The Willing Equine

“hey hello hi welcome to and or back to the equi-theory podcast i am your host jill therese a silly goofy equestrian who is here to talk about a lot of things today i have so many things and it's gonna be all over the place so i hope that you have buckled in and you have your phone locked so you are forced to listen to this maybe it autoplayed and that would be great because now you can't change it your hands are preoccupied you're busy um we're going to talk about things life and horse today are you in for it are you good are you ready okay let's go [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] so today with that chaotic intro i am coming to you guys to discuss possibly some woo-woo things um i hate to say it this is my formal announcement i might be a little bit of a woo-woo person i don't know if you guys picked up on that with the whole positive reinforcement thing but i really really think that i'm going that route i'm trying to to rein it in for the sake of my relationships and my people sticking around but we haven't quite gone to crystals thus far um no hate if you are a crystal person i see you and i think that's valid but um for the sake of my sanity i need to stay away from them for the moment um i can i can feel the emails and dms about crystals now um sorry camera's bouncing because i move my desk and i'm filming on my ipad because it's the only thing that will record long enough and in the highest quality oddly enough i have two very expensive cameras and they don't they're old so um anyway when you're working with your horse i don't know if you guys have noticed this and i quote this all the time so forgive me but there's a heartland quote jack bartlett said if you have five minutes it'll take all day and if you have all day it'll take five minutes and i really really find that to be true with horses and training and just if you need to do something with them um which is arguably always training just so we're clear but if you have five minutes it's not going to go well and uh unless you're you know you don't have an agenda but when you are on a time crunch it's almost always i find somewhat anxiety provoking in the horse that they're like you're bringing a lot to the table right now and um it's something that i have really tried to focus on in the past couple of years especially working with young horses um that are very they're like sponges and also clay at the same time they soak up everything and they're also very malleable so if you go into a training session with a young horse and you know you are all over the place emotionally you're upset at what's been going on all day you've been rushed and you're like i need to get this right in um you almost come to them with this maybe for you like background noise and you think you've left it at you know at the barn door or in your car or whatever but um to them it's like oh god what am i in for why is why is this energy coming at me and it makes a lot of sense because i i get nervous talking about things like energy with horses because that typically leads down the route of anthropomorphism and also justification of doing unethical things i find i don't know is that true for you guys do you agree with that or no let me know um but i i think that energy is a big thing for horses right because they they live in herds they are dependent and reliant on each other it's all interconnected and if if one horse in the herd gets tense and anxious even from clear across the field and they're looking at something or they're nervous about something every other head in the field except for maybe you know the like really old guys that are like it's a coyote i already heard it um you know they they just they all perk up and they're like what is going on what is that it's it's like a ripple that gets sent through the herd of this energy information transfer almost i don't know if that's that's giving it too much but um i like to think of it that way because it's simple it's easy to follow i think and so if you are you know coming into that as a herd member if you will not in the sense that your horse sees you as a horse but they can still feel you read your energy your body language um how fast you're walking how tense you are things like that and when you when you come at them with like oh i gotta get this done um i'm gonna get off my table because it's it's making the camera move um when you come at them with all of that loud noise uh it can make them want to back off a little bit and so when there are horses that i have to catch that might be a little bit more difficult to catch or that have had bad past experiences i actually like before i go even anywhere near their field i like sit maybe on my porch for a little bit and just kind of get centered take a bunch of deep breaths think about my intentions you know kind of go over with myself that like if it doesn't happen today it doesn't happen that's okay um you know try to get something positive done but if it doesn't if even nothing gets done that's better than forcing it and you know creating a worse experience for the horse and especially with those rescue types it's it's really really important to give them their space to say no and when you don't you're not actually getting a yes first of all and you can also be pushing your timeline back in terms of when you might get that yes so um i i just think it's really important to tune into yourself a little bit before going out and working with them and listening to yourself your body where am i at how am i feeling what am i doing and just checking into your body like am i in my tents am i holding my shoulders am i relaxed how's my breathing how's my heart rate is all of that like are we in just symbiosis homeostatic you know relaxation am i am i approaching this horse relaxed and without my silly human agenda um and you know obviously there will be days and some horses aren't super sensitive to it and or might be super used to it especially you know like maybe less in horses or competitive horses that you know their riders always like i'm gonna get you from the field i'm gonna tack you up we're gonna ride we're gonna work and then i'm gonna put you back and um you know so they know the drill and some of them might be more you know all right this is my life than others but other horses are a little bit more sensitive to that and when you start allowing for that yes to happen you might get a no for quite some time because they're like oh now you're listening and this is what i actually think and then when you take the time to really rebuild that relationship and show them that you will respect that no and you would like to work with them on getting that yes and um then you usually end up with an animal that is happy and willing to participate that you actually can't get to leave you um like azula is particularly bad with end of session cues with zoe i make a pile of treats or the alfalfa pellets that i use when i train and then i walk away and she knows that we're done training azula on the other hand i make the pile and she does not get it she's like what like i'll leave a big pile of alfalfa pellets and she would rather follow me and come with me she's like why are you leaving um then stand there and eat the alfalfa pellets and that is something that i need to work on for sure but um it's it's just kind of that little demonstration of like no i'm actually really enjoying the work let's why are you stopping stop tapping out i need you to keep going and so um really i think that all of what i'm talking about is listening paying attention and respecting what you hear and what you see and um for me as i was saying that i'm gonna use myself as an example i have had a lot of health stuff lately kind of my whole life but uh it got really bad lately for for a very long time i was not paying attention to what felt right and i was just kind of running headlong towards something i wasn't really even sure for example my friend and i are both in the same program at my college and we we did undergrad together in psychology and both of us graduated a year early and then we got into the graduate program and we were like how fast can we do this you know like how many hours should we take and how much is going to be too much how much is enough and whatnot and finally i looked at her and i was like what are do you know what happens after we finish this program like we we actually have jobs and uh we'll be giving therapy and counseling to people is this really something to rush through and what are we running towards you know being like half educated as a counselor and like then then you're thrown into the the big world and i have been told my whole life that school is the best place to be because you don't have you know all of the regular stuff going on everyone gives you a pass because you're in school still and they're like oh yeah focus on your study school comes first um and so for us it was like why are we trying to get through this so fast why am i rushing so hard why am i stressing myself out to no end and trying to get this done so fast like and and that was kind of like the first wake wake-up call that i had and i dismissed it because i was like nope this is what feels normal and i've had many conversations with her since about that sort of tendency because for a very long time i have been somebody that runs on stress cortisol is my drug of choice and i i i told her so many times i was like i don't know who i would be without anxiety i and like not in the like crippling can't leave your house type but in the oh my god i have to get things done and i think a lot of that comes from the adhd and procrastination the perfection paralysis and as it's like i depend on the anxiety and the stress to get things done and somewhere along the way here i've realized that that is not how i want to live my life and i thought it was fine because i live in america and i am supposed to be productive and if that is the way that i'm productive that's the way i'm productive and beyond that it went deeper that like who am i without being stressed and neurotic like who is jill trees without that and i i was very afraid to look at that it physically made me uncomfortable to think about like relaxing and taking a breath and um you know i i want to talk about some people that have been really influential in my life and on this sort of journey uh if you guys listen to the come along for the ride podcast there's a lot of really awesome interviews on that podcast tracy malone has that energy and she did um i'm not exactly sure what but i know that she did equine assisted counseling therapy something to that effect and has that very like yeah that's amazing it's beautiful like you can just tell those people have a deep appreciation for life they have this underlying like vibe of calm contentment like everything's gonna be all right you know and just like no stress and i'm sure that they experience stress and pressure and get anxious and riled up but for the most part they're like baseline is just like i'm good you know and the other one is work schiller i listen to his podcast um pretty regularly i go in spurts i'll listen to like eight episodes in a row and then i won't listen for a couple of weeks and then i'll do it again um but he he has that energy and what i really like about him is that you can see that the change on his youtube his older videos it is not like that at all it's very loud masculine like you will do what i want horace he's being disrespectful and like all of that kind of jargon verbiage and um but it's also evident in his body language and just kind of the way he comes across his energy the vibe um and now in recent episodes he's talked a lot about mental health and his journey and i really appreciate that because it and it's also really cool to see in a cowboy archetype you know what i mean like you just wouldn't expect that and i i really really respect him for that because i can't imagine that that's easy to do especially you know in talking about how hard it was to deal with um you know learning how to have emotions again and display them as a man and society says no emotions for everyone in different ways though for men if you have emotions you're weak for women if you have emotions you're a woman because we're hysterical um so we just as a society collective globally just don't like emotions there are some that do really appreciate them and honor them and that's what i'm moving towards because honestly i've spent my whole life making fun of things like woo-woo and you know emotions and every time i get sad or upset i'm very quick to make a joke and like try and lighten it because it when i'm talking to other people and i'm crying per se i make jokes because i can tell they're uncomfortable and i'm uncomfortable i don't like it we don't like dealing with it and so avoid avoid avoid avoid avoid make everybody comfortable people please um and so in in learning how to sit with emotions and feelings and thoughts and just kind of observe them and be with them and then you know start processing and letting go without just being like well that was stupid or you know i'm just overreacting or invalidating in this way or that way all of those things just limit connection in so many ways and it can be really hard to do especially when you're putting your you know yourself on the line and in the hands of others who might also not know how to react or might also be uncomfortable with that and um so you know i i just think i i think a lot of warwick for that warwick it's hard there's another w it confuses my brain um but i think he's great and he really represents that that same energy and he talks about how it affects horses and that's really what i started to pay attention to because you know i'm a positive reinforcement trainer science based whatever you want i know that skill set but at the same time like i talked about in the last episode i'm a little bit uncomfortable doing training right now like you know outwardly advertising like training services because i feel like i'm still trying to figure out where i fit in um not necessarily that i need a like i'm science-based i'm connection based i'm natural horsemanship i'm positive reinforcement i'm clicker training i'm traditional like you know not that i need a category or a label but for me i want to know how i'm approaching training i i can give people advice and i can break it down really well with positive reinforcement and the step-by-step shaping plans training plans i can do that all day long but for me i feel like approaching it from a super purist scientific standpoint is great you can get where you need to go with that in most cases and you can get your goals accomplished but sometimes the goals aren't everything and like yes the horse needs to know how to stand tie halter load stand for the farrier you know take shots all of that sort of thing and that requires training um and not that you know i'm talking i'm not talking about just like sitting in the field with the horses what i'm talking about is finding my own my own path what feels right and authentic to me and um maybe a better way to put this is positive reinforcement and clicker training feels like 70 of it that feels like the method and i'm looking for the the other 30 that feels like is missing that i'm finding is that relationship and the energy the connection and because it's kind of in my opinion it's kind of undeniable horses are freaking magical dude like there's something about them that is so different yes they're goofy silly wonderful creatures and they have quirks and they have flaws but i think that that's a part of it and and they they really bring out something in us that i think is is truly unique and something that only horses and animals can do but specifically horses and so like what i was talking about with azula she really had something that i was missing from the moment i met her when she was five months old she had this like self-assuredness and you know a big middle finger to anybody who was not you know gonna respect it and i respect that and i think that's why we clicked because i was like and you know back then i wasn't thinking about this sort of thing i was like clicker training step by step by step how do i do this and something about that feels a little bit mechanical and detached i want to be very clear when i say this i don't think that clicker training is mechanical and detached i think that only approaching training and interacting and working with horses with a method is a little bit mechanical just like i would with traditional training if you go out and you grab your horse and you tack them up and you put the lunge line on and you do that and you do the side rains and then you get on and you use your spurs and or you don't and you just ride around and you have like we need to go through this movement we need to practice our dressage test we do this at x we do this it just feels a little bit like mechanical and something is really appealing to me about that element of like connection and that's why i would get so frustrated listening to oryx episodes and watching some of his videos because there wasn't training happening and it was just absolutely baffling to me confusing and i needed the answer much like i did when i first saw adele shaw the willing equine and how she approached training she's another one of those people that just has this like sense of like i'm good i've got it like very soft approach and um when i first saw her doing clicker training and doing all the stuff that i could not get my horses to do willingly i was like i need to know everything about that right now and so um that's kind of one of the wonderful things about the mind of gil is that i just i get hooked on things fixated hyper fixated if you will um any of my neurodivergent people out there you feel me um but yeah so like that's i i just kind of want to explore everything and i was very quiet about it at first because i was like and i and the discord patron members they know um but anywhere else i was like i i kind of am known as the positive reinforcement girl so i don't want to start getting woo-woo cause i feel like when you start talking about relationship connection like unless it's in terms of what positive reinforcement does for those things like you know you create positive associations with yourself now your horse likes you like those sorts of things but talking about how you how things can happen outside of strictly reinforcement punishment out of the quadrants how things can still happen you get it starts to give positive reinforcement a bad name i think because it positive reinforcement is already labeled as the tree hugger woo-woo crazy cat ladies and horse incarnation um so when you when you start down that road and i start talking about it then i feel like i'm i'm undoing the work of the science and all of the work that i've done promoting it sorry my voice started sounding weird um but you know what this is my freaking podcast and i am one trainer and all positive reinforcement trainers are not the same and many of them are very anti-woo-woo because they like science and i'm one of those too why not both though i am the little taco girl that the two tacos why not both that's how i feel um that i i want i want to explore both i want to explore the science and the research side of it but i also want to explore the connection the beyond side we'll call it um you know because i i just feel like it's inherent with horses if you pay attention to it it's there and um so what i was saying about watching works videos there's there's one i forget what the title of it is um i'll link it in the episode and make a quick note to myself here okay um so there's this video on his youtube channel that like i said i'll link in the show notes um where he there's this horse he's he's doing a clinic and he's talking to the audience the crowd and he's explaining something i forget exactly what he's explaining and the the cameraman or woman is panning over to this this horse that he's going to be working with and the owner of the horse is just being absolutely drug around by this horse it is like rearing and tossing its head and just doing all this stuff i actually can't remember if it reared so if you watch it don't but but it's clearly like over threshold it's doing a lot it is the definition of a kite horse it's flying and she's just hanging on for dear life getting drug around bumped into all sorts of things and so there i don't think there's like a cut in the video um but then she when he's ready to start working with the horse she brings the horse over and hands him the lead rope and the horse just stands it it just stops i mean like it is going nuts and the woman isn't doing anything like to incite this behavior i mean she's not waving a flag around she's not like you know asking him to do anything she i'm sure she would much prefer that he just stand next to her um and she is just like really fighting for her life out there and she walks over to him and hands him the lead rope and he takes it and he says hi how you going to the horse and the horse stops nothing and i watched that and i was like so angry and frustrated because you know that that is the the real life reality embodiment of what everyone sees on heartland and shows like it where you get this magical horsey connection and they just it's like you have telepathy and um it was so frustrating for me to watch because i was like how did he do that how how did that happen did the horse just get tired all of a sudden no that is not what happened the horse he just was there and that presence that acknowledgement of the horse and his concerns and an awareness a continued awareness of the horse i think is and and just your own human energy you know i have been many times that owner that is being drug around by their horse that is embarrassed to no end because they absolutely cannot handle this beast at the end of their lead rope that is just absolutely losing its mind and is so rude and disrespectful and like wow i can't believe she lets the horse act like that it's like i'm trying not to it's not happening though it's a horse it will do what it wants and um so i've been there and i'm sure that her energy was very anxious and loud and laughs oh what's happening this is embarrassing i can't handle my horse look how bad he is ah and um i don't know how public speaking mr warwick is like okay and like just able to tune in and be that present with the horse i really think that that is i mean that's the only thing if you guys have seen that video please comment below and let me know what you think changed um and if you can tell a difference and um yeah so i don't know it was just it was insane to watch because that that was like the first moment that i was like huh now i'm confused and i hate to admit that because i i really really don't want anybody to walk away from this and be like ah see positive reinforcement isn't it i think it is i still think it is i think it is the best way um it is the best way through science um and it's the easiest to apply that is ethical if that makes sense talking about stuff like this is not super easy to apply and that is because of another thing that i learned from him warwick is that a lot of those changes that need to happen in order for that lead rope to be handed over to you and for the animal on the other end of it to relax around you has to happen away from horses usually it is something that has to happen and come from you personally and who you are and settle some of those things it's kind of like i would imagine showing up to an airport with a million bags of luggage people are probably gonna roll their eyes at you and be like oh my god really and whereas if you show up with like a backpack they're like send you through security you're quick that was easy awesome and if you show up to riding you know or to working with your horse with a bunch of baggage they're going to be like ugh this guy again but if you show up with you know a light load and are just happy to be there you know it's it's more pleasant to be around and i i get that and i i also want to clarify that i i think that horses are really good for dealing with your baggage number one they are so patient they are so forgiving and they are magical they are healing all powerful beings honestly why don't we worship them um but like they're good at healing it but it's not their responsibility if that makes sense let that sink in it's not up to them to fix us and i think a lot of people in the horse world you know and just people in general struggle with a variety of different mental health issues but most equestrians that i meet either struggle with anxiety depression adhd you know neurodevelopmental disorders things like that the all the labels that we put on them and as somebody that is studying clinical mental health counseling i am very aware of those things and so when people say that i'm i'm logging it of course this is anecdotal um but i do think that there might be there might be some truth to that horse girls are crazy i mean um but not in the sense that any of those issues is crazy you know what i don't need to qualify that you know i don't mean that um but it it's just like it's not their responsibility and it they help yes of course but it's it's similar to what i'm learning in therapy it's not my responsibility as a future counselor to fix someone my responsibility is to facilitate someone else helping themselves and achieving the life that they want to live on their own terms and not according to what i think that they should be doing it's it's up to them and i can help guide and facilitate and help them think about things and evaluate things but it is not up to me to quote unquote fix them and so that's i think a lot of people come to horses maybe with that impression that like you know oh this is my safe space my horse always makes me feel better and on the days where you're having a bad day and your horse doesn't make you feel better i know we've all had one at least for me it was like oh you too and then i just you know not blamed the horse but i was like ugh another thing in my way and so that's that's where i i come back to the the listening and the presence thing because i really do think it's a important and it happens away from horses so for me lately i'm gonna try to be concise with this i make no promises though um like i said i've struggled with a lot of health issues my whole life i have always been very uncoordinated and clumsy i have um struggled with things like you know joint pain like it always seemed like there was something wrong with me as a kid my immune system was absolutely garbage like so bad i was sick all of the time in fifth grade i had strep throat five times i missed the first day of school because i had strep um constantly just sick every year i got the flu and like nothing nothing seemingly could help and then as i've gotten older i did five years of allergy shots if that tells you how bad my allergies were uh and and that did help me to stop getting sick so often but i was still like always had some issue but in the past like two years or so my my biggest issue was constant migraines not debilitating to the point where i'm like vomiting or uh you know have to lay down for hours on end but to the point where i was in pain for a lot of the day and so there was that element and then there was also the joint pain and so i i really started to get irritated because i couldn't figure out what was going on with me and like why at 23 years old do i feel like i have rheumatoid arthritis because my body feels so bad i don't know what rheumatoid feels like but my parents both have it i think and or arthritis pull stop maybe i don't know but um so what i've heard it described as is what it felt like to me and that was very not good i did not appreciate so i started going to different doctors and talking to them about what was going on and just couldn't get an answer and this is where things get a little muddy for me because i said earlier i'm not a scientist but i am what i would call an armchair scientist where i need the answer to everything i want to understand all of the things and so when i was 14 i started struggling with depression little maybe it's tmi i don't care though uh when i was 12 i started puberty and then everything you know starts getting going and then around 14 your you start to be like really into your puberty your menstrual cycle if there are males listening i apologize i hope that you don't have a problem with this it's life get over it um so when those when you start like actually ramping up uh then things happen hormonally that can cause things like that and also so that's that's like physiologically what i think might have been happening for me at the time is just hormones all over the place but also uh my diet garbage when i was younger so bad and i i blamed my diet for a lot of things and my parents tried they really tried um they tried to get me to eat healthy and i wouldn't do it i've been a picky eater for as long as i can remember just you couldn't i would rather starve than eat anything that looked or smelled weird to me um and so at 14 is when i started rethinking religion raised in the south the bible belt and i was like hey maybe this isn't my thing um and started diving into all of that and then i really felt like i found myself and being like i don't think this is for me that was great and it made me feel really good that i was like yeah this is a part of my identity that i am kind of taking control of for myself here uh the only problem was um it it felt good personally felt very bad socially everyone i grew up with was very much christian and uh you know when you're in high school you're kind of i'm trying to think of a polite word to use here not the nicest humans um or the most emotionally intelligent developed and so when i would tell people i would get like the so you have no morals right okay well that's nice i'm glad you think that i actually do i i got a lot of them from the religion that i was raised in but also i evaluated them for me myself and i personally and decided what i think feels right for me and i'm happy with that it was a dark time because all of a sudden i didn't fit in anywhere and i was kind of isolated i had friends but like i couldn't really be me you know and so there was a lot going on in early early days high school things so i finally got to this point when i was 16 and again might be tmi just warning um that i got on the birth control pill because i had some rough acne going on actually first i was on the depo shot and that was not good because i oh god it was not good i got so depressed on that and so i think it was about 17 that i got on the pill and i was good my acne cleared up for the most part and i was chill however i would still go through really intense phases of depression and it felt like it didn't like sometimes obviously there was a a cause but at the same time there were there were a lot of instances where it didn't have a cause it just felt like it came on and then uh we're fast forwarding up to pretty much the past two years about a year ago my acne started getting really really bad like i had popcorn sealing for a forehead it was just so textured and bumpy and awful and i hated it and so that that was causing a lot of insecurity an issue for me i had been going to see my dermatologist because i had also struggled with eczema my whole life which if you don't know is an inflammatory skin condition and uh my mom had tried to tell me at one point that that you that might mean you have a gluten intolerance and i ignored her because i was like that is dumb it means i can't eat the things that i want to so no i don't and so i i'm telling you this journey i promise it's coming coming to a head here but um i i fell down the youtube rabbit hole i watched every single one of hiram's videos and um was just obsessing on tick tock i spent so much money on skin care and you know makeup that's better for you and all of this stuff but i it just wasn't getting any better and then so i changed dermatologists and she was like dead set on putting me on accutane like every and like no tino shade if you have had accutane and you liked it good for you i am terrified of it and so i was like you know what i'm just not gonna do accutane and she just she was like okay we'll put you on spironolactone and so i tried that and my skin started to clear up a lot um but at the same time that is around when you know my joint pain started getting really bad and i was like hmm i don't know what's happening here but my body is very unhappy and so i i'm telling this story to bring a point to the listening to your body and demanding answers and getting them if you know by any means that you can if if nobody else is cooperating or wanting to help you because like my friends and family were supportive but you know past a certain point when you can't find an answer and doctors are like there's nothing wrong with you like i i pursued the the thyroid route i was like maybe i've got something wrong with my thyroid that's why i'm tired all the time that's why my joints hurt you know maybe this is it and blood work everything completely normal the only thing that i have that ever comes up on my blood work is i test positive for rocky mountain spotted fever i guess i got bit by a tick at one point um which is i i think contributes to some sort of autoimmune issue but like not really i mean if you get it treated like you'll test for it and it's you have antibodies or whatever but like there's not like some discernible fallout that i've noticed and so you know we were exploring that route and my doctors were like i don't really think that that is it and they were like your blood work and all of your test results are completely fine so you know maybe you're just really stressed and so i did the cortisol test and sure enough uh absolutely just all over the map um i know that adrenal fatigue isn't super scientific or accepted but point being my cortisol levels were crazy and not good and all the other things that they tested demonstrated that i was very stressed and my body was like uh uh can't do no more and so it was manifesting in a lot of different ways um however around this time my my sister was like maybe um your joint pain is because of your birth control and i was like what i uh what and so she was like just take a look into it she sent me some books that i have that i've been reading and oh my god wow if you are a person that has periods please by all means invest in the books fix your period and the period repair manual by laura brydon the first one is by nicole jardim they are heavily cited referenced books very well researched and just kind of lay out everything that you weren't taught and it will frustrate you endlessly because you'll be like how how did i not know this how did nobody tell me like why isn't this more widely known um and you know i'm not out here advocating for or against birth control it is up to you i know plenty of people that are on birth control and have no issue they are just thriving um but for me that seemed like the route to take i was like i need to get off of this and give it a shot see what happens and so um you know i i did and i've been reading those books and learning about my body and how hormones affect your body and so unfortunately what this means is jill is going the holistic health route and if you can hear the dogs barking i am so sorry i don't know how to make them stop it's the barn dog and then she gets my dog going so you just have to deal um but yeah so all of all of this means that like this whole time that i'm going to doctors and they're telling me that i'm totally fine and that it's and they're kind of like have the smug look on their face like silly woman she's doing it to herself and she doesn't even know it's all psychosomatic you know all of these things are imagined you're like just making up issues because you want attention this and that like i mean i heard it all and i was so frustrated by that because i was like that is not what's happening i'm not making this up and i don't think it's a manifestation of like some you know internal deep-seated inner child desire to be noticed and have attention which i have a podcast for i don't need that okay so like i i didn't understand that approach and i think it was just kind of a hands in the air we don't know what to do um and so i mean it makes sense i get it but not helpful for me so i i kept pushing because i knew that there had to be an answer i i got off of it and then i started seeing everything like first of all i feel so much clearer headed like i yes i have adhd and i'm all over the place and my storytelling is anything but linear but i i unders like i i just feel clearer i don't know if that makes sense but i'd been on it for so long i didn't know how like fuzzy and foggy things were and i stopped having to take naps in the middle of the day and i i don't have that sense of you know depression i might go through an episode again you know it might happen but like i don't have this level of reactivity that i did when i was on it and that wasn't something that i noticed right away it's been upon reflection like when i would get into an argument with my boyfriend earlier on in our relationship when i was still on it um he would like i would just get really reactive and like super angry and over the top and like just not how i wanted to be and i was like just not not i didn't feel good ever mentally physically emotionally nothing and off of it like i just i don't get like super ah anymore you know i like when we get into an argument i feel very level-headed and easy-going and i'm like okay i hear you like let's work this out like i don't know it's so wild how how much i feel like it might have been affecting me and my mental health and um you know not all birth control is created equal but i i think for me the right decision was to get off of it and now what i'm doing if you're wondering how i am avoiding becoming impregnated is um the fertility awareness method it's using basal body temperature cycle tracking and all of those things so it is rooted in science it has a very very high um efficacy rate it's not the rhythm method it's not nothing like that it's just um you know paying attention to your body's biomarkers for when you are fertile so that's fun and uh if you're not into all of that and you just listen to all of that sorry hmm it's just it's crazy information that i can't believe i didn't know sooner and i was very frustrated and irritated by that so i figured i would share that and it's also in line with this journey right so i started feeling better but then all of the things that my um birth control had been covering all along to be clear it's hormonal birth control um and so everything that it was covering up i got off of it and the spironolactone at the same time and uh oh my god my body absolutely lost its mind like i was a little moody and emotional not not unmanageable at the beginning of coming off of it it's been i think like eight seven or eight months maybe now and um the biggest problem that i have been having is the acne oh my god my acne is the worst it's ever been in my life at 23”