Thought for the day
Jan 05 2010
Too busy to write a long post but did you all hear about Casey Johnson’s death?
Here is my solution:
If your heiress daughter is blowing all your money up her nose or into her veins, cut her off and give it to me instead. I will use it to rescue and rehab old Thoroughbred mares. Not only will your money be used for something constructive, but if she doesn’t have any money, she may have to sober up out of necessity, and may therefore survive. It’s just a win-win all around!
I am happy to submit to any tests you desire, random or otherwise, to show that I’m 100% clean and will not waste a bit of your money on any addictive substance. Only old Thoroughbred mares, which are somewhat addictive but, even when they need a lot of rehab, not as expensive as a coke habit.
Heck, I’ll even teach your daughter to muck stalls and bond with old Thoroughbred mares so that she gets some actual self-esteem and doesn’t care anymore about being high and hanging out with asshats. If her asshat friends show up, we’ll hand them a shovel too. I’m guessing they’ll run screaming and that’ll be the last you see of them! That fat piece-o-shit that was married to Brittany Murphy, can you imagine him lasting very long around a barn with work to do? He would have been out of her life in 10 seconds and she could have gotten her head on straight again.
The offer’s on the table!
All snark aside – I honestly think horses have kept an amazing amount of girls out of trouble or rescued them from trouble. Who needs to have a baby at 15 when you already have a horse to love? Who can blow money on drugs – we have the farrier to pay for! When a man breaks your heart, it’s not the end of the world – we still have our horse.
I know that when I was in high school, I wasn’t the popular type and so I had two options: the druggies or just having all my friends at the barn. I chose the latter. If that option hadn’t been available to me, most likely I’d have been drawn to the wrong crowd and become a member of it. Instead, I hung out at the barn doing nothing worse than having the occasional beer in the tackroom.
How about you? Did horses keep you out of trouble, or rescue you when your life was going a very bad direction?
As always when I post “sensitive” topics, feel free to make a second registration with a different e-mail and stay anon…I do not delete duplicate accounts here, you’re welcome to them!
164 comments to “Thought for the day”
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Aspin123, I’m certain there are many other readers here who read every entry. We may not reply to them, but we like knowing about the “community” that composes the fuglyblog. Some of us struggled through life with more baggage and more traumatic episodes than others. My parents did the best they could raising me, but I came away with a lot of baggage, too. Horses have become my passion and I find it wonderful to have my Big Red One in my life. He’s in my backyard — well, side yard, actually ;o) — and I wouldn’t have it any other way.
I applaud you for having the good sense to see that the best help of all comes from within. As the adage goes, “The best place to find a helping hand is at the end of your arm,” and with your inner strength and sense of purpose, I KNOW you’re going the right way. I taught high school for many years and many of my students came from really terrible home situations, living through circumstances I could only imagine. I could tell which ones were going to be successful in spite of their environment just by working with them and watching them learn and grow.
You have that same “aura.” Good luck! I know you’ll make it.
Thanks, really. For being able to see through the fact that I’m 15. Most people can’t get it through their minds.
I made the comment about nobody reading my posts because everything I’ve posted lately seems to end the argument.
Well, that’s a good thing, right? ending the argument, that is
If you haven’t already done this, you might want to look into getting legally emancipated. Then you’re legally in control of your own life, you can enter into contracts as an adult, apply for grants to go to college without any questions about your parents’ income, etc. There are CASA volunteers who can help you navigate the court system, instead of shelling out your hard-earned income for a lawyer.
I was a perfect example of that, I was a trouble maker and I had horses, but if I didnt have horses, I would have been a lot worse!
After growing up on an Arabian breeding farm, I rebelled, moved 600 miles away to a big city, and turned into a Bohemian urban art punk rock star. The scenester social whirl kept me up til dawn for the next 30 years. But now, a re-rider at age 50, horses are definitely keeping me out of trouble. I’ve got buns of steel and I’m in bed by 8. I’m too old to jump fences but I’m doing it anyway because life’s too short, dang it, to hang around in rock clubs making fun of the bass player.
Rock on !!!
Life’s too short to worry, anyway!!
Whenever I think about how expensive horses and horse shows are, I remind myself that my two lovely daughters are constantly at the barn taking care of their animals, or at a horse show from dawn till dusk. Here’s where they aren’t: at the mall trading blow-jobs for Gucci bags. Horses keep kids out of trouble. Period.
Blunt but on-target!
I used to have a kid in lessons with me…literally ALL her close friends at school got pregnant during h.s….she was the ONE kid that did not…her mom thanked me profusely for that.
It really is hard to get in too much trouble at a barn full of teenage girls and nothing else. As long as the barn is free of pervy barn workers or the occasional pervy horse trainer, your kids are pretty safe there!
I was quite a hellraiser in my teenage years and drove my mom insane with my trouble making. Years later, out on my own, I was finally able to afford a horse. While my friends were busy drinking their nights away at the local bar, I was at the stable, EVERY NIGHT, spending every glorious second I could with my beautiful Arab gelding(my one & only dream in life). My mom came to the stable one night and told me “If I would’ve known that a horse would keep you out of trouble, I would’ve done everything in my power to get you one when you were younger”. That was a VERY powerful statement to me! My mom worked like a dog to keep a roof over our heads & food on the table, so I knew a horse back then was out of the question. Hindsight is 20/20 and I don’t know how she would’ve been able to afford that horse but I’ve tried to keep my kids in the activities that they enjoy and support them all the way in those activities, as far as my pocketbook will allow
My sister drank herself to death. I didn’t kill myself, though I’ve struggled with depression and loneliness. Why? I have a horse. Motion and work give me joy. The warmth and will of an animal give me joy. Staking an animal to good health and a productive life make me proud. I have loved to ride all my life. I stand for my horse.
In reply to “How about you? Did horses keep you out of trouble, or rescue you when your life was going a very bad direction?”:::
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My husband has actually used horses to help him with his PTSD. He has a high level of PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder) from his time in the Military. When we lived with “hahler” he would work with her trimming her clients horses. The time he spent with the horses kept his mind at ease he always said. They seemed to just wash away his pain away and make life seem that much better. Of course now that we are not near horses, he feels the same way around our dog – who is like “[his] own therapist” he says
I am a recovering alcoholic. While horses definitely kept me a member of the “functioning alcoholics”, they did not keep me from going morally bankrupt, or from using alcohol and drugs. They definitely limited what I spent on the stuff, but alcoholism is not something that develops, rather something you are born with. The simplest way I can find to explain it is that nobody is crazy because they drink, they drink because they are already crazy. I will say that if not for my horse, I would not know what love is. You see, alcoholics don’t know how to love. We love being intoxicated. We are a selfish, manipulative bunch. We do not know what love means without a drastic change in our thinking and the way we live. I only wanted to know what I could get out of a relationship of any kind, not what I could put into it. That is not love. I can honestly say that for the first 20 years of my life, the only thing I ever truly loved semi unselfishly (and there was even quite a bit of selfishness here) was my horse. I would have and would do anything for her. She is the sole reason I didn’t go off the deep end, because I sure was headed there. I remember grooming her when I was high, hating myself and what I had become. She was not enough to get me sober though, losing a job wasn’t enough, friends starting to hate me and wanting nothing to do with me wasn’t enough, because I am an alcoholic and we are morally and spiritually sick. I rationalized being late on board and the bitch who had let me go like crazy, not because I was ignorant or hateful or mean, but because I had gotten to a point where I was helpless and didn’t want to admit defeat. Horsepeople are proud people, so are alcoholics. I had a double whammy going there because I thought being an addict and alcoholic made me weak and that was a serious ego deflator. The best thing I ever did 8 months ago today was show up at an AA meeting. Today I have 7 months and 12 days sober and I have never felt better, ridden better, or loved better in my life. Not all alcoholics are irresponsible derelicts who abuse their horses and their children. I’m not. I respond to alcohol differently than most. It consumes me, not because I wanted it to or because I let it but because my body had a physical and mental addiction and I didn’t want to be without it. Isn’t it funny…..I quit drinking before I ever drank legally…..I’m twenty and will be 21 at ten months sober!!
I have a close friend who had a similar experience. You are smart to have gotten help and gotten clean so young, and before you had children of your own! Alcohol is just one of those things that some people can handle and others can’t. You know now, and early, that you can’t and I wish you luck in continuing to push it away for a lifetime.
I actually found out in November I’m expecting. I thank God I got sober first. This wasn’t how I planned it. Believe me–I wanted to finish college and get the job with the good health benefits and then the marriage and just playing with horses for a while THEN the baby. Ehhh sometimes a higher power has other plans. I hardly have anything in order for this monumental life change but I have my sobriety and I get to stay in school and keep my horse because I have wonderful parents!!!
One other thing, I think we as a society need to have a little more compassion for people who are victims of alcoholism and drug addiction. Not compassion for what they do, just for the people. Not everyone realizes it as young as I did. They are not bad people, they just, for whatever reason, cannot face themselves. It is truly sad. I know all the arguments against what I’m saying. I used to make them. “Well, they shouldn’t have started doing drugs or drinking in the first place…” People are, by nature, curious. They will try things out and when they do they have no way of knowing how badly it can effect them. There are people who can do coke every three months and never get addicted. Then there are the lawyers and doctors and businessmen who are community heroes who try it once and are hooked and wind up dead two months later. Also, a lot of teens try weed. Some get mentally hooked. Since there are no serious consequences while they’re smoking weed, you know, why not try some coke? And the cycle goes on. It’s elusive. Drugs will trick you. Drugs will trick a 4.0 student into believing they can keep that average up AND play with them. I know. That’s me. They are persuasive. And yes, I realized young, but a lot do not. It’s extremely sad, but not something that just goes away. It’s an entire life change. And who LIKES change? It’s harder than you think. Will power has nothing to do with it. The only thing that can save an addict is an entire life change, the way they think, who they surround themselves with, where they go, and yes, a Higher Power. Doctors can’t save them. Psychologists can’t. They tried. For centuries. It didn’t work. There is no “cure”. There is no “quick fix”. Horses can be a distraction, but an alcohlic or addict gets tired of distraction, by their very nature. Horses are the love of my life, but they could not have saved me.
I completely agree with you on this one.I grew up around horses until I was ten.I ended up moving out of state with my mom and we never got horses after that.When I was fifteen I ended up getting mixed up with the wrong crowd and got pregnant.I can’t help but think that if we would have not moved and kept our horses I wouldn’t be in this mess.Instead of going to parties and having sex I should have been doing 4-h projects and going on trail rides.Now instead of being resposnible for a horse I’m responsible for a child.I’m fixing to move back to my home state and plan on getting horses eventually.And I’m hoping that maybe having my daughter around these amazing animals will keep her from doing the same stupid shit I’ve done in my teen years.Its funny how horses can help and sometimes save people from their own stupidity.
Children who are going to rebel are going to do so regardless. Your child is a gift and SHE or HE has probably kept you out of trouble just as much as a horse would. Horses can only do so much for curiousity. Yes, they help, but you can’t spend your life wondering what if…it will never get anyone anywhere.
Horses has made a lot good for girls. In Sweden they have been used in compusory treatment with very good result.
Frossarbo Stables centred its treatment on ‘girls and horses’, training delinquent girls to care for horses which were being trained for participation in racing. As you will learn in this book, there was much more to Frossarbo’s programme than teaching the many stages in the care of racehorses. The concept was designed for the psychological treatment of the girls themselves: And it worked – strikingly well – not just for one year, or three, but for ten years. Frossarbo Stables became a concept within the treatment of juvenile delinquents in Sweden. Frossarbo Stables also became a constant reminder of the strength and capacity of those of our youngsters that we, too often, regard as hopeless cases. Some years ago, SiS ran a three-day seminar under the banner: There are no hopeless cases: This book will give you scientific support for this bold statement.
You can read more and get a free copy here:
http://www.thegirlandthehorse.com