that I indeed have what it takes to care for his body, my body.

I turned him loose, just like always, and walked to the center. I asked him to move out at a canter, just like always, and he quickly moved away.

I watched him run and run as I stood there and thought, “I’m running and running and running on
the inside.”

I waited for him to slow down, and he didn’t; he just kept going and going and going, and for 45 minutes I watched him and thought, “That’s how I feel inside.”

And it’s so uniquely brilliant about horses that they reflect so much of who we are—what we’re feeling, how we’re feeling, why we’re feeling, when we’re feeling—brilliant.

Sometimes, we as horse people ask our horses to run and run until they submit, where they lower their head and lick and chew their mouths and think, think about giving in to the pressure that’s making them run, think about finding a leader to save them from their running.

By this point I’m frustrated because he’s not submitting; he’s not asking me to be his leader. He’s running and running and running.

So I look inside myself, inside my running, and think about what it’s going to take to stop me from running and running and running on the inside.

Though it was difficult to admit, I realized that I needed to take action, to be proactive, to watch my horse run and know that I’m looking at a mirror of myself. I verbalized, quietly, that I’m frustrated. I’m frustrated because my horse won’t stop running, that I won’t stop running. I admitted that I can no longer take this and am willing to find a leader, someone to help me from this craziness.

As soon as I verbalized my struggles, he stopped. He lowered his head and licked and chewed and walked over, calmly to me, and asked me to be his leader. And I looked inside myself and realized that I, too, have calmly walked inside myself to look for guidance, for I know that I have the capability to slow myself down.

He rested his head upon my shoulder and huffed warm breaths of air into my ear. I stepped forward, placing one foot in front of the other, as he stepped in unison with mine.

I stopped; he stopped. I moved to the left, he moved to the left. And we walked together, placing one foot in front of the other, just like we always do.

Fighting Your Instincts

From Mirasol, I transferred to another facility, Shoreline Center For Eating Disorders in Long Beach, Calif., where I began to transition in my recovery. They too aided my recovery through horses.

What I’ve learned is that having an eating disorder, in some ways, becomes so instinctual it’s simply second nature. What might seem uncomfortable is where I sought my comfort. What might sound unbearable is where I sought my control. And these things, these needs, our necessities and abilities to gratify and meet our wants, is what makes such an out-of-control disorder a very centering experience.

There are certain things that are instinctual to horses, too. The most unnatural thing to ask a horse to
do is to pick its feet up. Doing this completely inhibits the horse’s other most natural thing, which is to run from danger. In picking their feet up and inhibiting them from their first natural protection mechanism, we ask horses to do for us what may feel uncomfortable to them. But in all actuality, working with horses and teaching them to not run away from each blow of the wind, these are things we do for both of our safety.

So when I sat curled up in a ball on my bed in tears, crying because I couldn’t sit with the food I ate, I thought about my horses and how their ability to tolerate uncomfortable emotions overcomes their basic natural instinct.

They stand there, possibly scared, but they stand there. I sat, possibly scared, but I still sat. Both of us, together, faced our fears, faced things that were unnatural to us. Yet both of us did this, together; we both faced our fears and stood tall.

And today, and each day, I follow my meal plan—a new path, a new strange way of living. Not so foreign that it’s intangible, just awkward enough that it leads to some twists and turns in the road of recovery.

I think about my horses, and sometimes how strange and foreign things must feel to them when I’m riding them, leading them through patterns and circles and jumps—their road.

As riders, we frequently use “half-halts.” It’s almost exactly what it sounds like; using the cues we would ask for our horse to halt, we say “whoa, whoa” with our body’s signals and recollect the horse’s way of movement, just enough to “whoa and go,” to pick them up and push them forward through their next movement. It’s a preemptive move on our part as the rider to warn the horse of what’s to be asked of him.

So I think about this, about half halts, about being preemptive and guiding the horse through its rhythms and movements by a series of cues, about how each step is so important. And then think about recovery, and how almost every step of the way it’s time to half-halt—to recollect my movement and thoughts to lead me in the right direction.