I’m Not A Failed Horse: Embracing My Inner Zebra

I have lived my life in a lovely herd of horses.  They did all the great horse things like having riders, pulling carts, and herding cattle, and running and jumping.  My hooves went clop, and I had a mane and tail.  But I couldn't do those things that the other horses did so easily. The other horses looked at me funny and didn't include me in their horsey games.  The adult horses kept telling me that I had so much potential, but that I wasn’t living up to it.  Why couldn’t I just live up to my potential to be an amazing show horse?  I didn't understand why it was so hard.

 I felt like a failed horse.  I wanted to be the amazing horse that I was told that I could be.  So I painted my stripes.  I painted them so thoroughly that I just looked like a black horse that was a bit off.  I used my talent for evading predators to instead evade myself. I found that if I pushed myself into life or death stress and lived there all the time then I could start to approach my potential.  If I was so stressed that I lived in constant hyperfocus then I could do what was being asked of me.  So I did.  I was a black horse who was always in fight-or-flight mode just to survive and blend in.  I still got funny looks, and the other horses didn’t really include me, but at least I was winning at the horse shows!  I earned the scholarships, I was at the top of my class, I graduated law school and became a lawyer.  I finally figured out how to blend in enough with the other horses.

Then one day I went to a place where others didn't look at me funny, and they invited me to their herd.  They saw that I was a bit off from regular horses, but that was fine.  The horses in this herd looked different from the other horses, and they also were all a bit different from each other.  But all our hooves went clop, and we (mostly) had manes and tails.

Soon, I had my own foal.  She was VERY different than the rest of the foals. She also felt like a failed horse, and did everything she could to fit in.  I read and researched for years to learn why it was that she was so different, and I realized that her, and me, and my partner, and my other foal, aren't failed horses at all.  WE ARE ZEBRAS!

We might clop like a horse, and eat grass, and have manes and tails. But we are not horses, and never were. A zebra was never meant to have a rider, or to work on a farm.  But we can evade an attacking lion, and we are creative and magnificent. A regular horse could never do that!  If we compare ourselves to the herd horses, we will always feel like we don't belong.  They will always give us funny looks for our stripes and our wild ways.  But they are a different type of animal, they don’t understand what it is like to live as a zebra, what is going on inside.  

Once we find our herd of other zebras, we know that we are home.  We can work together as a mass to thrive in our environment.  We can raise our foals to know that they are beautiful zebras, and not failed horses. We can celebrate everyone, no matter how different their color or pattern of stripes.

Discovering at the age of 39 that I am a zebra, and not a failed horse, has been life changing for me.  I got to a point in my life where I simply could not continue to pretend to be a horse anymore. I realized, thanks to a life-changing trip to Israel (www.momentum.org) that I could not pretend anymore.  There was something fundamentally wrong in my life, but I didn’t know what it was.

I tried for months and months to figure out why I couldn’t change the stressful and untenable situation that I was in anymore.  I had the best intentions, I made goals, I tried so many things.  But nothing worked.  And I started what I call my melting. 

I melted, I couldn’t function anymore the way I always had.  Things started falling apart around me. I couldn’t juggle a business, special needs kids, a marriage, and myself anymore.

One day a good friend, who has an autistic child herself, lovingly suggested that my daughter might be autistic.  When I researched “autism in girls ages 9-12” it was light the light finally turned on.  And the light turned on in two rooms.  As I read and researched, I realized that not only is my daughter likely autistic, all those characteristics were very familiar to me.  When I looked back at myself I realized that all of that described me, too.

By that point, my daughter had been connected to Dr. Rebecca McVey at Firefly Autism for an evaluation.  When I say that Dr. McVey absolutely saved our family, I am not exaggerating (and I’ve told her that several times).  I was so scared, I heard all the horror stories from other parents of twice exceptional children.  You see, my daughter is not only neurodivergent, she had been identified as profoundly gifted before she started kindergarten.  Twice exceptional (2e) kids are both gifted and have a mental or physical health condition that affects their daily life.  It is notoriously hard to get proper diagnoses for 2e kids because they are so good at masking in order to fit in.

As soon as we started our first interview with Dr. McVey I knew that she got it, she could see past the masking to what is really inside.  Then, at the end of the parent interview, she said with great gentleness “you know, I’m one of the only doctors who will diagnose highly successful women. Most won’t even try.”  I responded “received with the care and compassion it was sent.”

Within weeks I was scheduled for my own evaluation.  My daughter was diagnosed at age 9 in the fall of 2022 with ASD, ADHD (combined), Profoundly Gifted, OCD, Generalized Anxiety Disorder and Sensory Processing Disorder.  I was finally diagnosed in the winter of 2022 as autistic, ADHD (inattentive), Profoundly Gifted, OCD, Generalized Anxiety Disorder, Sensory Processing Disorder, and with developmental trauma.  Now, in the winter of 2023, my 7 year old son was diagnosed with ASD, ADHD (combined), Gifted, Generalized Anxiety Disorder (and some other things to watch), also with Dr. McVey.

There are no words to express the confirmation, the freedom, the affirmation that all that insight gave me. I AM NOT A FAILED HORSE!  No matter how hard I tried, I was never going to fit in to the herd of horses.  I especially was not going to fit in with the herd of highly trained show horses that I spent most of my life with.  Now I don't try to fit in, but instead work to teach the horses about the zebras in their midst.

My brain is physically built differently than most people’s brains.  It’s not my fault, it’s not even a bad!  It’s just a different way of being, and that’s to be celebrated.  On the whole, I don’t want to be any other way.  I can’t imagine how boring life would be without the unending curiosity and passion that I have.  What would this world be if we were all the same?  Very boring.

Fortunately for me, I had already connected with a big herd of zebras at Jefferson Unitarian Church, and with the other moms in my Momentum group.  If you are a zebra, go find your herd of zebras right now.  You might have to be a part of making your herd (I certainly was), but it will make all the difference in the world to you and your children to be with others who truly understand you. 

I hope you continue with me on my journey as I learn to embrace my inner zebra, and to raise my little ones so that they can do the same.

--Meggin,  January 10, 2024

Image Credit: Ritu.... on her blog post "The Zebra Among Horses", which I only found after image searching "zebra in herd of horses".