Carolyn Baber - Recollections: A Journey of Courage and Abuse

When I was asked to write this foreword I was told that this book was about horses helping a woman heal from sexual assault. Little did I know that this book would bring so much healing and pain with it while I read.

Horses have been a part of my life for as long as I can remember. My grandparents had a Quarter Horse gelding named Willy and a Thoroughbred mare named Paige. My aunt taught me how to ride in cabbage patches in Southern California. Some of my best and earliest memories include galloping with Willy through those fields. I never wanted to walk or trot, just run, as fast and as far as I could. I wasnt running from anything the way that Carolyn was in her book; however, I share in her healing through horses.

That is probably a gross understatement. Horses have served as such a powerful force of positive healing in my life that I dedicated my professional career as a therapist and executive business coach to partnering with these incredible beings and wise teachers. Although I never met Carolyn, we are kindred spirits in the aspect that I have found no better substitute for teaching people how to be better beings than a horse. Horses show us how to treat each other, how to support each other, how to take care of ourselves and our herds, and most importantly how to deal with pain and trauma.

Serving populations struggling with PTSD, addiction, eating disorders, and other mental illnesses through equine therapy has proven to me that the best therapists in the world have a beautiful coat, four hooves, a mane, and a tail. Horses bring healing to our lives that I never knew was possible and yet I have spent all my life benefiting from this majestic healing power.

Carolyns bravery in sharing her story of sexual assault with such vivid imagery brought so much emotion to my life. I will admit to you as the reader, that I went to the barn and sat with my horses a few times while reading this book. My Clydesdale Paul sat with me through some of these chapters and held me while I leaned into Carolyns life and inspiring journey with her mental health. Professionally I have so much respect for the decade-long dedication shared in this book to her recovery and struggles with depression. Personally, my heart empathizes with the pain that sexual assault can bring.

Although I had the benefit of an incredible childhood that my parents provided, I suffered an assault as a young adult and recall, as Carolyn describes, not having the words to share my pain with my family. Now having daughters of my own, I pray every day that they never know that terror and suffering.

Reading Courtenays words explaining how she brought her moms book to life was both incredibly beautiful and haunting as I can only imagine the strength that it takes to share this story on behalf of your mom. Knowing the truth that will be shared about your family, I can only thank you for that bravery and honesty.

This book is raw and real; however, one thing is absolutely certain. This book is filled with so much truth. The most powerful truth being the healing power of equines that bring light to the darkest of places and show us what quiet strength and loyal relationships truly look like. All the days that I could not stand in my life, I owe to my horse who carried me.

Bunny Sumner Young, LPC

Founder of A Better Place Consulting, author of Crossing the Line: Power Activities for Therapy and Learning

The world of human emotions is a complicated one, and the love between a child and parent is deep and intense at best. If things go smoothly, it will have moments of sadness that will stick with you that you will later laugh at and think about in simpler measure. However, it is when that relationship is rocked by inconsistency and cloaked in secrecy that problems begin to dance in the shadows of our minds, and they can dance from generation to generation.

This is what happened to my mother. This most sacred of bonds was broken between parent and child. It was instead replaced with lies, inconsistency, and secrecy. It created two worlds for my mother, and in those two worlds, she existed and found a way to move back and forth. She found a bridge between the two, a way to make sure she could stay connected and whole. That bridge for her was a horse. The quiet honesty of the horse allowed her to build trust in the world and to find courage in her strength. She was able to find hope and to build a relationship that did not let her down. This was a gift she gave to me. It was one of many she gave me in my life; however, the ability to be with horses, to love them deeply, and to feel their power and their gentleness in the same breath is the greatest gift.

I believe she wrote for a lot of reasons, reasons that changed over the time it took her to write her story. I believe at the end, she had come to learn that she had something important to say, and it needed to be said. I believe she wanted people to be able to learn from her story. She was a school teacher at heart, so I am not sure that teaching ever left her. Maybe more importantly, she truly recognized the distance she had come in healing during twenty plus years of therapy. She wanted people to know that healing was possible if work was done and commitment was made to the journey. She struggled with the journey. She sometimes had to be reminded to stay on it, and other times was so involved in it. She stayed on the journey till the end. She stayed, only wanting to learn more about herself and wanting to get better.

So, now you know why the book was important to my mother. Why is it important to me? It is important to me because this story is not only the story of my mother: it is the story of my family. It is the story of our struggles with her mental illness. She was the center of our family; she was larger than life. She would inspire and demand greatness, and she would also belittle and guilt. She was our mother, our caretaker; she was the one we ran to to get help and comfort from, and she was not always able to be there for us, in part because of what happened to her.

I was connected to my mother not only through my love of horses, the first gift she gave me, but also through the second gift she gave me, which was an interest in mental health. My interest in mental health began in fifth grade when I had to write a paper about the topic. I thought it was not right how people were treated in what were then called insane asylums. I became fascinated, and I have not looked back. I have found recently a way to combine the two through equine assisted therapy, which is wonderful, and that is what all of us that spend time with horses know to be true.