Hello, this is Eva May and I'm speaking to you for the Women's Radio Station for another in my Healing Image High series. Now, Healing Image High was a project that I did with some help, some image professionals, about how I looked because I wanted to change how I felt about myself. This mainly came about when I had been through a police investigation into Childhood Sexual Abuse, where I found it such a lot to take in, not only the actual sort of time and the content, the context, and the agenda that occurs when you go through something like this, but also the impact that it had on my adult brain having to, to realize, um, in quite a heavy hit what had happened to me as a child and the consequences of that, and also the, the way that I've been having to live with the impact of what happened, which should never have happened. So I needed to move forward, I needed to get myself out and about, and For me, finding out and learning about what I could wear, how to do my hair, look after my skin and my makeup gave me space to think about new things and focus on those and build them into a daily routine. Now that is, it's almost, it's not a quick fix, but it's something that you can actually see results If you have some help and somebody helps you with your makeup, then yes, wow, you can actually see the results. And they were— everything that I was taught or all the conversations that we had were all helpful and positive, and they have really, really helped me to make some changes for the rest of my, my life and what I do, and also given me a lot more confidence to go about and explore other things. I have spoken previously about some of my therapy and the care that I have received, and this week I want to talk to you— there's two things really— one, no, that's three things. One is a little sort of run-through of what I did this week And two is about equine-assisted therapy, so working with horses or a herd that are there to work in a therapeutic way. That's what they do. They, they aren't like riding school horses. So I want to talk to you about my experience that I had this week there. And the other thing is a difficult sort of trigger, or I don't know really why it does become such a problem, but I'm actually going to be going on holiday for 4 days with some of my family next week, and holidays, going away, can cause me some problems. I have, um, complex PTSD, so post-traumatic stress disorder, but also with that I have something called dissociative identity disorder, or DID, which is abbreviated, which means I can, um, I have different parts of me that come out and can act on their own without other parts knowing, and it's not always helpful. It would have been something that I had done from a very young age when my trauma started, because I wasn't in an environment where I could use words, or the adults that didn't know about it, they couldn't support me because they simply didn't know. And the adults that were involved in it, then they certainly— they didn't want me to talk about it. And so I've grown up, and I am now 56, and have spent 33 years receiving or trying to find ways to heal on this therapy journey. I am a great believer that as I've got older, that I do need to take some responsibility for my own healing. So to look elsewhere and invest in this properly, to, to really try things, to be open, to be receptive. Now, one of the things that, uh, so this week, this week, um, I needed to, to go to the dentist. I have, uh, I lost a crown, uh, just after lockdown when we were allowed to meet people. I went for a walk with a friend and she found some toffees in her pocket that she hadn't been out for a while, so these toffees were a bit on the old side, I would say. And I had one of those, and I thought it had a bit of a hard lump in it, but actually that was my crown. I'd managed to take my crown off, and so hence a little trip to the dentist this week. Now, I find dentist is quite, quite triggering, quite difficult for me to, to do, um, the sort of pain, initial pain, if you're having a local anesthetic, can cause me a problem with someone coming at me with a needle to put in my mouth. And I'm not sure whether that really is to do with my trauma or if it is to just to do with how I would feel anyway about going to the dentist, because quite a few of my people that I know, my friends and my family, It's not really their favorite thing either. So this week I've spent two fairly lengthy stints in the dentist chair, and because I have a metal jaw— my, my bone had to be replaced with metal just in June, so only 7 months ago— it means that I have to have the anesthetic put in slightly differently because the metal's in the way. So it was pretty traumatic actually, and I didn't do very well with this, and afterwards I had quite a bad physical reaction with my body. I had with me a sort of like a furry sort of scarf, and it is really soft. So to get through this sort of dentist experience— my dentist is lovely— then I needed to have my scarf clenched in my fists and hang on to that. And then gradually, as the things sort of— I relaxed into it, knowing that like the anesthetic was working, and I was still able to feel this nice soft scarf material in my hands, and I think that's something that maybe people can, can do, can use, just to hang on to something. That really helped me. Now, 2 sessions of having this work done did rather wipe me out, and as I say, I don't know if it is trauma-related or if it's just how I would be about going to the dentist anyway. I'll try not to go that often. I do try to take care of my teeth. So that was that, um, and then I also had a trip to the, um, it's called the Track Clinic and it's a, it's an equine facility for therapy, so it's equine-assisted therapy where I went to meet a herd. So I wasn't quite sure what I was going to, going to really, other than what I had read about it. A friend of mine who I actually met through G.I. Jane Boot Camp, which I've also spoken about, which is a boot camp for women in, it's in Kent in the UK, I'd been discussing equine therapy with her. They've been asking me about some things that I had found beneficial, and equine work was definitely way up there. And she really kindly sent me an article about the Track Clinic that she'd found in Psychology magazine, and everything in there that I read and the photographs that I saw made me want to go and do this. Equine therapy is something that I have done previously, but in the United States. That was, um, oh my goodness, about 7 years ago when I was at a facility in Arizona called Cottonwood. They had a barn, so meaning that they had a— that's what they called the area where they kept their equine horses, and it was on site. I stayed in Arizona for 70 days, and as time went on, my equine therapy became more and more frequent and actually a pretty huge part of my week at Cottonwood. I, uh, you can't start When you go to a facility for inpatient treatment, you usually have to be there for sort of a couple of weeks before they get to know you. They get to— the staff get— not the horses, I'm talking about the staff. The staff get to know you, so how you are physically and how you are mentally, and then they assess what would be beneficial for you. So it took probably about 2 weeks before I was permitted to go for my first equine session. I was quite— I was really excited about it. I've always loved horses. I think they're magnificent. And when I was seeing, um, the other residents— there were only 23 of us, we were a small community group who all got on very well. Hearing them come back from their therapy at the barn, I just felt like I could really understand what they were talking about, how they managed to get something and feel very close and connect with horses in some way. So About, I think it must be 2 or 3 weeks in, then I got cleared by the medical department to go to the therapy department for equine, and then it was timetabled in. So I hadn't— I'd seen the area where the barn was before, but I'd never been there, so I hadn't really seen an awful lot. But it was, um, you know, Arizona is a desert So these horses, there isn't— grass doesn't grow there. They were kept in, um, stabling, and even the outside areas had to have sort of sail canopies for shade, and also those mister sprayers that constantly kept spraying out sort of a cooler temperature for the horses because It was incredibly hot and they stayed in a corral or we had some larger open areas but they were on, you know, they weren't on grass, they were on, I wouldn't even call it dust, maybe sawdust, a little bit like that, so, and when they did need to be in then they were in their own stable area so quite a lot of work that I did with those horses was either in a corral, so they were taken from their stable to that area, or in their stable. Didn't have to work with the same horse all the time. They had about 6 of them, and one was a little donkey, and the donkey just used to walk around wherever, um, and come and— if you were sitting down doing some work or making some notes or doing some art, then this little donkey would come and kind of come up to you and put his head on your lap. Or, um, it was, it was just very nice and very, very peaceful. So when I got there, the first thing that I had to do— I was in a group, a small group, probably only about 4 of us— and we would sit in a circle and everyone would check in talk about how they were feeling, and then the equine therapists who were leading the session would talk about what they wanted us to, to maybe focus, or for us to think about what focus we might like individually and also as a group. Didn't have to work with the same horse every time, but I developed this incredible bond with a rather large French Percheron horse, and she was just absolutely incredible. A very large horse, but such character, very, very magnificent. And I just connected with her, um, so, so well. Further on, after my equine work, when we were really getting into that I then got a letter one day put in my mailbox, my pigeonhole we call them, saying that if I wanted to, I could go up early in the morning and help do some work around the barn. So not necessarily be doing the work with the horses, but clearing up, making up their beds, getting their food ready. And I jumped at the chance. I mean, that was me sprung out of bed in the morning and ready and up to the barn. And I just loved hanging out up there and doing this work. And they would be around and they would come up and stand next to you, but really we were there— I was there primarily to get a job done. So going back to about 30 years ago, I did actually have a horse myself. And he was on loan to me, so I didn't actually own him, but somebody else did. But they, they wanted somebody to look after a horse, so I took him on. So I rented the stable and did all his care myself, and it was a long-term loan, so I had that horse for a couple of years. It was quite— it's quite a lot of work if you have a horse, especially in the UK because of the weather. We have, you know, 4 quite distinct seasons, so I'd get up in the morning every single day. You do not get a day off when you have to look after a horse, and I would have to get up quite often, it would be dark, and go down, muck out the stable, make up a new bed, to turn the horse out if I wasn't going to go out riding later, and then rush back home so that my husband could then go to work because we had a small child at the time. So I was constantly dashing about. I did spend time with my horse, but primarily it was to, to do jobs, to groom, to pick out hooves, to make up the stable, to go and get the shavings to make up the stable, to go and get the hay. Only it was an awful lot of dashing about, so standing still with a horse was something that I actually really hadn't done before. I would then be able to drop my son at nursery school and get back to the stables, tack up, maybe arrange to meet with someone to go out with them, or I went out for a hack, you know, to ride on my own. It was way before we ever had mobile phones, so I would be— nobody would have known where I was, to be honest. I'd go to all sorts of different places, but I absolutely loved that feeling of galloping and just being out in the countryside and being with my horse. I fell off quite a few times, um, that kind of happened. He, he did get spooked at certain things, but it, it never was anything that he was doing to harm me whatsoever. It was just circumstances that we managed together, and that was really, really great. And then he used to have to take my son down there in the afternoon to, to work out get the yard clean and bring him in and groom him, and sometimes he just didn't want to get caught, and it was, it was actually an additional stress, although I'd say it was a pleasant one, but I did not get a lot of time to just be still and be with my horse. So I'd have to also look after the tack, clean all the leather, and get rugs and everything sorted out. And so they were unorganized for the blacksmith to come and do shoes. So all the time it was things to be done, taking care of the horse and my own family and myself. So going to, to Cottonwood and finding out that they had equine therapy was something that was new to me. Now I know everything Every question that I asked about each one of the horses they had there, I got an answer for. I knew all their names, ages, a bit about them, their history, um, and, and they're sort of where they liked being touched, where they didn't like being touched. And so we, we knew them pretty well as, um, you know, named, named things, and that's how, how it worked. The work up there did vary a lot, and we, we did play with them. We set up obstacle courses. Sometimes we just sort of sat still with them. Uh, it— being with a horse when you've got such turmoil going on in your mind, when it can't talk to you and you can't talk to it well, you can, but you communicate in a different way. There was something incredibly powerful and strengthening from spending time in particular with this one horse that I had. And if you look back in history, horses and man have always had quite a strong connection. I mean, like, you know, they've been used for transport, for, for battle, for farming, for that they have been a part of, of working with man, and they need— needed man for survival, and man needed them. So they have a very great, good bond. They liked to be with people. So these horses were, um, they were beautiful because we were residential and there were 23 of us. Then they did quite a lot of work with quite a few people. They were rotated. During my stay they didn't change, but I think shortly after I left they were going to be— a couple of them would go away and have a rest and they'd bring in two more that they had kept elsewhere. I used to do things there, um, like set up obstacle course with, um, cones and sort of woggles, balls, hoops, things like that. So I could set out as a things that were significant in my life and represent them using these objects. And then I'd discuss it with the equine therapist about what it all represented. And then I would walk my horse through my obstacle course. And some of the things that I wanted the horse to do, they were like, uh, she might not do that. Like, how will you feel if she refuses to do that for you? But I just felt that it was going to be fine and that she would do it. And in fact she did. So I had an awful lot of cones that I'd piled up, and I wanted her to plow right through them to represent the obstacles in my life. And I also had some, uh, a lot of sort of balls that I wanted her to kick as well, that I'd piled all together to represent sort of swirling trauma and disorientation and confusion. And she did that too. We had, we had cones and balls going all over the place, and it was an incredible experience. And then we ended up in a hoop together with— well, she had only her sort of front hooves in there and I had my feet and we just stood head to head for a really, really long time. So we did— I did work like that. I also did, um, I painted her hooves with nail varnish. We weren't allowed nail varnish without being supervised because I think it's got alcohol in it, or certainly the acetone has, or the nail varnish remover. But she let me sit down and paint decorate her nails with nail varnish. And I did do a base coat, then the pattern, and sealed it with a top coat. And I just sat there so happily being with this huge strong animal that was just alongside and could really, really help. So being there for like 70 days, I must have spent at least 55 of those days having some sort of equine experience, whether it was helping at the barn or actually having group sessions or one-on-one sessions. And I found it incredibly helpful. Some of the most helpful work that I've done has been in that barn during my therapy journey. So having my friend send me this article about somewhere in the UK that has an equine herd, I wanted to, to know about it, and it felt like a good time to go. I don't do things like golf weekends or spa breaks. I don't like people really touching me for a massage or anything. So, you know, people do go away for things, so I thought I'd go and spend some time at the Track Clinic, it's called, which is near Longleat, so in the UK. So I arranged to go. I turned up in completely the wrong clothes. I had pictured in my mind it would be like Arizona, but of course it wasn't. I was in a field, a field with long grass that was actually wet, so within about half an hour I was completely wet through with my feet, but that didn't matter at all. There were 4 in the herd, so, um, 2 horses who were probably sort of average size, 1 miniature horse, and an alpaca. I've never ever been that close to an alpaca. In fact, the first time I went, I didn't really get very close to the alpaca at all because he made it quite clear that that he did not want anything to do with me. So that was fine. They had a large area to, to move around as they wanted to. They could have walked well away from me, ran away from me, whatever. And in the middle of the field was a, an area with a fire pit that was sort of roped off. So if you needed to get away from the horse, horses, or the alpaca, you could go into the middle. And it was also where we sat on logs and discussed what was going on with the animals and what was going on with me. And the staff— I had two members of staff with me— they are trained equine, in equine therapy. They follow the worldwide, um, guidelines. So they are, which is a globally recognized model of equine-assisted psychotherapy and learning. So it's meant to be— it's proven to bring about emotional and behavioral change. So I, I spent this time, I didn't know how to approach these horses because they have all-around vision. There's one blind spot at the back, so that's why you should really never stand behind one, because it might not know what, what it is that's behind there and kick out at you, which is something you don't want to be on the receiving end of. So, but it was like, how, how do I, um, approach them? Do you go to the side of their head, or head, or just try and reach out and touch their, their back to let them know that you're there? And horses, um, as therapists I mean, I have seen t-shirts and things online that say, my therapist eats hay. So, i.e., my horse is my therapist, cuz they eat a lot of hay. Um, that was, that was the first hurdle, was how to know who to go, which one to go up to, and how to approach it. Um, because I, I'm a person that finds people coming into my space, like my physical space, so too close to me, threatening, it can make me feel quite uncomfortable. And it takes me a while with people to, to get used to, to that sort of idea. And I didn't want to shut off or dissociate. I wanted to be there as my sort of authentic person and get the most out of this session. So, um, I found a horse that he, um, he was just standing still, and I had noticed that when we were sitting in the middle of the fire pit that he had been watching and staring and came over to have a little look what was going on. So I thought he might be the best bet. The other thing was they could have just gone and left me. I could have spent the whole session not near any of these animals if they'd chosen to run off. I mean, there's only— I can only go a certain speed, and they're— they've got the edge on me there. So I, I went up to this, um, dark brown horse, and I started touching his back, and he just, he stood there, and his stance, so the way he stood, let me know that he was quite relaxed and okay about this. And what I noticed was this incredible sort of thick horse hair that I've never seen on a horse, because when I had my horse, I had to groom it all the time, and that took up ages. And clean and wash it. Well, these aren't, they're just left, so we are, we were in January and it's got a winter coat, it's actually, it's actually probably like 2 inches thick and the colours are different, the ends are sort of lighter brown and the bit near the horse is a darker brown, and that in itself, it just felt incredibly comforting and so nice. And he seemed to quite like, like being touched like that. He was eating a lot of grass because they were standing in a field full of it, and I should think if I was a horse, I would have probably wanted some of it as well. It did look really good. Um, but that was a bit difficult to know whether or not whether to interrupt his eating because they did seem to all like this eating going on. But I kept staying with him and just not always having any physical contact but just staying there, and gradually he started to lift his head up so his cheekbones were next to mine, and he'd be pushing in quite close to my head so I could put my arm around his neck, and then we would just stand like that for, for, I don't know how long, but quite a long time. And so he was leaning into me and I was leaning into him, and it just felt lovely. There was no agenda, no time, um, there was nowhere to suddenly dash off to. And then, uh, the, the— I went over to see, um, a gray, the gray horse. I thought I should go and like try, try out the others as well. And the alpaca had gone. I mean, he was just nowhere to be seen. He was not in this session at all. He didn't want anything to do with me. And the way he looked at me as well had rather told me that on the way in. So The gray horse was completely different, and he, um, he kept nudging his, his head up and down my, my front quite forcibly. And if I had to actually stand quite firm and so I wasn't knocked over, he, he was pretty strong. But then he put his from sort of his nostrils, he liked down there being stroked and then he put that to my face, which was— that was really nice as well, really nice contact. I don't know if it's because humans, when we do hug each other, but not for— I mean, it'd be very rare for me to spend as much time as I did on this day hugging something. It's just not something that is really done. And then the little horse who had really not had an awful lot to do with me, he was eating grass and hay, and then he'd also stuck his face in some mud because it was quite muddy, and as I said, he did get quite wet feet. And I walked over to him and I just said, 'Oh, look at you, you've got brown lipstick on.' And he lifted up his head, touched my arm, and then he put his face with this brown mud round to his side and started sort of trying to scratch it with his mouth. So I used my hands and scratched where this brown mud mark was, and then we were off, and he was putting it somewhere else, wanted that bit done. Then he walked over to a tree where there was this low, some low branches, and started moving his body around, like his face, each side of his face, his back, and his bottom. So, and every time he did that, he wanted me to scratch that area. And then at the end, he came, he actually, he sat down next to me, like, sort of comfortably. Now, horses don't sit down unless they feel really, really safe, because if they need to, to run, they can't get up very quickly. So he, he sat down, and then the other dark horse, the larger one, came over and sat down as well. So I had these two horses sitting down really relaxed, parallel to me, and I was in the middle of both of them. So then they both wanted my attention, and I thought the brown one was going to, to roll, and that would have meant that he would have been rolling over onto me, but he didn't want to roll and stand up. He rolled over into my lap because I was now sitting on the ground, and I actually had this horse, its head and his neck, in my lap and he, he just stayed there and it was just an incredible feeling. The therapist did ask me afterwards if I could choose some words to explain how I felt and I think there are quite a lot of words that I could use to explain how I felt but really it went deeper than words. So it was just an incredibly bonding, strong— I think they— he liked being held. I liked it, the feeling almost of being held by a horse. And they can't actually put their legs around you and give you a great big hug, but if you've got this large horse that's rolled back onto you deliberately, fully trusting, and staying there for, well, minutes in the peace and quiet of a field where the therapists, although they were looking on, they were actually quite far away from me. And all of this was without technology or vocabulary or an agenda. These horses do not know what you've been through, and I don't know what they've been through, but it was incredible. But then little Miniature Pony, he was getting a little bit, um, he stuck his hoof out to let me know that he was there, still sitting down, and then he rolled on and sat. Um, I spent a long time cuddling that little horse, and it was absolutely incredible. I feel like with both of them it was like quite a gift and a privilege to be allowed to interact with them in this way. And when the little horse was indicating to me by using, um, his— the branches from this tree about where to, to scratch him next with his brown mud-looking like lipstick. I was laughing and the therapist, they could hear me laugh and it was like a game that we'd got going between us and it was, it was, it was absolutely great. If you're interested in equine therapy, I would look it up. I would definitely recommend going to the Track Clinic. My experience of having my own horse, working with one in Arizona at Cottonwood, and then at the Track Clinic this time have all been incredibly positive, and the effect is very long-lasting. I went back to the Track Clinic this week for another session And the grey horse saw me coming and he greeted me at the gate by rubbing up and down on my stomach and sort of trying to push me over again, but it was almost like he wanted to scratch his head, rub his head, and horses, their heads are pretty hard and pretty heavy. He then walked with me up to the others and we walked past the alpaca who had completely ignored me and made it extremely clear that I was just He almost— he was sort of aloof, really, the way he looked. He was magnificent. I've never seen an alpaca, I don't think, like this. Um, no, I don't think I've ever seen one. Seen one on television but never been up to one. Anyway, on this session, he walked over and I put my arm out and I, I touched his fur and just on his neck because they have quite a long tall neck, but it's mostly fluff. It's, it was just so fluffy and soft and yeah, it was like, wow. And then he, he came closer and closer to the point where he let me put his— my arm around his neck. And then he was the same height as me, his head and my head, we were the same height. This was quite a big chap, I think. And we just stood like that for ages. And he smelled different, not like a horse. I think he smelled— I described it as like almonds. I couldn't— only that's the only thing I could imagine it being. If I've ever opened a bag of almonds for to make a snack or do some cooking, to me that's what he smelled like. But it was— that was incredible that this sort of standoffish alpaca who didn't want anything to do with me last time, within the first 10 minutes was already like leaning into me with his neck. And his neck, it's very different to a horse's neck. And then, um, I left him for a bit and went and saw the other, the rest of the herd. And he, he walked up to near where I was and he sat down quite— and then, and then the other horses had moved away. So I went up to the alpaca who was on his sort of with on his knees, they are called knees, with his feet tucked back. And I knelt down with him, and again, that is like showing that he's absolutely trusting me, he's not feeling in any danger. And I knelt and sat next to him. I got a bit muddy, but what's a bit of mud, hey? It doesn't matter at all. And he, he just let me hold him, um, with my face in his fur, um, on his head, like we were head to head, and I had my arms around his neck. And I think we must have stayed like that for about 10 minutes, and I just— well, If you can imagine that, I think hopefully you can imagine some of the feelings that I had around it. And I must say, doing this work, if you could call it work, but we will, it's quite tiring. Um, there's definitely a very deep emotional connection And I think I felt that for these animals to be safe, feel safe with me, and I felt safe with them. And then our actual physical interaction for, for so long. And excuse me, I have been to places where I have maybe stroked a horse, but they've turned and gone pretty quick. So it was an absolutely incredible experience, so much so that when I got home, my family who were here, they could— they said they could see it, like, in my eyes and on my face, my whole demeanor, they could tell that I'd had like something very helpful. It happened to me and it was, and it, it's something that I don't really want to give words to because it's a feeling and it's an extremely good feeling. So I need to hold that feeling. It happened. It's like, and it's going to last. It is going to last. So when I get home the next day, my family have found several alpaca experiences near where we live that I could possibly do. They seem to feel that I, I got on so well with the alpaca, maybe we should, because you can, you can book sessions to, to take one for a walk. Well, I'd quite like to sit down with one again in the middle of a field and just be alone with it and hold it. And I did feed him some hay. He took it from my hand, and we were, we were together for a long time. I think my session, actually, we, we were going to have a little bit more talking time, but I had a little bit more alpaca bonding time than talking. That's how great it was. So next week I have Nina Thompson from the Trac Clinic. She's actually going to be speaking with me and explaining more about the work there. I think we do live in a world where, you know, mental illness is talked about a lot. It's a huge umbrella of sort of issues, conditions, I don't know, diagnosis. It's pretty massive. But if you can find something, I think from what I know, uh, myself, finding the right regular therapy has taken me an awful long time. And I know I'm one of the lucky ones that I've now got to the Clinic for Dissociative Studies in London, but You know, I'm 56. It would have been extremely helpful if I'd been there years ago, but in the UK, NICE, who set out our medical policies and treatment plans, they don't have any guidelines for Dissociative Identity Disorder in the UK. So for people like me, it's going to take you a long time before your trust suddenly say, we actually have nothing to offer you. And that's how I got to where I am now. But if you can do something, something like Equine Experience, and go and have a session, or I think there are various timings and things that this is done by, because you don't stay there, you know, you have to get yourself there and do your session and then come away, but I think some people do them over sort of 6 months, maybe have sessions— we'll ask Nina next week when we talk to her, but I did my— I had 3 sessions. I did 2, one after the other with break for lunch in the middle, and then I went back to do the final one, and each one was incredibly different but also incredible. Like, all of it was incredible. It just, it was, it just was fantastic. And I think I'll be visiting again, definitely, for— it's something that works for me. There are some, um, impatience stay programs that do have equine that I have heard of, and I know that people have done, but not to this level. It's usually outsourced, and it can only be if you're on a certain, certain programs, so it's not available widely for everybody. It's also a very, quite a good way for, um, children to work as well. And, um, well, we'll talk to Nina about all the different sorts of things that happen and the different people that find the TRAC clinic and find it helpful. So anyway, I hope that you can enjoy that, and I hope that you can hear by the way that I'm talking about it just how You know, it's— well, you don't find many people that go and spend time doing that, something like that. And it was a truly great experience, and it really was something that I experienced on my own. Yes, there were people there watching, and in fact they did take a few photographs, not very many, because the most important thing is that actual contact. I don't need a photograph to remind me, but yes, it's very nice to have. And you can't even really zoom in that well because they were so far away from me so that it was a natural experience and not sort of therapist-led. So yeah, I think one thing that I do like is that I didn't get the really up-close photographs. You know, I wasn't there as a radio presenter, I was there as Eva May. And I did it for myself, so that's why we're going to record about the Trak Clinic for next week, so that I was able to process my experience there for me. And I must say, it did make me quite tired and it did make me sleep. When I sat down and had some time to, a couple of days later, with my, my family. So one of my kids and my husband, I, I was talking about it. I think, does this sound a bit odd, you know, like I sat in the field and this horse rolled onto my lap and that sort of thing? Because when I owned my own horse, it didn't do that. And that night, um, I, um, my husband told me in the morning that I'd actually been laughing in my sleep, which is something that I don't think I've ever done, or nobody's ever told me I have, and I certainly didn't know about it. And that could possibly be from the game that that little miniature horse was doing with me, playing with the branches and me scratching him. So we were having our game. I mean, I don't know. I think that's what, personally, what I think it probably was. And it certainly was great because quite often my nights are filled with night terrors and I can wake up screaming, or else I've managed to build an assault course out of water bottles by the side of my bed by going up and down, up and down, placing them. So Definitely, if you want to think about something and talking therapy might not be working, or to do this alongside or as a one-off and see how it goes, I would definitely recommend doing this, um, and I, I'm really, really grateful to my friend who so kindly thought to send me the article. Because, um, you know, these days people are very, very busy, and for somebody to actually think about that and actually send it to me and for me to have this fantastic outcome, then, well, it was obviously meant to be. So I didn't know anything about these horses or this alpaca. I don't even know their names, and I might one day ask what they are, but for now I'm going to leave it as it is because it sits fine. I also did not go there wearing any makeup or perfume. I wanted it to be a really natural experience. I didn't want them to sort of get any signals from sort of smells or anything, like, like perfume, strong perfume or anything. And they aren't groomed or rugs. They are just— so they grow these lovely thick coats for the winter, and then in the summer they will shed those. So just seeing that and being able to touch that is an experience, um, in itself. And, you know, they do roll, they have got some mud on them, and they're just natural living in a beautiful field. Um, yeah, it was idyllic, it was really great. Well, I've got a few minutes left now to talk about this holiday that's coming up because, um, we, we're not always— I'm not always good on the holiday, uh, situation. It seems to go wrong, and every time I have a holiday— and we're talking about it's gone wrong for years and years and years and years— that I can dissociate and things can happen, or I can behave in a certain way that ruins everything for everybody else, but it doesn't ruin it for me because I can't remember it, and that's not good. So not everybody is coming on this holiday, and one of my kids can't come. It's not that they don't want to come, they actually can't come, But after a holiday like this, the poor thing, she says, "I just never come home happy." And that is really sad to me because, you know, I'm a mum and what I want for my kids is for them to be happy and to put them first. So we try and, and minimalise things, and now I am at the Centre for Dissociative studies, then this is something that, um, I've been talking about. And every time I talk about something there with my therapist, they have a lot of really helpful insights or suggestions, or they ask some very good questions as to, to what happens and triggers and things. Because I dissociate, I move between different alters or parts of myself. I do that during, you know, during a normal day anyway, but because we're not all together on holiday every day, then it's not so apparent. When it does happen, it is very noticeable, but maybe when I'm on my own during the day and it might happen, it's fine. It's not going to affect anybody because they're not here. So holidays are different. So every time something happens, my family try to sort of make a note or discuss it, and then they can discuss it with me, but only once I'm out of this situation, because otherwise I'm just not that— I'm not— that part of me is not able to communicate with them at all. Otherwise I wouldn't dissociate. So what we do is we're only going away for 4 days and hope we can do 4 days. We are going somewhere that we've been before, so I know what's there. I know, I know everything about it as much as I can. And then this time we are going to, um, implement— or hopefully it will work— where if I want to be on my own If I need some own time, then I will say, and rather than them worrying and thinking, oh no, Mum wants to be on her own, what's going to happen, what's blah blah blah, then no, they're going to try and give me that time. Because it might just be that I'm not in my house. In my house, I'm able to go into another room, but if I'm staying in a hotel, the actual physical environment of where I can go is reduced. I can stay in the bedroom, or else I'm out in sort of a public area of the hotel and I might need to be on my own for a bit. I might need to go out for a walk, I might need to go out for a coffee, and I can understand their apprehension about not wanting to leave me, but I think we've got to a point now where we need to try this. So I'm not going to go— I've got a phone, um, I'm not going to, to go off for the sake of it, It will just be if I suddenly feel that I need to either go off and have a walk, have a coffee, go and read, leave them slightly early, go back to the hotel. I might decide one day that I don't want to go for breakfast or I don't want to go for dinner. If I've had lunch and I'm tired And living with trauma is tiring. I mean, just this week, going to the dentist twice, going to, to doing equine therapy, and then I've also been to my, uh, the Clinic for Dissociative Studies. I've done, I've done a lot this week, and it does impact on my energy levels. And I do need to, to rest, and that's okay. But to— when you live with a family that are very sort of physically active and quite outgoing, and you have a moment where you slip into a part that can't get on with those personalities or the activities that are going on, then it's really important for me to say that, and hopefully now they are understanding that this is maybe now what we need to, to try and do and to try and manage it. Because crowding around me in a dissociative state only— it's like fanning flames. It just makes it so, so much worse, and you know, the only space that is private is the hotel room, and if it happens anywhere else, it's in public, and it's, it's awkward, it's embarrassing, it doesn't make me feel good about myself at all. So I will let you know how I get on with my, my 4 days away, and I do need to try and keep my mood stable. If I get really excited about something, then it's quite a long way to fall. So like, getting happy and excited is fine, but only— I can't go like crazy off the scale happy because then I can drop very quickly. I don't know why, but that's just the way things are at the moment. Um, So anyway, we're coming up to— gosh, we're in our last minute, and that's gone pretty fast. So if you— I'm going to put some pictures up of my equine work on my Instagram, which is @healingimagehigh. I haven't been putting much on there because I would prefer people to hear me speak rather than just look at pictures. I think in, in life now we have phones that are cameras and there are videos, people spend an awful lot of time looking at things and the listening seems to go. So if you were, um, you know, so for the equine experience, not having a phone, not recording it, not doing anything like that, makes it more authentic, more that you're in the moment. And that's really what I want from this. So thank you.