A Stolen Life_ A Memoir - Jaycee Dugard [77]
That session ended up being one of many that brought about several revelations about me and how I viewed the world for so many years. During my time of captivity I couldn’t imagine a day I wouldn’t be there in that place, doing the same things over and over again. I never thought about asking for help. I wonder why that is? It’s hard for me to understand myself.
One particularly eye-opening session was when I created an obstacle in the arena, which happened to be a box made of logs, and the goal was to get the horse in the obstacle using no hands or words. At first Velcro would not go into the box, and I felt this was a metaphor for how I was feeling, not wanting to return to my box/backyard. After about an hour of trying just because I had a task to accomplish and I didn’t want to quit, I finally decided that I really didn’t want the horse in the box after all and announced I was satisfied with the results of the exercise. We went back to the office and processed what the exercise felt like for me. Later when it was time to leave, it was quite a surprise to see Velcro—that horse that would not go into the box—happily sunning herself right in the middle of it! Earlier as we processed the horse exercise, I did mention to Rebecca how much easier everything seemed and less complicated in the “backyard.” I was feeling a lot of pressure to make decisions, and I just wasn’t used to the complications of life. Even though I didn’t want my old situation back, the reality was the “backyard” was less complicated for me in many ways. And I needed to learn to step out gradually.
In another therapy session, Rebecca brought in a big horse ball and told me that we’re having a day of play. I couldn’t remember the last time I played just for pleasure. In fact, I couldn’t remember a day I did something just for myself. Up until recently life was about making Phillip and Nancy happy and making sure the girls had everything they needed. Rebecca told me to take the ball and just play with the horses, so with the big purple ball clutched in my outstretched hands, I entered the arena and tried to get one of the horses to play with me. I spent a good hour standing in front of Velcro, the docile black-and-white paint, slowly rolling the ball to find that all she did was stand there and look bored. The ball would bounce off her legs and return to me but the “play” was mostly one-sided. During that time, some of my rolls to Velcro would miss her legs and go sailing past her. During one of those times, Rebecca’s dog, Skye, would come barreling into the arena and run to the ball that I was running after, and she stopped it and started rolling it back to me. I thought this was more fun than rolling it to a horse that clearly was having none of my antics. So I started playing with Skye, the black Labrador. She was a great ballplayer and we soon had a real game of me throwing the ball up to her and her using her nose to send it flying back to me. During this time Freesia, the beautiful brown Hanoverian, started to become intrigued with the concept of Skye playing with the big round thing and started very slowly to drift our way. Nonchalantly at first, and then later going up to the ball herself when it would get away from either me or Skye. By the end, Freesia was actually nudging the ball herself to return it to Skye. It was an amazing sight to see the dog and horse playing ball together. But I realized something, too: at first I was uncomfortable doing something just for me, and Freesia translated that and was very standoffish, but then as I got more and more out of myself and in the moment, I began to see how important it was for me to take