Can Horses Become Traumatized?
Look at these horses - what do you see?
Trauma occurs when we are confronted with deeply distressing experiences that overwhelm our ability to cope, causing feelings of helplessness, destroying our sense of self, and diminishing our ability to feel and express our full range of emotions. Now take a moment to think about how most of us learned to treat horses: We want complete control over their bodies. We use them for our enjoyment, to fulfill our desire for power, success, and perfection, and we expect them to willingly do whatever we want.
When they resist, we punish them through increased pressure and use of physical and psychological pain and distress until they submit and do what we want. A "broke, amateur-safe" horse is known as a horse that lets you do anything with them. A "bomb-proof" horse is known as a horse that never shows emotion and does what they are asked, no matter what.
Most horses learn sooner or later that their efforts to communicate often result in conflict, distress, and pain, so they try to cope using survival strategies rooted in flight, fight, freeze or fawn. You can recognize the difference between a survival strategy and a normal stress response because the horse will use the same strategy over and over again when confronted with a specific trigger. Which strategies each horse develops mostly depends on their personality.
Existing in “survival mode” is taxing on a system, and over time horses start displaying symptoms, many of which we are intimately familiar with as horse people.
If you were raised in conventional horse culture, chances are that you were taught to look past your horse's cries for help. Early on you might have seen that the horses you were learning from often looked frustrated, sad, or apathetic. You might have noticed that they disliked being tacked up, nipping and swishing their tails as you saddled them, and refusing to take the bit. You most likely were told to "tell them who's boss,” and to use tie downs, spurs, whips, and sharper bits to bring your point across if they tried to resist.
When you asked your trainer or instructor why these things were happening, or expressed concern, they most likely told you "oh, she's always like that," or "she's just a crazy red mare," or "he's just tired/relaxed," or "he's just lazy. However, what equine behavioral science tells us, and what the average layperson can surprisingly often see immediately, is that these horses are not “just tired, husband-safe, and bomb- proof," instead they are deeply distressed and most often traumatized. In fact, it is our learned inability to recognize our horse's cries for help that leads to them eventually becoming traumatized, because it causes them to experience a persistent state of learned helplessness, which means: "No matter what I do, I cannot protect myself from harm or change my circumstances, and things will never change."
But here's the thing: things can change, because if we learned to look away and make excuses for our harmful actions and practices, we can also learn to see and listen again - for our horse's sake. Trauma that occurs in relationship must be healed in relationship - this applies to both you and your horse. Let your horse show you a different way - let them teach you about healthy relationship: about presence, safety, and freedom; about setting boundaries, letting go, and authentic expression; about acceptance, empathy, and love.
This journey can be immensely revealing and healing for the both of you, you just have to be willing to take the first step.
Frankie and Carla at the beginning of their journey back in 2015. Frankie still looks a bit sad and subdued, but also hopeful. We don’t need to be perfect, our horses can feel our intent to do better.