Chapter 3 :)

3. HOPE
Sam Leiferman took me under his wing. He was a softhearted cowboy with two daughters of his own, and one missing front tooth, but he didn’t care. He always had a smile on his face. He saw me ride one of his horses one day. She was a rank mare named Candy, who “tried” everyone who got on her back. That meant that she would “try” to find out just what you were made of before she would decide to let you make her do anything. I got on her to take her around the barrel racing course, one of the timed events where you run the horse in a cloverleaf pattern around three barrels. I rode her up to the first barrel and sure enough, she balked, backed up, turned around, spun and kicked out. I kept at her and stayed on. Then she decided to let me tell her what to do. I got to ride Candy at the next Playday and I earned Sam’s respect, and 7 ribbons! He told me that I rode better than his two daughters and they’d “been ridin’ since before they could walk.” That man gave me one of the best gifts of my life. He was the father that I never had. He treated me like I was one of his own daughters.

I competed in Playday after Playday on other people’s horses because we couldn’t afford one. I would cry myself to sleep wanting a horse but grateful that I could at least be around them. I won 2nd place high point two years in a row borrowing whatever horse was available at the local saddle club. That’ll sure teach a girl how to ride! Horses were my coping mechanism du jour.
It was a Monday night meeting like any other Monday night meeting at the local Kootnei County Saddle Club. My best friend Erin and I were galloping around trying to pay attention to the daily minutes of the last meeting… Not! Later that evening we saw Sam walking our way with a couple of people around him. He put his hand on my shoulder and said, “you know that mare, Laurie?” I said a sheepish “yeaaah.” Laurie happened to be very pregnant and I had ridden her a few times. “Weal… I want to give you her baby when it’s born!” I don’t recall what happened next. I WAS GONNA HAVE A HORSE!!!!!!!

That Wednesday I got a phone call from Sam telling me that Laurie had her baby! I REALLY DID HAVE A HORSE!!! I was so excited to go see my baby! I had to wait a couple of days, Sam’s ranch was a little far away and it was a tough for my three-job-working mom to just pick up and go out there. Then Friday rolled around. I was so excited! Sam drove up in his dusty pickup truck to get me. I had my ten-gallon hat on my half pint head. Sam got out of his truck and walked up to my mom and I with a sad look on his face. You see, that’s the first time I every saw Sam without a smile on his face. My heart sank just a little. He gave me a big hug and told me that the mare, Laurie, wouldn’t feed her little filly… MY new baby horse. She rejected her. They tried everything they could to save her but the filly died. My heart hit the floor along with a few tears. Then Sam brought my mom and me out to his ranch. He lassoed a little wobbly-legged colt that was born two months earlier. Sam smiled, handed my mom and me the end of the lariat and said, “What’s on the end of this rope is yours.” That little guy pulled my mom and me around the corral for a while. He was small but he was mighty! Once I could catch my breath, and my new baby horse, I was floating on cloud 9 once again. Wow. Everything does happen for a reason because he turned out to be the best horse in the world!

Sam’s then girlfriend and later wife, Jan, suggested the name Forest Leprechaun and it stuck. So that was his name. Forest Leprechaun. He became my best friend and I was his. When we had to wean him from his mom it tore my heart up. He whinnied until he was a hoarse little horse listening for her to call back, but I was there for him. Then I became his closest friend. I would arrive at the pasture after riding my bike for 5 miles, I didn’t care, and call out to him. He would raise his head up so fast and come run to the fence to greet me with a bunch of whinnies and warm fuzzy nuzzles.

I also loved when I would get there and he was lying in the field and I would walk out to see him and lay there with him. I’d lift his head and put it on my lap and let him sleep a little longer. It was so amazing. It was also funny because I was there to work with him, to train him, too. We had a job to do! He just wanted to sleep. Finally, after he napped for a bit, and drooled on my leg (I loved it) I would tell him to get up. I’d lift his head and say “COME ON! LET’S GO!” He would just flop his cute little head down and lay there. I would do jumping jacks around him to get his energy up; he would still lie there. I would end up lifting up his head and getting serious, we’ve got work to do! With enough encouragement he would get up from the warm grass, shake himself off and we’d be on our way up to the round pen. I would “drive” him from the ground to train him - I would use a bridle and long reins to guide him because he was still too young for me to get on his back. I even showed him at the local fair in halter and won second place! There were only two of us in the competition - but I was still proud. I knew his confirmation was not ideal but I loved him to bits anyway. It really didn’t matter to me. He was my horse! That was good enough.

My mom’s mom, my grandma (wow… yeah, my horse ridin’ barrel racin’ steer ridin’ GRANDMA!) was in town and Forest was just about to turn two! That’s the age when you can actually ride a horse!!! BUT… he wasn’t quite two yet so I had it stuck in my half-pint head that I couldn’t get on him. My grandma said “git on him!” So I did. I do miss my grandma. I’m so very thankful that I took her advice. Because the first time I got on my horse, she was there, as was my mom. That meant a whole lot to me. And Forest was a perfect gentleman. I don’t know what else I thought he would do… we were best friends. He just walked around as if it were any other day. I just happened to be on his back. I guess I had it in my head that any time you first get on a horse they have some bucking to do; watched too many westerns I reckon. In fact, every horse I have trained has never had buck in ‘em when I got on for the first time.

Not much later I was riding Forest around with just a strap around his neck. No saddle, no bridle. He was a green broke two-year old horse! I would ride him in the mountains where there were apple trees and pear trees. We would ride up a ways and I would jump off to pick apples and pears from the trees to bring home. I had them all bundled up in the front of my shirt and would make sure he was on the downhill side so I could swing back up on his back. Sure enough he would bend his head around to eat the apples and pears that I had in my shirt, there were MANY on the ground all around us, really there was plenty of fruit to go around, but he wanted MINE. We would end up going in circles, me trying to get back on him, him trying to get my apples and pears! It would really crack me up. I think he was laughing too.

Then there was our game of hide-and-seek! The pasture, that I paid a whopping $15 per month for, was huge. It had a little lean-to at the top, a shed in one area and one big oak tree at the bottom. It was perfect. I would show up and Forest was always happy to see me. I would run down to the big oak tree and hide behind it. Forest would gallop down there with me and (I could hear his hoof beats) and I would “disappear” to him! He would go around and around that big oak tree looking for me… then I would jump out and he would buck and kick and fart and buck and kick and swing his head around in play. Then we’d start the game all over again. We loved it. Awwwww… the good ‘ol days.

Homless?

Since recovering from bulimia, I have written a book about my experience with it. I did it to give back and with the intention of helping others if they too find themselves in an addiction of any kind. I found my way out of the deep, dark tunnel I had crawled into when I was 17 years-old. All I needed was a little help. My wonderful therapist, Ed Bloch, was that gift of help for me. He gently guided me through the darkness... the following is the 2nd chapter from my book.

2. HOMELESS?

I often joke that I was born a poor, white child, but it’s actually true. I guess it all started before I was born. I was a mistake. My mom didn’t know she was pregnant with me until she was 3 1/2 months along and felt me kicking. By the time I arrived, mom was pretty sad. I was told growing up that my dad was drunk at a bar while I was being born. I’ve since learned that my dad probably was at a bar, however he was not there just to have a drink, he was “devoting literally every waking moment to his ‘baby’” according to an article in an Oregon newspaper written by John Wenderborn. His ‘baby’ was the Headwater Booking Agency. He was doing his best to provide for his family and create a successful talent-booking agency for Oregon musicians. It just so happens that during the time of my birth it was his company’s biggest growth (it doubled in seven months starting January, 1971). His company stimulated an almost nonexistent market for creative music in the area. I came along on February 1st, 1971 at 3:33am. Mom was giving birth to me and she already had a one-year-old daughter, my sister, Lisa, to care for and a husband who was working day and night whom she felt was cheating on her. I can understand my mom’s view of the situation. She was a young girl giving birth to her second child mostly by herself. Delicate matters for sure. The mind can play terrible games to a loving, sensitive and emotional, not to mention hormonal, young woman. My mom was so stressed out that every time she would feed me from her breast I would throw up. Irony? Ha ha. Life’s cruel joke (actually, my bad one!) Her milk was full of stress. I was a burden, before I knew what that word meant. I was a burden before I knew there were words.

Thirteen years later… the year was 1984, I recall very clearly one beautiful summer day sittin’ in the back seat of our mom’s old rustish colored Toyota “Crayola” (as we called it) at the local Zip’s fast food restaurant in a small town in the northern mountains of Idaho where we lived. Two boys pulled up next to us (in Idaho we could drive at 14). The boys were checking us out and one boy says to the next, “I get the brunette.” Back in the day my sis had light brown hair and I had blond hair. That comment sticks to a girl’s ribs, so to speak. I felt like “the ugly one,” you know, the “take one for the team” one.

My sister was one of the “popular girls” in school, a cheerleader, she ran with all the popular chicks, had the cute boyfriend, was always around friends. I got straight “A’s” and was always by myself daydreaming about horses. I was known as “Lisa’s sister.” In grade school some new girl my sister was showing around the school thought I was mentally handicapped because she saw me and my friend galloping around the playground on our hands and feet at recess pretending we were horses. Yeah, that was me.

My mom has always had a great sense of humor through all the trials and tribulations that we call growing up. I truly love that about her. She was married and divorced three times before I was ten and worked three jobs to support the three of us. Heck, she was trying to find mister right. It ain’t easy. I admire how amazingly strong that woman was and still is. I recall my mom empowering my sister and I by telling us that we could be anything we wanted when we grew up. Anything. I was so excited because I knew exactly what I wanted to be, a horse! She just smiled and casually said, “ok.” I’m so proud of her for accepting my answer and not smacking me with the reality that that wasn’t really an option. She just said “ok” and let me believe in myself. I have kept that belief to this day. Thankfully I did change my mind about being a horse. Who knows what could have happened!? But horses were my world. If life felt upside down, there were always horses to dream about.

I also clearly recall a snowy evening that same year, standing behind my mom as she was going through the monthly bills that were written in hand as a long list on a light greenish-white spiral notebook. Her sense of humor was nowhere to be seen. She said that she couldn’t pay all the bills that month. It was not the first time this had happened; it’s just one time that stuck out for me. I was really paying attention. We were using food stamps and getting some groceries donated from our local church. I remember staring down at her long list of bills, I thought to myself, “I will NEVER have bills.” Then reality shot through my head “OH MY GOD. WE WILL BE HOMELESS. How do I help? What do I do?” I was too young to work and I felt like a burden to my mom. I was costing her even more money just by being there. That was my choice to take that on. My mom did not do that to me, I chose that all by myself. I have chosen “feeling like a burden” as a theme in my life. It’s popped up all over the place. Silly me! I am proud of the fact that I am now fully aware of this, however. Anyway, after exhausting all possible thoughts in my tiny blond head as to how I will pay the rent and the rest of the bills that month, I went outside and pretended I was a Grand-Prix show jumping horse and jumped a perfect round with zero faults in our garden. Fifteen times. My coping mechanism. We did not end up homeless, thank God!

Oh, the bad ol' days...

I used to have bulimia. I had it for 12 years. I wrote a book about my bulimic path in life from the age of 17 to the age of 31... Oh my gosh, I just did the math again... It was 14 years! That's even more tragic. Anyway, I survived, thank God (whichever God you choose - or nonGod). I want to help. I am completely bulimia FREE! I do not do any of the eating disordered behavior that I did for those 14 years & I never thought I'd be able to say that, ever! I would cry thinking of what the heck I would look like as a 40 year old woman with bulimia. It didn't look good in my eyes. I wrote the book in order to be of service to others and to do the ol' cliche saying "make lemonade out of lemons." So here is an excerpt of my "lemonade":

1. IN IT

I’m hanging my head over the small black trashcan that I use to catch the vomit. All I can think about is getting rid of it. I’ve already dumped some of what I’ve hurled into the toilet to flush away. This is the worst part. Getting rid of ALL of it. The end. There is no more eating. No more tasting food except the regurgitated shit I’ve eaten before mixed with bile and stomach acid. I’ve frenzied my way through so much food I cannot possibly let any of it stay in me. There is no telling how many calories that could possibly be. I couldn’t stop. The binge part is easier. This is hell. My eyes are bloodshot and bulging. My face is red and swollen. I hang my head as I drool hoping for my stomach to automatically force the food out of me. I chew on a straw to flatten it out and force it down my throat. I gag and retch more. The straws sharp edges poke my tender, raw esophagus. I hurl, now into the toilet, until I cannot anymore. Finally I decide that it’s over. I’m exhausted, ashamed, disconnected, swollen… I brush my teeth without looking in the mirror. I cannot look myself in the eye. I wash my face and crawl into bed, disgusted with myself. Not knowing when it will end. Tomorrow I have to face another day.

APRIL 2000

FOUR HOURS EARLIER:

JOURNAL ENTRY THAT WAS SENT TO ED, MY THERAPIST

Aww fuck. OK I may go into it. I may not. I’m battling in between. I’ve been really good today… according to my standards of caloric intake and exercise.

I’m munching on Baked Lays and those are usually OK, however I have some other stuff here to munch on and if I go there then I don’t think that I will like myself for eating it. Right now it feels like a calorie thing… it is sometimes like this, sometimes not. I’ve been around a lot of people lately. Sometimes that is so stressful that I turn to bingeing and purging. I don’t know yet if it’s about not having done it in a couple days or trying to escape being around people and being so affected by them. Now I am eating some of the ham and cheese sandwich that I got at circle K. I took off the bread to feel better but I don’t think that will last… now I feel even worse cuz I’m eating the other half, sans most of the bread. But, I’m almost challenging me to do this just so I can do this (Write about it and dig deeper into it)… before I was thinking that I wanted to eat and not think about it and escape… me… then I thought better, that I was afraid that I didn’t want to have to write about it. Now I’m sad cuz I am writing about it… as I take another bite… this sucks. I want more. I don’t want to want more. This has been a vague click over. More thought processes going on… not such a sudden click only because that can’t happen if I’m writing about it. I don’t feel good about it and it slows me down but I don’t think it’s bad enough to stop me yet. I hate this though. I hate this. Another couple Baked Lays… it’s adding up. I hate this. Now I feel I need to do a full on go-out-and-get- something-cheap-to-binge-on… I hate sharing this. I feel exposed. I’ve said that before. I feel like I’ve disappointed… me/you/the world. I’m such a good person without this… I know that’s not true but I felt it just now. I feel bad. Tears stream down my face without my even crying. I hate this. My throat feels like it will explode with the pressure. I don’t want to go there but I feel that I already have… I eat another chip just to check. Hand to mouth. Comfort in crunching. That sounds so silly. It’s 10:49PM. I think logically that I have until 4PM tomorrow for my next call time for this film I’m doing light stunt work on and I can sleep in and be OK to be a little puffy eyed cuz I have time for it to get un puffy. Three more Baked Lays… I don’t even feel so guilty about the Baked Lays… I feel guilty about my life. Now that just kinda came out of no where but I don’t know exactly what I mean by it but I had to write it down just in case I found later to understand it… why should I ever feel guilty about my life? Logically and even spiritually I can grasp some of that but I don’t get it. I don’t exactly want to ignore it but I don’t know what it means, if it means anything. It just popped in my head. Well, now that I’ve attempted to think that all out so logically and pretty… let’s get back to this… fuck, I don’t want to get back to this. So much easier not to… ham and cheese, Baked Lays. I’ve got egg whites and… what else… I don’t want to think of it… I want to go to a fast food place and order a lot of bad, bad food and bring it back and eat it all. That makes me cry. I don’t want to taste it and feel the process of taking it out of me. GOD I HATE THIS. I’m doing it so it will help me. I hate it. I still don’t want to look at it. I don’t want to leave from here cuz then I will go do this and I will feel so disgusting that I did this and that I am not such a good person because I’m doing this… fuck I don’t want to look at this. Now that I’m looking at myself I so don’t want to look at myself going to a fast food place and getting food. I feel stuck. Stuck with food inside me… stuck. I’m counting… I’m counting can I not purge and feel OK. Can I not purge and not weigh 150 pounds tomorrow morning. I know that is unreal, however I want to LOSE weight for this upcoming film. I feel that I’m failing at that. I don’t know how to get there. I don’t know. I only know that I would have to have help and that doesn’t feel too good to know cuz I don’t have anyone to help me. It would be a 24/7 kind of job and I don’t know anyone with that kind of time, let alone… me. What do I do? I don’t know. I don’t know. I wanna get rid of what’s inside me. That makes me cry really badly. I want it to be not a part of me. It is separate from me… food, even cannot be a part of me. I hate digestion. It means that food has become a part of me. During the day this is not a factor in my life… I eat healthy and I know that I need nutrition in my life and food to nourish… protein every three hours, carbs, proteins, fats, exercise etc. etc… in the night I want them to feel separate from me. The food. Leave me alone. Go away. I eat the food and I don’t want to go to bed without having something in my stomach however I want so badly to be separate from it. I want it to leave my body. I don’t want to have to throw up. I just want it gone. I don’t know any other way to get rid of it.

I’m gonna send this now so I don’t go over it too much and think about it. These are my thoughts, organically now.

--LoriDawn

APRIL, 2000

ED, MY THERAPIST’S RESPONSE

I know this was difficult for you. Thank you for risking and letting me in. Interesting how the process leads to information. So much to process. Hope you were able to rest through the rest of the night. LoriDawn an important step, I am humbled by your courage.

Love,

Ed

The first part of my book is a bit raw and may be difficult to read, but it is the truth. It was my truth and I was disgusted with myself. I understand that it was a coping mechanism for me at the time... looking back. I'm just so thankful that I don't have to endure those things any more.

Please let me know if I can be of any help to any person out there... I am here.