My Angel In Disguise

leaving dance

When I was about three, I started ballet. I loved to dance and I had such a blast very time I went. My skills grew and developed and I got better and better all the time!
Eventually, I grew tired of the slow paced moves and I wanted to go learn more jazz and hip-hop and fun stuff like that 🙂 My parents put me in some classes that were just for fun, but as time went on, I progressed and moved into competition.
I loved it, and thought I would grow up to be a dance teacher for the longest time…until I progressed in the competitive world and realized that I didn’t love it as much as I thought. The girls became more mean and the drama increased tenfold. The requirements were crazy and I found myself complaining more and dragging my feet as I went to the car.
It just wasn’t as fun as I remembered. I told my mom how I felt and she agreed with me that it was getting crazy, and she eventually pulled me out of dance all together when I was around the age of eleven. She asked me what I wanted to do instead, but I had no idea…

Now, if you’ve read my story or listened to it on the podcast, you already know that I began my addiction to pornography at the age of eight. I was still in dance when it started and as I progressed with my dancing, and the atmosphere began to change with competition, that’s when I relapsed a lot and could care less about getting better.
The competitive dance life was so full of drama and a whole lot of other stuff, and was NEVER a positive experience, I was always feeling sad and depressed and that didn’t exactly help me stay sober and cheerful.
Once I was pullout of dance I felt better pretty quick but still wasn’t great. One day, however, I finally got an idea of what I wanted to do! I told my mom that i’d love to start horseback riding lessons. I’ve always loved horses and so I figured why not try and ride one? My mom and dad thought about this for a couple days and then finally told me that I could do it 🙂

I was so excited to start my lessons that the night before, I went to bed the happiest i’d ever been in a while 🙂 When I finally fell asleep, I had a dream that has stuck with me ever since: I was standing by a horse and petting him and I remember that I felt so happy as I did so. The dream went on for a while and I was happy the whole time. I loved that horse!
Little did I know, that I had just seen my soon to be best friend in the whole world! The next morning, I got up and ready and my mom and I left for the barn. I rode a horse that didn’t look like the one in the dream at all, but I still loved her and loved riding! I fell in love with it right away and new that I wasn’t going to be a dance teacher at all…I was going to be a horse trainer!
During the time of my riding, I had had at least two relapses with pornography, but I realized really quick that I wanted to fix it as soon as I could, because I knew that if I relapsed my parents wouldn’t let me go to my lessons for a while and that was torture!
I rode that horse for a while and loved her so much! Then one day, I showed up to the barn ready to ride and my trainer told me that I was ready to move onto a more challenging horse. She told me that from now on i’d be riding someone different. Honestly I was so bummed! I didn’t want to change horses!

My trainer walked me to a stall that was towards the back of the barn and introduced me to the horse I would be riding…I started at him for a minute in silent surprise and shock because he was the exact horse I had seen in my dream! I didn’t tell anyone this for the longest time.
When my trainer left me to tack him up, I reached my hand out and stroked him on the face, again trying to understand what was happening. I saddled him up and got on thinking he’d be just like the other horse I rode…WRONG! He was a living nightmare!
He spooked at just about anything, he had the worst attitude problem, and he kept trying to slam my foot into the railing as we were riding!! I got off of him that day and thought to myself, “This is the worst horse ever”.
As time went on and I continued to ride him, I was able to figure him out and teach him some manners. I had already fallen off him at least four times, and survived many more spooks. My hate for him grew into tolerance and then that tolerance turned into like. It stayed that way for a long time.

We didn’t really start to actually bond until one day, when It was just me and him at the barn and I took him in the arena to run around like I usually did before I got on to ride. I sat on a mounting block and watched him run around and then he did something that really surprised me…he ran right up to me and lowered his head so I could pet him. That was unheard of! Usually I would have to chase him to catch him and it would take forever!
As I pet him, he began to fall asleep and I instantly was filled with that love and happiness I had felt in the dream. We grew closer together since then and I hated being away form him! Once when I was going through a really tough relapse and things just looked dark and hopeless and I thought about just giving up, I went to see my horse. I went into his stall and started at him for a minute and just broke down into tears. The past couple of days just hit home and I lost it.
My horse came over and placed his head on my shoulder and stayed there for who knows how long and just let me cry on him! There have been many other times like this one but that experience made me realize that I needed him. I couldn’t get through this trial without him.
In many ways, he has saved my life. If it weren’t for him, I probably wouldn’t be where I am today. He defiantly was my angel in disguise, and still is to this day!

We have since bought him and he’s been with me ever since! We have a great friendship and always will. I owe a lot my success with my addiction to him. He came to me in a time of need and has been there for me since 🙂 I know without a doubt that I could not have gotten to where I am without three things: My parents, my Heavenly Father, and my horse.