Do you speak at all?
The beauty of communicating with a horse is, you don't need any words. You don't even need your voice. Sometimes, your mood alone is enough. Horses are extremely sensitive creatures and they can read your mood like we can read a text book.
So if you're like me, bad at verbally expressing yourself to others, simply being around a horse can be a huge confidence booster. You don't need to explain yourself. You don't need to struggle to get the words out right. You don't need to worry about being misunderstood.
Horses don't misunderstand. They don't judge you, either. So I can be an absolute failure at interhuman communication, but my horse will still always understand me. That alone gives me the confidence and the reassurance I need to be who I am.
It wasn't easy for me to accept the way I am, but it helped a great deal that my horse accepted me the way I was. My horse doesn't care that I stutter and can't speak freely, or that I'm generally a really quiet person. My horse made me realize that I'm good enough. Not only at the barn, but everywhere.
When it comes to verbal communication, I'm no good. I suck at expressing myself to other people, in whatever way and on whatever level. It doesn't even matter if it's a family member I'm talking to or a total stranger. I get nervous, I stutter, I can't form coherent sentences. In the end, I can never really say what I truly want or mean to say...
In the past, the simple thought of having to speak to another person could cause a panic attack, and during an actual conversation I would get single symptoms of one. It made it hard to speak. So naturally, I tried to speak as little as possible.
I was often made fun of and being called out for how incredibly quiet I always was. By family, friends, classmates, teachers... For a long time it didn't bother me. I didn't know any other way to be, and I didn't know I wanted to. Then I became depressive, I started hating myself, the way I was, and the fact that I couldn't help it, couldn't get out of my own skin.
The depression was born out of a number of things. A low self-esteem and total lack of confidence included, which obviously didn't make communicating any easier. If anything, it made me hold back, keep everything to myself, because who would fucking care, right?
Things like these are hard to explain, especially when you suck at expressing yourself with spoken words. One of my first psychiatrists actually let me write down everything I neded to say, because I simply couldn't get it across verbally. It might sound stupid, but most of the time I felt like I had never learned how to talk to other people. I always felt like I was completely dysfunctional in that regard.
Of course, I never wanted other people to know or notice, so I tended to keep conversations as short as possible. I felt embarrassed, whether people noticed how much I was struggling or not. I was embarrassed about how much of a failure I was and how completely unable I was to have a normal conversation even with people I felt comfortable around...
I couldn't properly communicate with people who're directly in front of me, and I used to feel bad for it. I used to hate how unable I was, and no matter how hard I tried to change, it never really got any better.
Objectively, I would have to say, it still hasn't gotten any better. I still suck at communicating. But guess what? I'm doing it anyway. Because this much has changed: I learned to accept the way I am.
For years I've tried to become better at communicating, but only now that I'm fine with sucking at it, my situation has improved a great deal. I do talk. I do express myself. Most of the time the sentences are clumsy, my voice is shaky, I get nervous and I do feel embarrassed, but I accept that this is simply the way I am. I can't change it, and I'm done trying.
I'm okay with it. Ever since I started working with horses I grew more and more confident in myself, and though communicating in itself didn't get any easier for me, the way I see and think about it changed enough for it to be less of a struggle. I don't beat myself up over it anymore. I can smile and make fun of it when I screw up spectacularly. I inwardly facepalm at how much I suck at communicating.
I'm a quiet person. So what?
He is the only one I can talk to without feeling any kind of anxiety.
So if you're like me, bad at verbally expressing yourself to others, simply being around a horse can be a huge confidence booster. You don't need to explain yourself. You don't need to struggle to get the words out right. You don't need to worry about being misunderstood.
Horses don't misunderstand. They don't judge you, either. So I can be an absolute failure at interhuman communication, but my horse will still always understand me. That alone gives me the confidence and the reassurance I need to be who I am.
It wasn't easy for me to accept the way I am, but it helped a great deal that my horse accepted me the way I was. My horse doesn't care that I stutter and can't speak freely, or that I'm generally a really quiet person. My horse made me realize that I'm good enough. Not only at the barn, but everywhere.
When it comes to verbal communication, I'm no good. I suck at expressing myself to other people, in whatever way and on whatever level. It doesn't even matter if it's a family member I'm talking to or a total stranger. I get nervous, I stutter, I can't form coherent sentences. In the end, I can never really say what I truly want or mean to say...
In the past, the simple thought of having to speak to another person could cause a panic attack, and during an actual conversation I would get single symptoms of one. It made it hard to speak. So naturally, I tried to speak as little as possible.
I was often made fun of and being called out for how incredibly quiet I always was. By family, friends, classmates, teachers... For a long time it didn't bother me. I didn't know any other way to be, and I didn't know I wanted to. Then I became depressive, I started hating myself, the way I was, and the fact that I couldn't help it, couldn't get out of my own skin.
The depression was born out of a number of things. A low self-esteem and total lack of confidence included, which obviously didn't make communicating any easier. If anything, it made me hold back, keep everything to myself, because who would fucking care, right?
Things like these are hard to explain, especially when you suck at expressing yourself with spoken words. One of my first psychiatrists actually let me write down everything I neded to say, because I simply couldn't get it across verbally. It might sound stupid, but most of the time I felt like I had never learned how to talk to other people. I always felt like I was completely dysfunctional in that regard.
Of course, I never wanted other people to know or notice, so I tended to keep conversations as short as possible. I felt embarrassed, whether people noticed how much I was struggling or not. I was embarrassed about how much of a failure I was and how completely unable I was to have a normal conversation even with people I felt comfortable around...
I couldn't properly communicate with people who're directly in front of me, and I used to feel bad for it. I used to hate how unable I was, and no matter how hard I tried to change, it never really got any better.
Objectively, I would have to say, it still hasn't gotten any better. I still suck at communicating. But guess what? I'm doing it anyway. Because this much has changed: I learned to accept the way I am.
For years I've tried to become better at communicating, but only now that I'm fine with sucking at it, my situation has improved a great deal. I do talk. I do express myself. Most of the time the sentences are clumsy, my voice is shaky, I get nervous and I do feel embarrassed, but I accept that this is simply the way I am. I can't change it, and I'm done trying.
I'm okay with it. Ever since I started working with horses I grew more and more confident in myself, and though communicating in itself didn't get any easier for me, the way I see and think about it changed enough for it to be less of a struggle. I don't beat myself up over it anymore. I can smile and make fun of it when I screw up spectacularly. I inwardly facepalm at how much I suck at communicating.
I'm a quiet person. So what?
He is the only one I can talk to without feeling any kind of anxiety.