Althea Terrell

[Dr. Althea Terrell]

Althea Abbey Terrell
The long term prognosis is poor, but someone has to try. I am someone.
Between the Devil and the deep blue sea.

[/color]


• •

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -[/center]

THE RP-er;;

OOC Name:

SongDragon (Song, SD). My name is Jennifer (Jen), and it’s not personal, it’s just so common that I might not notice you’re talking to me if you call me that.

Age:
Twenty-Four.

Gender:
Female.

Experience:

I’ve been role-playing for over half my life now. I started on Dungeons & Dragons and moved to online forums when I was twelve or thirteen. I got introduced to my first horse role-play game when I was fifteen or sixteen. Since then it has been an on-and-off experiment and I’ve played everything from dragons, to caracals, to doppelgangers. I used to co-own a horse and rider role-play, but due to life circumstances, it was shut down never to reopen. I’m not usually a fan of forums, as I began on freewebs, and I usually like making my own html. That’s enough about me, I hope.

Do you play any other characters on the site?:
Nope. Not yet, at least.

GENERAL;;

Play-By: Unknown.

Name:
Althea Abbey Terrell

Nicknames:
Was known as Altie in University. A couple that knew her middle name as well called her AA in an attempt to be ironic. She’ll let her new acquaintances come up with their own nicknames if they want. Athea really is a mouthful to say…

Hometown:
Pacifica, CA, USA

Season They Were Born in:
Winter.

Age:
Twenty-Eight.

Gender:
Female.

Sexuality:
Bisexual.

Nationality:
Greek, English, Native American… Just American works.

Job/Schooling:
Instructor
BS in Psychology (University of California, Berkeley)
PhD in Childhood Clinical Psychology (University of Kansas)
PATH Intl Certified

Border, Barn Staff, Volunteer or Foster?:
Barn Staff

PHYSICAL;;

Full Description:

Often mistaken for one of her students, Althea is small. For such a large personality, most people don’t expect the tiny packaging. On stage she can pull it off, her stage presence and attention grabbing comedy making her seem larger than life, but off stage Althea (Altie) is only half an inch above five feet tall. She’s not a willow branch at one hundred, fourteen pounds. She’s muscular, with strong hands with long fingers and long toed feet. Althea walks with a spring in her step. She moves quickly and smoothly, and has to put forth a concerted effort not to fidget, not the sort to sit still at all.

Althea’s hair is a deep brown like Dr. Pepper. It even has caramel shades to it in the sunlight. By contrast her skin is milk pale, slightly flushed from exertion. Her lips are a pale color, and nicely shaped. Adequate anyway. She feels her nose is a little awkward, and her eyebrows rather dark, but Althea likes her eyes. Her eyes are a bright green. She used to hide her eyes behind light-colored frames, but her friends used to tease her about rocking that “sexy librarian” look. Eventually Althea found contacts were more suitable to her lifestyle as well as her preferred look.

Definitely more likely to wear plain clothing than clothing advertising fancy logos and such, Althea dresses primly. She favors cable sweaters, and has a particular fondness for lamb’s wool or cashmere. When dressing as a psychiatrist she wears gray slacks and either a button down shirt or a cowl neck sweater. In the ring she dresses more casually, wearing riding pants under a long sleeved t-shirt or a lighter sweater. On the trail Althea finally relaxes to jeans and half chaps. If it’s summer she might even don a t-shirt. Althea does not care for “hoodies” or “skinny jeans”. Hoodies hide movement, she feels, and truly skinny jeans restrict movement.

Disabilities:
None. Short? She needs to buy a stepstool… A bit nearsighted, so she wears contacts.

Picture;;
Work In Progress


MENTAL;;

Personality:

Since many people don’t like to make the first move, Althea has practiced being proactive and approaching others first. She’s not afraid to make the first move, or the second. Due to this she can come on a little strong and overly talkative. Althea won’t push people to talk about themselves, particularly when she’s not actually working, but she speaks rather freely about herself. Sometimes it may even seem like Althea is afraid of silence. She speaks with her hands; nearly half her communication is repeated in her body language.

In her job, though Althea cares about the results very much, she feels driven. She felt driven to complete school, as if her father is always looking over her shoulder with ridicule written on his face. Despite the fact she knows she has issues around this, she continues not to deal with it for the moment. Althea doesn’t like the idea of living up to anyone, but is struggling to step out from beneath his shadow. At least she can recognize the error in her thinking and the need for cognitive behavioral therapy in her own recovery. That’s only a bookish understanding of the problem, though.

Despite all the above “strong” and “bold” characteristics, Althea is an introvert, and unwinds from her job in solitude. Many of Althea’s hobbies are independent. Althea is reluctant at best to give up her free time, because she knows there’s a fine line to walk between burnout and involvement. On top of that Althea worries about the signs of burnout in others, realizing that they might not recognize the signs if they don’t have clinical training. Althea wants people to operate at their peak condition, not at the sub-par levels she has frequently seen.

If Althea feels hurt, she tries to justify what the other person might have said. Althea tries to be rational. Rationalizing it should take the sting out of it, but it doesn’t. If people press enough buttons, eventually Althea will get angry and will confront a person about what they’re doing. When she gets fully angry, Althea unfortunately will hit every place that she knows is especially tender for a person. She can be a real terror when pressed. Things that tend to press her buttons are cruelty, indifference, and people telling her what she “needs” to do. Althea gets annoyed with people that think there’s only one right answer.

Likes:
Tea, chai.
Loud, bright thunderstorms.
Rain on a tin roof.
Warm weather.
Telling tales around a fire.
The colors green and white.
Books; the more the merrier.
Feeling helpful.

Dislikes:
Feeling like she got herself trapped.
Difficult choices.
Titles of respect like “doctor” which make her feel disconnected…
Fizzy drinks, like sodas.
Cold, clammy weather which makes her bones ache.
Embarrassment inhibiting people.
Crowds and peer pressure.
Complete order without at least a touch of chaos…

Hobbies:

Riding, reading, drama (theatre, comedy), listening to music, and writing. Community service projects, such as volunteering at an animal shelter or taking in a foster dog or cat. Also, she’s trying to raise community awareness around mental health, so public speaking.

Fears:

Althea is afraid of the water; she can’t swim very well. Also, sports that feel aggressive to Althea, like cutting, roping, and barrel racing, tend to make her very uncomfortable. Another thing Althea fears is being held to her father’s expectations.

PAST;;

History:

“It’s not where you’ve been, but what you think about where you’ve been.”

As evident, Althea was named after her maternal grandmother. It’s an old fashioned name that made her flinch on her way to school. Althea’s parents met at Yale University, while her father, Elias, was completing his master’s in business and her mother was just starting out. Her mother was very far away from home, and being with Elias, an up-and-coming business associate, offered her protection from being alone. Elias, used to being alone, since his father had left the family when he was very young, and his mother was worn down from raising three competitive boys, appreciated the attention. After that it played out sort of like a bad sitcom. All the two knew was that they wanted to stay together, but had opposite pulls in their life. Cheryl’s father wasn’t doing well, so they moved out to Pacifica. Elias moved up in the television biz.

Althea was a well-planned child. They wanted her to go on to wonderful things. So, they got her started early. She was enrolled in dance and then horse back riding. After school, Althea was expected to take one sport a season, so as to be well-rounded. She was pretty sure the ball had an affinity for her head. So the sports Althea chose in the long run were riding, cross country, and crew. Also, at least leading up to the school play, Althea never came home. Indeed, Althea’s parents relied on extracurricular activities to supply Althea with the attention she needed. Her father offered heavy-handed guidance when it came to grades and colleges. Althea could feel the disappointment coming off him in waves if she failed him.

The only thing he never was able to make her do was to swim. At a very young age she felt the undercurrent, dragging at her feet, and rather than having trust that her parents would keep her from being swallowed up, Althea screamed to get out. This led to many pranks at beach parties, later, as Althea only ever learned to swim passably in a pool. She never enjoyed it, she always just floundered to the edge, because otherwise her father wouldn’t stop throwing her in. There was something about sand slipping through her toes that she couldn’t get over.

When Althea was eleven she asked her parents for a horse. She had shown with a horse called Will for a couple of years. She had done chores at the barn on the days she didn’t ride, as she knew she wasn’t supposed to be home alone, too young to be a latchkey child quite yet, and she had put together a list of all the expenses involved. She estimated that if her allowance was ten dollars a week, and she packed all her lunches and bought no snacks, that she could pay about ten percent of the costs involved. The rest she wanted as a Christmas and birthday present for the rest of her life… Cheryl was horrified. She thought it was a highly desirable sport to know, but deep down she didn’t like those giant animals near her baby, and would have been quite alright if Althea had given up the sport in a year or so. Elias saw a teaching moment. He showed Althea how to write it up as a five paragraph persuasive letter. Then he bought Althea her first horse.

Althea’s first horse was a chestnut Trakehner named Carmeli. Carmeli was a retired eventing horse, and was sixteen years old. Her experience helped Althea go on to much more showing. Carmeli helped her in so much more than just that, however. The next few years did not go well. Althea’s father was always off and about, and Althea started noticing that her mother’s tax attorney friend came over frequently. Then when Althea was fourteen, on the day her father was returning from a conference in Ohio, she found her mother packing. When her father came into the house later that night, and took a taxi home to see why he was not greeted at the airport, he found Althea in the driveway on Carmeli, whom she had ridden on from the stable home after school in order to have company. Elias never really dealt with the issue, though it was clear Cheryl had taken all the money he had in their joint savings account. She had left, first stop Mexico, where she waited for Elias to sign the divorce papers, and later to Barbados. She wouldn’t reenter Althea’s life for over four years as more than a phone call.

Since Althea’s father still needed to work, and if anything became worse at communication with his teenage daughter, Althea moved in with her mother’s parents. That was where she was finally asked what she would like to be called, and given chores as a responsibility to aid the household functioning, rather than as an obligation. Althea’s grandmother called her “Allie” and while her grandfather was an aloof fellow, at least he was there. He spoke to her about horses, as he had ridden in his youth, apparently. They actually had animals, and Althea was affectionate with them. There were a few chickens, an elderly greyhound, and a tabby cat. If Althea’s grandmother ran into an animal on the way home that needed help, it would come home with them for at least the night. Most of the time they were just dogs that had eluded their owners grasp, but they did bring another cat that tangled with a truck into the mix.

Although Althea’s father wanted her to attend Yale, Althea refused to even apply. She wanted to be able to visit her grandparents on the weekends. They weren’t getting any younger in age. So, along with a few of her close friends from school, Althea went to the University of California, at Berkeley. She enjoyed herself immensely, and her grandparents visited her frequently. Her father’s visits became less and less frequent, and if he had to justify it, he told Althea she looked too much like a darker-haired version of her mother. He always sent her expensive gifts or paid for her board. Althea got by frequently without needing to make investments that others came by naturally, such as their first car or their rent. During this time period of school, Carmeli was retired due to weight loss. Then, the same year, her grandfather died of a heart attack. Althea rushed home. It was an awkward time. It was the first time she saw her mother again since she had walked out of their lives, and no amount of phone calls and postcards could prepare her for how self-satisfied her mother seemed in her new life. A year later, the year Althea was to graduate, Carmeli had to be put down. This was a very rough for her.

Lost, Althea followed her father’s continued urging to make something of herself. Not wanting to go down the medical route, and yet wanting to help people, Althea pursued psychology fiercely. Her greatest joy was her slow mail correspondence with her grandmother. On the side, Althea got involved with a therapeutic riding center. At first she just rode there and helped take care of the horses. Then she started learning ETA from an instructor there. She wrote her thesis about adolescents and ETA, just starting to look for a couple of horses she could use in such a career. Her father, silently, but as promptly as if he spied on her, bought her a horse. He had obviously done his research and had Salomon registered as a PATH horse. While Althea loves Slo, she doesn’t care for his continued interference in her life. Althea moved to take a job as a riding instructor; she was sure her father wouldn’t like the job title, and put even more distance between them. She loves Slo, and tries not to let that mess with her head too much. The issue wasn’t the horse; it was the control he kept taking away from her.

Now the next era of her life is just beginning at The Saving Grace Ranch in Harrisbury, VA.

Bloodlines;
Mother: Cheryl Terrell (Abbey) || 49 || Doctor, Expatriate
Father: Elias Terrell || 56 || Communications Director (Television), Published Author
Siblings: None.
Grandparents: Althea Abbey (76), Frank Abbey (79, Deceased)

EQUESTRIAN DETAILS;;

Rider's Best Event
Dressage

Rider's Worst Event
Barrel Racing


Horse's Show Name: Salomon
Horse's Barn Name: Slo
Barn: Main Barn (Five)
Breed: Fjord
Gender: Gelding
Age: Seven
Height: 14.3 HH
Coat Color: Dun
Eye Color: Black
Markings or Brands: Dark and white mixed mane and tail. Kind eye.
Discipline(s): Dresage, Jumping, Eventing
Personality: Honest, people-pleasing, begging.
History: Well-raised with a good bloodline, he’s just learning what it means to have Althea as his human and work with her as a certified PATH horse, as well as working with her at dressage. They have only been a team for a year. He’s very gentle, with almost no spook. He’s not a push-button horse, because he wants to “hear” each request just right. If his rider is off balance and he has time to stop ahead of the jump, he will. He is a treat hound, and while he has good manners, as he must for his job, he will stick out his lip and cock his head to the side, or stick out his tongue.
Pictures: None yet.

RANDOMNESS;;

Other:
If it’s allowed, Althea would also like to foster greyhounds. Not sure due to not knowing housing rules…

Theme Song:
I’m still thinking on this one, I’ve a couple in mind..

[Sprinkles]

Accepted! Please remember to make your claims <3