The time has come for me to reveal something to the public. I am a recovering horse girl. It’s true. I have been keeping this a secret for a while; I’ve been trying to subdue it deep inside until I forgot about it, but alas, I must speak on this topic before it swallows me whole. When I was five years old I had my first introduction to the horse girl lifestyle. It was innocent at first, a simple pony ride once every other weekend. But quickly, I felt the sticky tendrils of the horse girl illness taking hold of my soul. I began reading books that centered around horses and playing with horse stuffed animals in my free time. It began to escalate, however: over the next few years, the addiction took hold and I could no longer go more than a few hours without my horsey fix.
By the time I was ten, I only wore clothing that had horses printed on them, I only read encyclopedias on horses, and I only watched horse movies. My parents had to move me and my sister out of New York City because I needed to ride horses three times a week in order to function. When I wasn’t at the barn with real horses, I was pretending to be a horse. I would canter and trot around the playground and I insisted on eating only oats…outside. My family was hopeful that I would come to my senses as I grew older, however, the devastation of early-onset horse girl syndrome only gets stronger with age, and, in some rare cases, can be lifelong.
My family realized I had a serious problem when, at the age of fourteen, I was galloping on all fours in public. This is the hallmark of the late stages of horse girl syndrome. My parents had to pay students at my school to bully me back to my senses. It worked, and I resumed some semblance of a normal life, but the claws of the horse girl were permanently sunken into my essence and within a few months, I was back to my old ways. I was now required to leave school for months at a time so I could follow the horse competition circuit down to Florida for the winter. If this isn’t proof that this sort of thing can ruin a person’s friendships, familial relationships, and even their schooling, then I don’t know what is. For four months every year, I homeschooled myself at the barn, ensuring that a horse was never more than four feet from me. The horses had infiltrated my entire life and nothing could make me see reason. Eventually, when I was told I had to return to school, I began bankrupting my family by flying down to Florida for the weekends to ride the horses and watch the competitions, returning early to New York on Monday morning for my classes.
The worst part is, this not only affected me, but also my younger sister. She too was infected with the horse girl plague and now owns three that she competes with across the country. She goes to a boarding school for horse girls and all of her friends are horse girls. She hasn’t been to a full year of school since seventh grade due to her horse girl obligations. This is a contagious illness and can corrupt any family member, no matter their age.
My story has a happy ending, unlike so many others who were as deep in the addiction as me. When I came to college, I felt relieved that there were no reminders of horses around me. It was easier to become an entirely new person while I recovered from fifteen years of obsession. No one knew me or my dark past. For months I didn’t think about it at all, I was even able to casually bring it up in conversation without becoming completely catatonic. I will not go as far to say that I am cured; I will always be a horse girl no matter what. I notice around certain stressful times of the academic year, I have the intrusive thought or two about dropping out of college and becoming a professional horse trainer, but I now know how to separate myself from these sick thoughts and recognize that they aren’t a reflection of who I am or what my values are. They are merely remnants of the illness I was stricken with at such a young age. My advice to those currently supporting a loved one who is a horse girl is to heckle them with as many degradations as you can about their lifestyle. The only cure is shame. For people with young daughters who are exhibiting early symptoms; know the signs. This is a financially and socially devastating condition. Don’t let it tear apart your family like it did mine.