Another installment in weird brain stuff

This time it is a story about me instead of one of my children. 

Do you remember a while back, long about last fall, when I was at my riding lesson and the horse I was riding threw me off? I ended up with a very sore tail bone, a cracked helmet, and probably a slight concussion. It could have been worse. 

I didn't ride that horse again until late this spring. I haven't shared this story, but things were going along fine until my body did a sort of panic attack and I suddenly could barely ride. Everything felt terrifying. I managed to make it through my lesson and figured things would be just fine. Except they were not just fine. For about two weeks, my body was stuck in panic mode. I couldn't even ride Bristol without panicking. It was bad. I'll also add that none of the horses were doing anything that would have triggered such an extreme reaction on my part. I told my trainer and we began the hard work of getting me riding again. 

This is what caused the work I was doing this summer, really paying attention to how I was riding, whether I was breathing or not (it was usually not, it turns out), and making adjustments, sometimes as little as a quarter of an inch in how I was holding part of my body. As with most things, what started out as something really very challenging has had something good come out of it as my riding (and my enjoyment and ease of my riding) has improved significantly. 

In all of this, I still had not ridden that particular horse again. Until today. I knew I would have to at some point, but I was just as happy putting it off. I had developed a real anxiety about this horse even though I had ridden her plenty of times without issue before she threw me. Let's just say I was not filled with joy when my trainer told me which horse to tack up. 

I had to make use of all my skills to keep my body calm.... breathing, focusing on the moment, shifting my thinking to how much I loved riding and how beautiful the horse was, reminding myself that I was a different rider than I was several months ago, etc., etc. It clearly worked because the horse was nearly falling asleep as I tacked her up, which, if she had picked up on my initial anxiety would not have been the case. 

If I ever needed proof that our cognitive abilities take a hit during anxiety, I got that proof today. Immediately after hearing what horse to tack, I went to gather what I needed. This was before I had really started to do the emotional and body work that I described above. I grabbed the bridle and saddle and then went to get the horse. I tacked her up with no issue and was feeling a little calmer when I got on in the arena. At this point, my trainer looks at her and asks if I put the right bridle on her. "Yes," I replied, "I remember looking at her bridle hook and taking it off." And this is exactly what I remember doing. I saw her name and took off her bridle. 

My trainer knew something was wrong and thought she'd just check before we began. Sure enough, it was not the correct bridle. So, we spent some time changing bridles and finally began my lesson. The lesson went fine, I rode well, the horse was just fine, and I was more than a little overjoyed to have crossed this hurdle. When I went to put the bridle away, I stopped to look where the bridle was that I had initially grabbed. It was three or four hooks down from the bridle I needed, yet I was utterly convinced I had taken the bridle off the correct hook. Reality was so different from my perception in the moment of extreme stress and anxiety. 

So the next time your child behaves as though they are utterly convinced that something they did doesn't match what you know to be the truth, then let me assure you that it is entirely possible that this is exactly what they remember. Then, began to play detective to figure out what could be causing them so much worry and concern that they are not forming accurate memories. It is one thing to know this in the abstract, but to have experienced is another thing entirely. I am not a betting person, but when my trainer asked me whose bridle I had grabbed, I would have bet a large sum of money that I had taken the correct one, that is how sure I was of my memory. 

Brains are weird.