Triple Trouble: Desensitized to the Bull

“That’s what desensitization is: it’s not pretending you’re not scared, it’s choosing to stand your ground anyway. Choosing to face it, again and again, until your instincts rewire and your fear becomes focus. You still mutter curse words, but the breakdowns become breathers. The sobs become sighs.”

At first, it’s chaos.

Something goes wrong — and not just wrong, but spooked horse in the round pen wrong. Your brain bolts. No direction, no logic, just pure panic and adrenaline. You stop sleeping. You forget how to eat. Maybe you even act recklessly, not because you’re wild, but because you’re trying to outrun the rising tide of overwhelm. Everything feels urgent. Everything feels like too much. Problems stack like Jenga blocks balanced on a trampoline — just waiting for one more tremor. Until someone — a friend, a partner, a parent, or maybe your own ragged voice — says, “Enough.”

And even though nothing actually gets easier, something shifts. You realize not every noise means danger. Not every plastic bag is a monster. Some of it just is — and panic won’t make it pass faster. You can’t solve everything today. You can’t save the world by midnight. But you can take one step. And then another.

April 15, 2025 dressing change. Photo by Marcella Gruchalak

That’s how we train horses to handle fear. You start with a fire-breathing dragon. A plastic bag crinkles, and they’re climbing the round pen panels. Their entire body reacts — eyes wide, heart racing, muscles twitching. But with patience, exposure, and time, something incredible happens. First, they bolt. Then they flinch. Eventually, they just blink. The bag is still there — the threat hasn’t vanished — but they’ve stopped giving their whole nervous system to it. They pause instead of panic. They go from explosion to side-eye.

We’re not so different. We just don’t always realize we’re in training, too.

April 20, 2025 dressing change. Photo by Marcella Gruchalak

At some point, the pure panic dulls. The words still come out — “What the hell? Seriously? This is bull$h!t!” — but they’ve lost their edge. They’re no longer screams. They’re tired sighs, muttered while you clean up the mess, again. You’re not shocked anymore. You’re just… over it.

This is the stage when you stop trying to smother the fire with your bare hands and quietly start looking for the hose — or at least the extinguisher. Maybe you even stop trying to save the whole barn and just focus on wrapping the legs of the horses still standing. You’re still in the smoke. Still hearing the creaks of falling beams. But you’re moving. Head up. Halter in hand. One hoof at a time.

That’s where I am. That’s where Payco is too.

Proud flesh debridement on April 23, 2025. Photo by Marcella Gruchalak

His leg, a horror show out of a vet med textbook, is healing on pace. The wound has new granulation tissue. Circulation to the area is strong. He’s bearing weight. The vet — a familiar face now — brings news of progress every five days.

And yet, true to form, Payco is still Payco. He recently cast himself in his stall, flailing at a support beam, shifting part of the barn structure. Because of course he did. Just when calm begins to settle, he picks a fight with gravity. That’s Payco. And honestly, that’s life.

Payco’s damage to the barn after most likely getting cast in his stall. View from the inside. Photo by Marcella Gruchalak

Payco’s damage to the barn after most likely getting cast in his stall. View from the outside. Photo by Marcella Gruchalak

It’s in these moments — when the storm hits again, just as you find your footing — that you realize desensitization isn’t about eliminating fear. It’s about building a response system that doesn’t break under pressure.

The first stage of desensitization is hyper-reactivity. Everything is a threat. Every limp, every bill, every unanswered call feels catastrophic. And maybe it is, a little, in that moment. Like a green horse reacting to every shadow — you can’t tell the difference between a breeze and a bear.

Stage two of the process is controlled exposure. You start facing it. Not all at once, but one step at a time. You look at the scary thing. You edge closer. You walk past the tarp. It still rustles, but it doesn’t unravel you. You’re building tolerance.

Stage three begins the dulling of the response. Now the world throws something at you and you just… blink. Not because you don’t care — but because you’ve seen worse. You’ve been through worse. You’re not numb. You’re calloused in the way that lets you function.

Stage four is that final stage where you begin trusting in the handler. The horse learns to listen to the human. And you, you start listening to yourself. You stop spiraling. You say, “We’ve got this.” You become your own steady hand. Your own calm presence in the chaos.

Dressing change April 28, 2025. Photo by Marcella Gruchalak

Watching Payco heal from a degloving injury — from something so catastrophic it exposed bone, tendons, and the joint — has become my strangest, most honest metaphor. His leg was flayed. It was grotesque. And still, beneath it all, his body just… tried. It didn’t give up. It did what bodies are built to do: rebuild.

I wanted to quit. I asked the hard questions. But Payco never stopped showing up — soft, present, trusting — even when we wrapped his wounds with hands that must have hurt him. So I kept showing up too.

Dressing change April 30, 2025. Photo by Marcella Gruchalak

Because that’s what desensitization is: it’s not pretending you’re not scared, it’s choosing to stand your ground anyway. Choosing to face it, again and again, until your instincts rewire and your fear becomes focus. You still mutter curse words, but the breakdowns become breathers. The sobs become sighs. And eventually, like a young horse that’s seen enough flags and bags and chaos to know it’s not worth the energy, you stop losing your mind every time life kicks the gate.

Instead, you wrap the leg. You watch the gait. You pay the bill. And you whisper to yourself, “We’ve been through worse.” And then — you keep going. Because being desensitized doesn’t mean you’ve given up. It means you’ve adapted.

Payco in better days, preparing for a run. Photo by Greg Jackson