Thank you so much for that compliment Trace, I really needed that you have no idea. I have been told by psychologists that I am gifted and should go into that field, the last one was a Dr. of Child psychology and college professor that came out to my farm with her grand daughter. What that psychologist missed is what she saw that she liked so much was something I was already doing in what I did with children. I did not tell her that I was suffering from PTSD and what she got a glimpse of had been so badly damaged and I could not get professionals like her to understand how important it was along with the true value of the ponies I lost that I trained to do what I had been doing with them with young children. It was not just the animals I lost, it was also my sense of having a "safe" environment to do what I had been doing.

My last therapist felt that I not only suffered from PTSD, that turned into Complex PTSD, but also complicated grief disorder.


I know just how this is.

Another problem I have been battling is I live where a lot of trauma took place so my home environment triggers me. I want to "love" and "enjoy" my farm and if you saw it you would understand why, but at the same time this place I love so much also triggers me. The way I struggle is like suddenly I am cloaked in body memories and hypervigilance and I try to fight it but I end up in a lot of pain down my arms and across my chest. I struggled to go in the riding ring, often had flashbacks and bad emotional flashbacks when I tried to work with the ponies in that ring too.

I had such a hard time doing jobs away from the farm because I was afraid to leave because that's when my neighbors let their dog out seeing I was not home and it targeted all my ponies and horses. I felt so much guilt because I did not catch on soon enough. My neighbor's knew I did not want their dogs on my property. They had two dogs, and they had put in an underground electric fence. One stayed in that fence but the other one would not and they tied it. That dog would break off the tie every so often and I would yell out and they would apologize and fix the tie. That dog did not target my ponies, but it was a concern because it is not safe for me to do my lessons with these very young children and risk a pony possibly spooking.

I thought they got the message, I was so nice to them too and my husband always plowed them out too. Well, when their electric containment system failed they did not spend the "money" to fix it and began letting that dog out when they noticed I was not home or late at night when I was in bed. That dog was Akita/chow/pit bull mix and they are not only stalkers, but the Akita stalks and doesn't bark and they like to chase and get the prey all worked up and they get a high from that and they keep the chasing because they get such a high from it.

As a result, I faced several that choked, a pony that severely coliced, a pony that suffered a fractured pelvis, damaged hip joint and torn ligaments and my daughter's expensive show horse suffered torn suspensories, another pony had high suspensory damage, another one had sustained damage that was not seen until he had an MRI. Two ended up dying and I never got to investigate how my horse was hurt and just hoped whatever it was would heal with time. I still have ones that were injured that can't be ridden or used. I had to hand walk so many so much that I ended up with severe planter's faceitus in my feet. It got so bad I struggled to walk and had to have injections and special sneakers and othotics made for my feet. I tried to walk down my driveway in the shade and my neighbor would drive by almost hitting me. One of the ones I did that with had a bandage around her neck with an catheter in her neck as I had to run an IV three times a day, my neighbor's did not care. I tried so hard to save her for a couple of months and I lost the battle and shortly after that I just collapsed.

I had bad therapy and if you read my records you would get angry. Then I could not afford therapy, we could not afford to pay insurance either, and I just got one sound enough to sell and my husband went to bed and would not get up or pay the bills for a couple of months. I used the money I got for the horse to keep us afloat. It should have gone towards paying down the huge debt I had accumulated from so much damage.

Oh, I could go on and on about all that I have had to deal with since then too. A lot of sad here where I live and I have been trying to find my way and it's been very hard.