Back Scars [Updated]

 I lift up the back of my shirt, and show him the ugliest part of me, the deep purple burn scar that covers most of my back from falling asleep on a heating pad over night.

"How did that happen?"

I tell him. 

"Looks new, looks like it coulda just happened."

I try to explain that yes, just an ordinary heating pad you can buy anywhere did the damage, years ago, however. "I was thinking about getting a large tattoo to cover it because that's all people see when I turn around," I say.

"Really? You should!" He says excitedly. 

I realized later that it was an invitation for him to touch me, and yet, he never did, out of politeness and boundaries, of course.

Purely as a Doctor Of Course

 I hold his gaze as long as he'll look at me--and then he turns his head slightly to the clock, "Should I get you to group?"

What am I trying to read into his momentary stare? His emotions? The truth concerning how he feels about me. Could he ever love me? Is it even possible?

Is it even silly to think about? Doctors have their ethics and principles. Over the years, I'm sure plenty of pretty patients have landed in the University hospital psychiatric ward. He didn't throw away his career for any of them. 

I asked him if he gets bored with me. The same symptoms, year after year. Unchanging, The stifled depressive with annoying voices, threatening suicidal ideations that never come to fruition.

"No, not at all. In fact, I'm all the more intrigued," he says. Patients come into the hospital, stay a little while, and then leave, never to return. However, with me, he can see how I change and develop. Maybe, dare I say it, he has liked getting to know me over the years. Purely as a doctor, of course. 

Do You Know What a Brain Chain Is?

 Do you know what a brain chain is? I do. But I've never put one on a horse. So, I lost points there. And then, when I put it on his horse, it was on backwards. More lost points. 

I've been trying to figure out why Mr. Short didn't want me to go to more horse shows with him after the end of my agreed pay at this last one. Before we started, we had a conversation that if things went right, if we liked each other, we would be open to the idea of going down the road, as they say, for futurity season. Well, three days later (long days later), as he was handing me my check, he said "I don't know where we're going next, but I have your number, if I need you, I'll call you." 

Lopers have a tough job. Preparing a horse for the show pen is a gritty job, especially if the horse is green, fresh or inexperienced in the show pen. The two horses I prepared for Mr. Short were green and had not been shown very much. One mare, Barbie, had been described as being "hard" to get ready for her run. The first day, I did it. She was perfect for her two and a half minutes. Mr. Short was telling me, "I'm proud of you, girl." Unfortunately, the next day, as he left the show pen, he described the mare as "not down enough." And then the next, she didn't get enough medicine (which is against association rules). I wanted to get the mare out of her stall very early in the day, and Mr. Short made me put her back. I was planning on getting her very tired. But I can't work magic in the time frame he gave me (he told me to saddle her up one set before hers). 

 

 

Depression, the Ocean and Virginia Woolf

 For depression, there's this big, vast ocean of severity, some are clearly drowning and some are on life rafts, and I'm very Virginia Woolf about it, just put these little stones, worn smooth by the water in my pockets, one by one as I walk along the side on the beach, dipping my toes in the waves, biding my time. I've got all the time in the world. 

When you're depressed, you're often overwhelmed by the abundance of time. What to do with it all? So many years of pain stacked up against me, pressing up against me.

From Cox

 Other rants from Cox, "I can't afford to dump the tractor trailer when it's only half full."

"No pony loping!"

Why Work is Complicated

 Today, Cox accused me of being afraid of my own horse, which is why I wasn't aggressive enough to help herd the cattle from the pasture into the arena. To be honest, I was thinking about the hill in the pasture, the squirrel holes and the rocks, and how riding at a lope or a decent trot, your horse could snap a leg from either one. Not to mention, Sawyer is unpredictable around cattle; he's seen them only a handful of times in his life. Who knows how he could react. But I guess thinking along those lines makes me overly timid. I don't have the fearlessness needed to make a great rider.

After that, minutes later, Sawyer spooks, for reasons I don't remember and which aren't important because he spooks at all sorts of sights, and jumps sideways. Cox starts yelling, "Sit down! Sit down! You're standing up in your stirrups!" 

I guess I don't like being screamed at or told I'm frightened of my own horse because I walked through the gate into the arena, dismounted (safely), and walked out. Clients were in the barn, not to mention Cox's girlfriend. I had to pretend everything was okay while I unsaddled my horse. The clients aren't talked to that way. He would never insult Betty, who has three horses in training with him. Kelly was there also, and he openly flirts with her. Me? He has a hard time being civil to, and the rest of the time, he ignores me. 

Yesterday was worse. I got out Lucy, my mother's mare, to exercise. Cox has not been riding at all since he injured himself over a month ago (closer to 2 months ago). I loped Lucy around for a while, and was just about to put her up when Cox flagged me down. He had a correction bit and a tie down in his hands. Surprisingly, he changed out the bits and climbed on her. He hasn't ridden her in months. He did some backing and some circles, and then went to work the flag. The poor mare. He jerked on her and spurred on her, and even slapped her in the head even though she hasn't worked the flag in weeks, and hasn't been ridden by him in over a month. He just beat her up for no good reason. By the time he handed her back to me, she was soaking in sweat from head to toe, and puffing so hard that even though I walked her for thirty minutes, she was still breathing heavy. I bathed her and kept the cool water on her until she came back down. If I told my mother this story, she would go and get Lucy tomorrow. Hell, I felt like saying something to Cox, but even if I did, it wouldn't make any difference. Maybe the good news is, Lucy is coming home anyway. How unusual are Cox's training methods? Not at all. Cutting horse trainers can be vicious and cruel at times, and it's one of the main reasons why I left the business because I couldn't stand what it did to the horses. What Cox did was not exceptional, but regardless, the mare didn't deserve it. Cox claimed that Lucy was giving him attitude, but even if that was the case, sometimes you have to be smarter than the horse.  

Hospital, Part II

 If we're perfectly honest here, and I always try to be in my writing, if no where else, then I actually don't mind being in the hospital. Most of the time, I rather like it because I'm surrounded by people who are in tune to my needs and to my illness. Being in the hospital means I can just focus on treating my illness, and nothing else.

 There are parts of it, yes, that aren't great, but over all, it's a welcoming, supportive environment, something that I don't get on the outside. People understand me there in ways of which few people understand me in daily life otherwise. Being that I find the hospital to be an uplifting and positive experience over all (some people do care about me in the hospital), I question myself vigorously over and over again about when is the right time to go to the hospital (it's not meant to be a vacation), and when is it the right time to leave the hospital (it's not meant to be a long term care facility). I don't want to go to the hospital too early, and I don't want to leave too late just because I feel connect to the staff, for instance.

Hospital?

 Mom has been hinting that I need to go into the hospital. "Better to go early, and be released sooner instead of waiting and ending up being in the hospital for two months." The problem with that theory is the fact that the hospital wants to see you at your absolute worst, no where to go, completely psychotic, suicidal with a knife held to your delicate wrist, anxiety so bad you can't leave your house to go to work or even to go get groceries, so thin you're fed through a tube in your nose, so depressed you're a walking zombie, etc, etc. Over the years at Stanford, I've seen it all, and it's not pretty. 

I have far to fall before the hospital will take me serious. So, what is Mom worried about? The same shit I'm worried about. I was cleaning Streak's stall (mare), and the walls, the shavings, and the manure started talking to me, nonsensical, but yes, talking. Voices, low and quiet. Whispering. It only happened because I had the music in my AirPods because I had just finished talking to Cox. These voices creaked up on me. They hung around until I was finished cleaning the stall, and then as soon as I left Streak, they were gone. The experience has not been repeated because I'm sure to have my music on. The whole experience scared me because these voices were different from James. They were not under any kind of my control. James is predictable. He says the same shit over and over again. These voices were different. 

I told my CBT-Psy therapist about it, and she didn't seem to be concerned, but she said she would inform the doctor who is handling my case while my regular doctor is out on sabbatical. 

Since then, new voices have appeared. but they're like James, loud and obnoxious. 

Another issue that has my mother concerned, something that I haven't dealt with for a while, is my suicidal ideations are back. I haven't thought about killing myself for a long time. Months. They're just thoughts at this point, but it is a definite shift from even a few weeks ago. My mother asked me how long does it take for me to descend and get sick enough to require hospitalization from this point, knowing how I feel right now. I told her a month to two months. 

I don't want to be sick enough to require hospitalization, and I don't want to go through the nasty process of getting there. 

Mom told me not to worry about Sawyer or Cox if I were to be hospitalized, she would make sure that was handled.

Cutting Horse Methods

To an outsider, if I told you everything Cox did in the name of training cutting horses, you would think he's an asshole. The spurring, the jerking, the slapping, the brain chain. I watch schooling all the time that I don't personally agree with. It's too harsh. I have a constant moral dilemma over how much of this should I tell my mother since Mom has a mare in full time training. At what point does education become cruel? (For instance, Cox spilled after working Lucy on the flag, that she was "a psycho")

Most people in the cutting horse world wouldn't even bat their eye at Cox's methods. Taking a horse, who has talent to start with, to do this job takes hours of schooling and precision. Sometimes that "precision" means drilling and scolding, over and over again.

Thursday, Cox decided to "lay a horse down," which is when someone ties up a front leg, and waits for exhaustion to cause the horse to lay down on the ground of the arena. This trick is saved for especially stubborn or spirited horses who are not accepting training. My friend John was going to do it to Sawyer, but luckily, Sawyer turned a turner in training, and it wasn't needed. All it does is makes the horse submit to handling and to be under human control.

The blue roan stallion fought the rope for some time, refusing his fate. He even reared up at some point. Eventually though, he became too tired, and he laid down and then rolled onto his side. Chase sat on him, and patted him over and over.

Voices at the Cox Ranch

 The voices, particularly James (99% of the time, it's just him), run rampart when I'm at work for Cox, saying the same dumb shit they always have been saying--nobody likes you, you're a piece of shit, etc. 

(James told me multiple times I was beautiful yesterday, but his true motive came out today, he said that if I wanted to die pretty, I needed to die soon as age will make me ugly)

My therapist who just handles the psychotic symptoms has decided that I need to journal and use Airbuds (play music while cleaning stalls and walking around the ranch).  My psychiatrist told me that upping my clozapine to the level it would take to get rid of auditory hallucinations would interfere with my functioning, and I probably wouldn't be able to hold down a job nor go to school. 

He also told me that he thought when he first took on my case he would never live to see the day of me functioning so well and at such a high level, and that he considered himself an optimist. He was amazed because I was considering the reality that I might die of old age, and I've never dealt with that before, always thought I'd end my own life.

But I'm still plagued by the voices. I have a theory that if I stop believing in what the voices are saying, then they will go away or at least their power will dissipate. 

The stress of dealing with Cox brings about James. The two are connected some how. Interestingly enough, the voices go away when I'm riding, which is why equine therapy is so helpful, and why I continue to go out to Cox's place. James bugs me mostly when I'm not doing any specific work. 

James continues to spit in my face (metaphorically, of course) that Cox only puts up with me because of my parents.

Bait

 Of course, Cox has baited me, telling me that if I learn to work the flag well enough, I could train some of his horses. 

What a Few Bad Days Means

"You know what my problem with you is," Cox said to me as we sat on our horses in the working arena. All I had said to him moments before, "I'm not sure I can school my horse and handle the remote at the same time." 

Cox had been on me (talked to me a couple of times) about taking over flag duties and doing it myself (moving the flag back and forth with a hand remote instead of someone else operating it for you). I had never done it before, and I didn't want to screw up my horse, fucking up the remote and sending the flag all over the place where the horse can't keep up.

Oh god, I thought. 

"You have all these insecurities that you need to work through," Cox starts, and he continues, "You need to learn to go outside of your comfort zone." 

Eventually, the conversation turns on him, Cox explains that he's having a few "bad days" and I'm witnessing it. Everyday, he told me, "can't be all lovey-dovey." 

My only response to this onslaught was, "you're blunt." That just seemed to make him more angry. I tried to expound to him that I trying to be respectful to him always. His best retort was, "You've been blunt with me." (I don't remember me ever attacking him personally.)

The truth of it is: I am insecure about my riding abilities and in my personal life (thank you, Cox!), and also need to push against my boundaries and learn to dance out of my comfort zones (thank you, Therapist and Cox!). He's not lying. He has a point. But it's not his place to be criticizing me personally when none of it has anything to do with cleaning the stalls or loping the horses. Those are my two jobs and I do them well. He had to attack me on a personal level to find anything wrong with me since I complete my tasks with pride and dedication. 

Somehow it was decided that I wouldn't clean stalls on Saturday, but instead would go to the club cutting about two hours away in order to help. I wake up early, drive there, and show up for the first class, the Open. I cool out one of the horses, and when I find myself free of tasks to do, even after asking his girlfriend if she needs any help, I go to Cox. He's by the show arena, but not in it. "Do you need any help?" I ask him. 

"I'm not the person to ask that today," he says gruffly, laced with irritation.

I figured he would have been in a better mood since he won one of his class, and continued to do well throughout the horse show.  

I find some small chores to do, but after a while, it's obvious that everyone could live without me, and I tell the girlfriend that I'm headed home. I ask if she would like me to clean stalls since they will be super dirty, having skipped being cleaned on Saturday. She surprised me by saying yes, and so, on Mother's Day, I cleaned stalls. 

 

The Hit, Part II

 I've been wondering off and on, maybe too much, what kind of person kicks a puppy for barking? 

The girlfriend, just talking along during a horse show once, explained that the little puppy slept in the bed between her and Cox. 

Surely between the two, the dog isn't neglected or mistreated.

The Hit

 He told me to kick his puppy. I was listening to my airbuds while dragging the manure wagon behind me and his puppy, what they call a "cowboy corgi" came up to me, barking. Cox flagged me from the arena, and I took me airbud out of my good ear. 

"I'm asking you to kick my dog," he says to me in all seriousness. 

At first, I thought this was a test of some sort. Surely, he can't be real. 

He repeats himself. 

I look down at the puppy, and I act stern, and say to her, "No barking," and a paddle her behind gentle with my hand but dramatically in order to fool him or satisfy him, either one or both.

Sawyer

"He's just a horse, [Jae], he's just a horse..." Cox keeps telling. 

Just Sayin'

I wanna walk up to him, and whisper in his ear and say, "For hundreds of dollars, I made men like you cum in their pants..."

What Would Happen if You Were Just You?

 I don't know quite what upset me. The dialogue got started because I sent a text-message to Cox a few days ago asking him if we could have a "brief conversation about Sawyer" before his training/board bill is due. Cox approached me while I was on my second stall of the morning. I was feeling the burn already in my arms. 

My therapist has been telling me that I don't ask for what I want enough. I don't ask for what I need. I don't allow myself to be "me." 

"What would happen if you were just you?" My therapist has challenged me. I don't know. 

Somehow the conversation turned to where I asked if I could ride my horse five days a week. Cox was taken back by this idea. He takes his hat off at this point and rubs his face with his hand. "All these people want to come ride their horse, and I have to babysit them."

"I don't want you to feel like you're babysitting me!" I retort. 

I made a similar mistake of later on in the talk telling him what I really wanted. "I want a job. I want to be part of the crew."

"You want me to pay you?" He says incredulous. "First of all, you'd have to learn to clean stalls faster. I can't afford to pay you. Well, I can, but I don't need to. I have Case. He and I can do these stalls in an hour or an hour and a half. And Cass helps on the weekends."

(For the record, it takes me three hours by myself to clean all the stalls, inside the barn and the outside pens.)

Cox continued, "I'm trying to run a business here. It's not always lovey-dovy, sometimes I'm in bad mood..."

The man told me just weeks ago that he liked me and that he was my friend. 

He did offer me the option of leaving Sawyer in the pasture, and that way I can ride him all I want. I would still be around Cox 

As I started to leave,

"If you're going to be like that, take the horse home," he retaliates. 

Pulling the manure wagon absentmindedly behind me down the barn alley, "I'm going to leave and take some time to process what you said." 

I gave a horse cookie to Sawyer and then left

 

Fishing [Update]

 When I was younger, say in my twenties, I assume every men was attracted to me until proven otherwise. Dancing did that to me. 

Getting older, months without dating or sex, you begin to wonder if that statement is true. Men don't mock you, but they certainly don't compliment you. That being said, I don't drop my clothes for random strangers, I don't tease pedestrians, I don't haphazardly grab dicks or rub up against anyone. I've occasionally wondered what would happen if I put on a dress and make up and went downtown to a bar at night, and went fishing. Would I catch anything? 

Maybe this would be better use of my time instead of waiting for Cox to come on to me, which he may or may not do. And then, how will I handle it? And then, down the rabbit hole we go.

The day I met Dennis Hof I was wearing a ball cap and jeans, thinking I was going to a job interview for a ranch/riding position. He saw through the worn t-shirt and ratty jeans into something else. 

However, I feel like I've been living in dormant, and I'm not sure what I'm waiting for in order to wake back up. Time? I'm not getting any younger. Waiting to meet that special someone? I've been so disconnected from my surroundings thanks to chronic depression that I'm not sure I'd notice someone if he did cross my path. What would that even look like for starters? My fellow classmates are fresh out of high school and have pimples as their most difficult skin problem, not wrinkles. I've never met a student that I ever was attracted to, and maybe that's on me, not them. 

Making Me Nervous

 I used to have such good instincts about men, which is how I was able to survive and thrive as a private dancer. What happened to that? Part of it is: those men, I wasn't emotionally involved. I knew how to get what I wanted from them before the heart had a chance to mess things up. 

A few days ago, I was out at the ranch, and I was on the right side of Sawyer, saddling him up, when Cox approached me. He was right next to me, leaning down (the man is rather tall) and said while handling the pouch that was threaded to the back cinch, "For your snackies, in case you ever get hungry." He's smiling. It was the first time a man had been close to me besides the hug I gave my dad for Valentine's Day (he did buy me a box of chocolates). Was it bad? Was it inappropriate? I don't think so. I just noticed an up-tick in my anxiety until he left. I was worried I had horse hair on my face, and that he would have noticed (I did groom a shedding horse on a windy day). 

Talking to Cox makes me nervous, so I try not to do a lot of it. My therapist says I need to work on my assertiveness, and she wanted me to see if I could get my training bill decreased, but I didn't even ask him. I'm just going to pay him his regular amount. Why does he make me nervous? I want him to think well of me. Is there something more to it than that? Probably. But I haven't gotten it figured out yet.

Thoughts About Cleaning Stalls and School

 I've been thinking about my life, and having one of those "what does it all mean?" and "how do I make myself happy in the long run?" Maybe I was meant to just clean stalls because that makes me as happy as anything else. It's hard to screw up, so you don't have a boss hanging over your shoulder. You just have your job, and when you're done with your job, you're done. 

Maybe I was pursuing academic goals because I thought that would make my life have meaning because that was what society was bombarding my ears with--that message that said, "Finish a degree and you'll be a worthwhile person." Maybe I just wasn't meant to go to school. 

Of course, there are some real problems with not finishing college. Cleaning stalls doesn't pay very well. Obtaining a four-year degree helps in that department. And I probably will pursue a Bachelor's, but just not go on to get a graduate degree, like I always thought I would.

Taking Notice

 It was Mom's idea that I take lessons from Cox with Sawyer. That's how it all got started. It was interesting because Cox would not talk to me, and would flirt with my mother. I'm not really use to being ignored by men. I'm not in my twenties anymore, and I'm not a stripper. I don't put out that attitude. But damn, what the fuck is wrong with him? Why doesn't he notice me? Was it just about the money? I have my doubts that perhaps he's only loyal to the dollar. He has said that he's helping me because my mother has a horse in training (Lucy) and that my dad is looking for a finished cutting horse as well (all true). I would like it if he could be my friend, but I'm not naive. 

Then, slowly over time, he started talking to me, and looking at me, even though I really didn't talk much back. 

Most mornings, it's just Cox, and his assistant trainer, the Loper, who is very tall and lean. He's a good rider, and sometimes trains horses on the flag. Normally, I would be against that, but the Loper does a good job. The Loper doesn't talk much, and has known Cox for years. I usually start cleaning stalls on one side of the barn, and the Loper starts on the other side. He finishes before me. I'm slow. Dumping the manure wagon is the hardest part. But there's something about cleaning stalls that's deeply relaxing even though it's physically taxing. No one cares what the stall looks like after you're done (there are some standards). It's a mindless job. It's meditative. I don't like cleaning stalls, but I don't mind doing it either.

If you're cynical enough, you can say that Cox is just telling me all those things (that he likes me, etc) because he wants my parent's money and he figures helping me out will put in a good word with them. It's a lot of work to manipulate people like that, just for a couple of horses in training.  I don't want to think that's it, but I can't help the cognitions. He's pretty much said that's true, that's he's helping me because of my parents, but he tells me that he's my friend (that I have friends at the ranch). Where do you draw the line? 

 

Never One of the Guys

 So, my horse Sawyer has been staying in training with trainer, who we will call Cox, after famous, multi-million dollar earning cutting horse trainer Lloyd Cox. One afternoon I asked Cox if I could be "more involved" and that lead to today, which what Cox would describe as a "buddy system," I work for him, he trains Sawyer for me at a discounted rate. Make no mistake, a discount at $800 a month, and I'm losing money because the ranch is an hour away and I burn my discount in fuel costs driving that old Tahoe back and forth. 

"I like you," he told me the last time I was out there. We were in the pen that was set up with the mechanical cow (makes sense if you're a cutter). I was on top of Sawyer, who was puffing dramatically. He was practically yelling it. "You ride really good." More yelling. "If you broke Sawyer, you did a really good job because he is not an easy horse to get along with. He's a hard horse." I wasn't the only one who rode Sawyer. My friend John spent 60 days on him to make sure Sawyer wasn't going to buck me off, but still, I did most of the work. I didn't correct Cox. He was on a roll, and whenever he speaks, I let him speak and I don't say anything unless asked a direct question. I play dumb. It's better this way. He doesn't know that I started riding two-year-old horses when I was eight or nine-years-old, and that I started cutting at the NCHA level when I was eleven. I could have done something but then I stopped. I didn't finish what I started. 

There was an NCHA horse show at the local event center. My job sucked. I was expected to clean stalls at the ranch without any help. Ten stalls took me three hours. After cleaning pens, I headed over to the cutting, but the rest of the help had everything handled and there was nothing for me to do. So, I just watched the show most of the time. One day, we were all at a picnic table, Cox, his assistant trainer/loper and his farrier, who oddly enough works also as a loper. He introduced me to a woman who was sitting nearby as part of "his crew" (he made references to this fact that I'm part of the crew in his speech last time I saw him). 

When I was younger, ten and eleven years old, just learning how to cut, I was in love with my horse trainer. Praise or criticism from him fostered deep and lasting impressions. He was a god walking on earth. Any disappointment from him would be searingly painful for me. I was young and vulnerable then. 

I didn't tell Cox that I liked him back. It seemed to be inappropriate. He does have a girlfriend, but she is hardly around. Sometimes I get the sense from her that she doesn't want me around, and some days, she seems more at ease with the situation. Women, in general, have a difficult time in the cutting horse world. You can never be one of the guys. There are a lot of loper girls, but few female trainers. 

 The conversation got started last Friday because Cox wanted me to consider selling Sawyer to find another prospect that would take the training better. Cox talked about how to train Sawyer to be a cutting horse, he would have to "break his spirit." 

"I don't want it to get ugly," I said, referring to Cox training on Sawyer.

"It's already gotten ugly," he admitted. 

There's a way to train a horse besides beating them up.