Bringing The Boys Home

 

I brought Freedom and Stetson home last weekend.   What should have been an exciting and joyful event,  was instead fraught with stress.   The day before they were to come home,  my friend who owns the stables where they have been living, called me to say that someone at the barn wanted to buy Stetson.    She has a little girl who loves him and is very attached to him.   My immediate reaction was this physical sense  (it’s hard to explain) of fear and anxiety.    It’s my automatic go to.   I did what we’ve been learning in trauma therapy > when feeling overwhelmed or backed into a corner,  buy time.   I said,  “I’ll have to think about it.”    That was met with,  well you don’t really have time to think about it because he’s set to leave tomorrow,  so you need to decide today.    The person looking to buy Stetson was calling my friend and she was relaying the information to me.  A little girl will be heartbroken to see him leave, and another horse at the farm is very attached to him.   It felt like a lot of push to persuade me to sell him.

I got off the phone shaking and crying and then asking myself,  ‘why are you so upset?  Just say no.”    But I also know me and my history of being easily manipulated and guilted into caving into someone else's wishes even when it's not what I want.  Because I don't want to hurt someone else, I hurt me.   And I realized I learned this in childhood.   Being the older child I was expected to .... there's a word I'm looking for here .... ugh, brain fog!  If there was one thing that we both wanted (Alex and I) I would always be told to let her have it because you don't want to hurt your sister’s feelings.   And this played out over and over again with everyone I’ve  encountered throughout my life.    "Let them have it" to keep the peace.     Always capitulate.

So with this person wanting to buy Stetson, and the hook being a little girl loves him I was totally overwhelmed.   I felt like someone sucker punched me.   Like Stetson was being taken from me.   Like I was going to lose him.

I called Sean to talk me off the ledge and put things into perspective, and he said this was an opportunity to prioritize myself first, and while it feels difficult to do so,  it was imperative that I do.   If I prioritize the person and her child and let them have Stetson, I’m saying I’m not important, and this is a message I’ve been working hard to combat.   He said to take the time to decide what to say and only respond when I felt strong enough to stand by my decision.   Later in the day I sent the person a message saying that I needed Stetson to be home, and thanked her and her daughter for being his friends,  and that once he was settled home, they could visit him if they wished.    She was very nice about it and all was well, and Stetson came home.   But it was very distressing having to deal with the emotions and fear, and it put a lot of stress on me.

 

Disappointment

This week I got a call for a possible film job with the dogs, and I sent I photos and it looked very positive.   I allowed myself to be hopeful and look forward to this job.  Yesterday I got a message saying they chose a different dog from someone else.  I know this is how the business works.   It’s not new to me.  Sometimes you get chosen and sometimes you don’t.   But my auto reaction was soooo extreme.   My level of disappointment was disproportionate to the situation.   I was so upset.  For some reason it triggered all sorts of feelings of rejection, and being overlooked,  and unworthy.    My reaction was probably a by-product of the stress from last weekend with fear of losing Stetson,  coupled with fears of another pandemic lockdown etc.    But it really threw me for a loop and I’m still in that sad place.