And now, a wee rant

[mme_hardy]

...which may just have been building for some time.

Migraine is not ... a headache.
Depression is not ... the blues.
Autism is not ... bad social skills.
Hyperemesis gravidarum is not ... morning sickness.

If you have, or know somebody who has, any of the problems on the right, this tells you nothing about coping with the problems on the left.

Comments

[green_knight]

I've been bolted with three times. The first time on a horse that was as unathletic as they come - I had no influence whatsoever, and Dobbin ran head-first into a metal wall (we left a dent!) but due to the slowness of the event, it didn't feel scary. At the time I didn't register what had happened.

The (probably) second time was over very quickly, and the horse came out of it on his own, and again it was only in hindsight that I realised just *how* little control I had - we're talking twenty meters and blazing speed, so it was over quicker than I could have reacted, so that might not have been a true bolt after all.

The third time was the real thing. It felt like sitting in the backseat of a driverles car which was hurtling down the motorway - there was nothing whatsoever that I could have done to influence what was happening. The horse was in pain, as I worked out afterwards, but it was _frightening_. I've been run away with many times, sometimes at high speeds, sometimes across open countryside - it's never nice, but I learnt how to a) anticipate and b) stop it, so a runaway never struck me as particularly scary.
A bolt is... in a category of its own, and you definitely recognise it when you encounter it. Thankfully, it's extremely rare - in twenty years I've encountered three horses, all three extremely anxious types (the first one died thanks to running through a fence and into a car when she was two, I knew her as a foal). The first one probably was hereditary, the other two had major undiagnosed pain issues.

But yes - like all panic/anxiety issues, hearing someone shrug it off is infuriating.

Oh, it's like when I...

[mme_hardy]

Children, if you can't play responsibly with your analogies, we are taking them away. Don't make me stop this Internet.

Re: Oh, it's like when I...

[legionseagle]

I don't think your remark is entirely well judged.

One of the most terrifying things that ever happened to me in my entire life happened when I was - what I have colloquially for the last thirty-seven years and (it would appear) apparently completely offensively referred to as - "bolted with on a pony" when I was a shade over my 13th birthday. It was painful, degrading (I experienced first hand that sort of ableism where someone speaks above the head of the person who can only sit down because of the broken leg and assumes that the injured person is deaf,too) and left me with a permanent weakness in the ankle in question.

Technically, I may not have been bolted with. However, I was shit-scared, and the physical and mental effects were permanent. Take the internet from me if you dare.

Re: Oh, it's like when I...

[mme_hardy]

I don't know from horses, so the news that "bolting" isn't the same as "running away" was news to me.

The point I understood green_knight to be making is that being run away with is, although bad, not the same thing as being bolted with. That's what I meant by the added title "Oh, it's like when I" and the discussion about analogies, and indeed what I meant in the original post.

Your experience with the runaway horse sounds horrible.

Re: Oh, it's like when I...

[legionseagle]

Sorry, but read what I said.

green_knight knows perfectly well that you can be killed and maimed just as effectively whether you're run away with or bolted with. What she's doing is saying the first one is the rider's fault and the second isn't. What I'm saying is that may well be true but it doesn't stop the effects hurting.

When you agree with green_knight what you're actually saying is that riders like me - that is, rather young and incompetent riders - deserved exactly what we got, namely mildly crippling injuries.

Re: Oh, it's like when I...

[green_knight]

Nobody deserves to be hurt, ever; and one should try one's best not to put people into the way of the potential injuries. Nor am I saying that it's 'the rider's fault' (if you were a beginner under the control of someone else it's much more likely to have been *their* fault for not training the horse, for not setting up a safe situation, for misjudging the horse's mood/the general situation/your skills, for not teaching you to cope etc.

But even at the best of times, it happens that horses will take off - they're flight animals. Mostly, it can be dealt with.

(I also feel that your 'I was bolted with and got terribly injured' isn't a 'problem' in the context of the discussion. What is the problem are the people who say 'oh, the horse bolted and I was able to shut it down easily' because if you could shut it down easily, _it was not a bolt_.

And again, I am sorry to hear about your injury and the consequences thereof.

Re: Oh, it's like when I...

[recessional]

I think that's where the big miscommunication is here? You're not talking about the effect of bolt-vs-runaway on the RIDER. You're talking about its origins in the horse - anxiety issue vs normal prey-animal behaviour.

Either can be equally devastating or equally a non-issue for the rider (see: your story about the first bolt on the unathletic horse) depending on circumstances; but FOR THE HORSE, running away is just a thing, whereas bolting is a panic attack.

(Sorry to intrude, but I both want to check that this is the right reading, and I thought it might be useful to be seriously explicit about it.)

Re: Oh, it's like when I...

[green_knight]

You're talking about its origins in the horse - anxiety issue vs normal prey-animal behaviour.

That sums it up better than I did; thank you.

Re: Oh, it's like when I...

[mme_hardy]

Thank you. That makes my mind much clearer. I think that's a really useful distinction.

Re: Oh, it's like when I...

[legionseagle]

Also, try to explain "Children" and "play responsibly with" and "we are taking them away" in the previous context, while you're at it.

Re: Oh, it's like when I...

[kore]

I think something that got said pushed a button for you and you're being rude.

[legionseagle]

Actually, if you're a nervous rider and have been run away with, this comes over as patronising and dismissive. No matter that you could have died from concussion, no matter if you spent six weeks lying immobilised on a sofa with a broken ankle, no matter how much guilt you were already feeling because you should have stood up (I tried; I felt my broken bone shift sideways in my boot as I put weight on it and fell fainting and vomiting to the icy lane) and GOT BACK ON THE FUCKING HORSE apparently one was only "run away with" so even daring to suggest that one might have been - yanno - permanently (mildly) disabled means one's clearly over-reacting.

[green_knight]

I am sorry that you had a bad experience and that it had such a horrid outcome.

But I think there are three things in play here.

(Zero: I can't judge what happened on that day and whether it was a genuine accident or an accident-waiting-to-happen: given how moronic the person chasing you back on the horse was, there's a good chance that there were other things lacking from their horsemanship.)

But assuming that the horse had run away with you -

- in the grand scheme of things, it's not a big deal, behaviourwise. It becomes dangerous due to outside factors (running away around cars, on slippery surfaces, when there are dangerous items or vulnerable people about), but _behaviourally_, it's NBD. Horses do this, and you can train them - and their riders - to avoid it happening.

- nobody said that the 'lesser' thing was trivial in itself, see painfulness of cluster headache. Just that they are not the same, and experience of one does not give you experience of the other.

- for you, personally, it was a lousy experience. It was dangerous, and it was extremely badly handled, and you're not overreacting to your pain and the consequences of your injury at all, nor are you overreacting to mistreatment you received when you said that you were injured - there's absolutely no excuse for that. Ever.
That you were just as badly scared or injured on a runaway as I was as the result of a bolt (shattered collarbone, torn rotator cuff, strained back muscle) isn't a reflection on the equine behaviour, anymore than the same injuries sustained if the horse had gone 'eek' and slipped on the tarmac would make that behaviour in any way comparable to bolting.

I'm sorry if I came across as trivialising your injuries - that's the last thing I meant to do, and just as you deal with the horse in front of you, regardless of what you think it 'should' be doing, you deal with the rider in front of you - and if someone is injured you don't tell them that the injury doesn't count because of how it was attained. As I said, that was not my intention.

[kore]

Nobody even said anything close to that. The original remark was "A bolt is the equine equivalent of a panic attack" and the only even vaguely critical thing was that a runaway horse can be "preventable or easily remedied by a good rider." Nobody's saying you weren't terrified or your pain wasn't real or that you weren't in a horrible situation, and you're being super-defensive, insulting and angry about stuff that nobody said.

[mme_hardy]

I think green knight and Recessional have done a good job of reaching a solid common ground without further conflict, and I'd like to stay on that common ground.

[kore]

Well, I see people humouring someone who's entirely derailing the conversation out of misplaced anger like a toddler who needs a time-out, but it's obviously your call.

[mme_hardy]

It is my call. Please stop it.