full disclosure...

If any of you are friends with me on Facebook or Instagram, you've probably already gathered that I tend to lean to the dark side of things from time to time. This can manifest in cryptic status updates and gloomy photos... but don't misunderstand me, I'm not looking for attention or crying out for help. It's a very real, very ingrained part of my personality. I've been an old soul since I was very, very little. I'm the kind of person who is profoundly moved by seemingly small things. I feel very deeply about things that most people don't. I'm a bit of a tortured soul (how cliche of me to say that as an artist) and I fluctuate between being extremely motivated and positive to states of crippling anxiety and depression. I had my first bona fide anxiety attack when I was 22. I remember it VERY specifically and I could not move for a few days. It felt as though someone was standing on my neck and I couldn't get out of bed. I'm sure at the time I really freaked out my roommate... but I was more frightened by all of it. Being very self-aware, I can understand and reflect back on why this happened, there were triggers, and a few major situations that led to that point. I had struggled with insomnia following a car accident in high school and that certainly didn't help much either. It took years for me to understand what was actually going on with my brain. My friend's Mother called it "underdeveloped limb syndrome"... the idea being that if you were born with one leg shorter than the other, maybe you wouldn't notice it as an infant, then as a toddler maybe your parents start to notice, as young child other children may see that you are little different, and by high school it's something that you've been made fun of for, and by the time you get to adulthood you're completely self-conscious about it, trying to hide it as much as you can and being very aware of it at all times. My anxiety is my under-developed limb. I can go long periods of times with nary an issue and then I fool myself into thinking it's gone. It creeps up on me like a stranger in the night and before I know it I'm back to being immobilized by it. But if it wasn't for this tortured soul part of my personality that feels things so intently, I wouldn't be who I am today. I'm a bit of a strange creature, and people are drawn to that, however I easily overwhelm people and can be too intense for some... I know that about myself. I fall in love with kindred spirits though and when I recognize that dark soul in someone else I want to hide there with them. Outwardly, I can seem very normal but inside I feel like a frayed wire. I am comforted by being social because it's a distraction from the war going on inside me.

Visual evidence of the brain's inner workings.

I don't talk about this much because it's hard to admit that your brain is wired differently. The last couple of months my anxiety has been rearing it's ugly head again and rather than acknowledge it, I swept it under the rug. Big mistake. Everything has been unraveling and I've been trudging through somehow. It got to the point that I couldn't function throughout the day without throwing up from the anxiety... so I reluctantly went back on medication (I have over the years taken various things to get through the worst periods) -- It's only been 2 weeks and I already feel much better. There are some onset side effects that have been tricky, like anterograde amnesia and generally feelings of fuzziness, but at least I'm back to functioning again.

So, I'm sorry for the lapse in posts, the lack of comments and the inundating of darker material in other social media outlets. Things are getting better but I'm still not in the best head space. For people that have never suffered from this kind of thing, I am very envious and I hope that you can appreciate my honesty here.

In other news, life at the farm has been good. Our co-op schedule is coming together pretty successfully. Riley is happy and seems quite sound. We moved some jumps into one of riding fields on Saturday. His feet look better and better, he's now 9 weeks barefoot and walking on asphalt, gravel and grass perfectly sound. He still seems slightly tentative, but I think I'm going to get him back into some light work. I think lunging on grass will be easy for him and he's staying plenty fit in his gigantic field.

Some updated hoof photos (apologies in advance for the durasole and slightly dirty feet. I had to move him to a different spot in the barn to get decent photos so he picked up debris!)

So he's 4 weeks post-trim in the most recent shot. The hoof angle has changed quite a bit and I can't wait for those rings to grow out. Also, check out his heel! It's so much better than the first shot back in July!

This is where I can see the most changes. Unfortunately the angles aren't the same in the photos so it's a little weird, but you can actually see his hoof wall growing down to give him some concavity! His heels are looking improved and his frog is spreading out. *Please chime in with any other thoughts people!

LOVE the progress on this foot. Look at his heels!!!!!!!!! He's self trimming pretty well and has long grown out the nail holes. He's grows hoof really fast.

Again, looking better. His soles are starting to contract slightly and overall I'm please with the growth.

The big difference that I see is watching walk on asphalt. We have to trek down the road to his paddock and he's been trying to land heel first! I trotted him a few days ago on the road and he sounded great!

Also, I got brave and despite my poor mental state, I went for a hack. I haven't ridden him in at least three weeks (I was giving him a little time to settle in the new place/his feet were still very ouchy) We have the most beautiful areas to hack around and I can't wait to explore more. Riley was pretty well behaved but did get agitated when some horses in a paddock took off.

I need to get him back into a program. It's foolish of me to think that i can just hop on him after so much time off and that he's going to be a saint.

Mounting block, to which the chickens took and immediate liking!

I brought Lucy and Hugo to the farm as an experiment to see if they could come on a more regular basis. Lucy = Yes, Hugo = No. He was a bit too aggressive with the horses and he managed to either jump out of the giant paddock I put him in or squeeze out. I was greeted by his wiggly butt in the barn aisle. They had a super fun time running around in a nice big pasture though! Lucy is looking more and more like a pitbull these days!

So that's all for now. I just wanted to catch up and say that I was sorry for being a bad blogger.

xo
Niamh and Riley

He gets to look out over 30 acres.