The Paid Leave Podcast

Healing Trauma and PTSD with Compassionate Therapy and Horses

• The Connecticut Paid Leave Authority • Season 3 • Episode 40

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June is Post Traumatic Stress Disorder Awareness Month also known as PTSD. Approximately 13 million adults in the United States are estimated to have PTSD.  80 percent of people are civilians with PTSD, surprisingly only 20 percent are military related. You can get traditional PTSD from a single traumatic event like a car accident or experiencing violence. But if you experienced multiple traumas, it may be diagnosed as complex PTSD. PTSD is frequently underdiagnosed or misdiagnosed.

In this edition of The Paid Leave Podcast, my guests are Dr. Jyothi Vayalakkara, she is a clinical neuropsychologist, who has been immersed in her work with mental health and complex trauma for more than two decades, and she currently is a supervising psychologist with the Department of Mental Health and Addiction Services, also known as DHMAS, where she is a long standing board member of the statewide advisory council that works on eliminating health disparities across the socio economic spectrum within DHMAS. She is currently a facilitator for Diversity Equity and Inclusion for state employees. Our other guest is Renee Bouffard, she is a licensed clinical social worker and equine therapist at Healing Hoofbeats in Bethlehem, CT. which she founded.  Renee helps individuals feel more empowered and secure in their lives through building healthy and mutually beneficial relationships with horses to foster connection and to support empowerment through equine and animal supported therapy. 

Dr. Vayalakkara explains what PTSD is, the diagnosis and her treatment protocol, emphasizing trauma-informed care and the importance of social support. Renee discusses equine therapy for everyone including a program for veterans, highlighting the program's free services and its impact on mental health. Both guests stress the need to reduce stigma around PTSD and the benefits of the paid leave program in providing financial and emotional support for those affected by trauma.


To get in touch with Dr. Jyothi Vayalakkara please go to: New England Psychological & Neuropsychological Associates, LLC or go to: Jyothi Vayalakkara, Psychologist, Rocky Hill, CT, 06067 | Psychology Today


To get in touch with Renee Bouchard please go to:  Healing Hoofbeats of CT | Equine & Animal Supported Therapy Services | Equine Therapy CT or call 203-244-8411


and for more information or to apply for benefits please go to: CT Paid Leave

https://ctpaidleave.org/s/?language=en_US



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Nancy Barrow:

Hello Connecticut, and welcome to The Paid Leave Podcast. The title basically says it all. I'm Nancy Barrow, and I will be delving into this new state program and how it can help you and your family. This podcast will give you information you should know about Connecticut Paid Leave and maybe just a little bit more. Connecticut Paid Leave brings peace of mind to your home, family and workplace. Welcome to The Paid Leave Podcast. Approximately 13 million adults in the US are estimated to have PTSD, and most listeners or viewers have heard about PTSD. They may initially think of the military are first responders, but 80% of people are civilians with PTSD only surprisingly, 20% are military. You can get traditional PTSD from a single traumatic event, like a car accident or experiencing violence, but if you have experienced multiple traumas, it may be diagnosed with complex PTSD, and PTSD is frequently underdiagnosed or misdiagnosed. Connecticut paid leave can help with time away from work with up to 12 weeks of income replacement for mental health issues that a healthcare professional deems a serious health condition, and with PTSD that may be considered also a chronic health condition, something that Connecticut paid leave also covers. Joining me today are two amazing guests for this conversation. Dr Jyothi Vayalakkara, she is a clinical neuropsychologist who has been immersed in her work with mental health and complex trauma for more than two decades, and she currently is a supervising psychologist with the Department of Mental Health and Addiction Services, also known as DHMAS, where she is a long standing board member of the statewide advisory council that works on eliminating health disparities across the socio economic spectrum within DHMAS, she has been a multicultural cohort trainer for DHMAS in the past, and is currently a facilitator for Diversity Equity and Inclusion for state employees. She's additionally devoted to working with trauma survivors, including military veterans. And she is the recipient of the military challenge coin for her outstanding contributions to training of military personnel in Fort Bragg, North Carolina, on destigmatizing mental illness with a specific focus on PTSD, our other amazing guest is Renee Bouffard, who is a licensed clinical social worker and an equine professional who specializes in equine and animal supported therapy services. Renee is the founder and executive director of Healing Hoofbeats of Connecticut Inc in Bethlehem, and she helps individuals feel more empowered and secure in their lives through building healthy and mutually beneficial relationships with horses to foster connection and to support empowerment through equine and animal supported therapy. She believes that learning how to build and maintain these relationships will begin to heal from their past experiences and learn how to navigate really difficult situations and feel more at peace in our lives. Renee founded Healing Hoofbeats in 2016 and continues to steer the vision of this practice as executive director. And she's been working in the field of social work for over a decade in residential settings and community mental health. And she specializes in complex and single incident, trauma, reactive attachment disorder, depression, anxiety and autism spectrum disorder with individuals of all ages, and she also works with people who suffer from trauma and PTSD. Jyothi and Renee, welcome to The Paid Leave Podcast. It was a long introduction, but thank you both so much for being here. If you weren't so accomplished, it would have been shorter, but you guys are pretty impressive, so I'm really excited to talk to you both.

Dr. Jyothi Vayalakkara:

Thank you so much for having us

Nancy Barrow:

Jyothi why don't you tell me your career and why you chose to be a neuropsychologist?

Dr. Jyothi Vayalakkara:

I'll try to make it as brief as I can. I am an immigrant from India. 1992 is when I arrived in the US as a student, and since then, I have not looked back on wanting a career in mental health. And the reason for my focus on Neuropsychology is because I was a pre med student before this, so I wanted to utilize my training in that arena as well, and neuropsychology seemed to be the best way to incorporate that as well into psychology. So fast forwarding now I have been a neuropsychologist, a licensed psychologist, clinical psychologist and neuropsychologist for the last 20 years, working with the state of Connecticut and the last 10 years, also working in private practice and trauma informed care is what I have always gravitated toward since my internship year when I was blessed to have Dr Kilpatrick, who was the former head of the National PTSD center, as one of my mentors when I was doing my internship in Charleston, South Carolina, at the Medical University of South Carolina, and I haven't looked back since then, I went to Boston and. Great training with the right kind of mentors. I think it is a perfect match. So trauma has been something that, obviously, you cannot tease out trauma from mental health. Yeah, it goes hand in hand.

Nancy Barrow:

I think everybody, if you, if you look at the pandemic, right, I think everybody has had a little bit of trauma and a little PTSD from from what we all experienced in isolating ourselves. So let's talk about your experience with PTSD. Like, how do you diagnose someone? Do you have to have clinical boundaries of what PTSD is?

Dr. Jyothi Vayalakkara:

Absolutely we do follow Diagnostic and Statistical Manual, DSM five, the latest one when it comes to diagnosing PTSD. But even before I start with that, I wanted to mention what you said earlier about the pandemic and having trauma and sometimes even PTSD, which is all true, but at the same time this PTSD gets thrown around, sometimes as though it is an epidemic which it is not acute stress disorder. Yes, it is something that we all gravitate toward anytime there's a traumatic event in our life, but for it to go on to PTSD. So actually the prevalence is approximately 6% in the civilian population, but it is 7% actually it's a little more in the combat veteran, military population, and the DSM five diagnosis, in a nutshell, says that it is an extreme reaction to the traumatic event. And like you had mentioned in the intro, it can be a single event. It can be accumulation of event. And also, there are several different ways of looking at PTSD. You can have PTSD from a single event, which is a little bit more easier to treat with some of the interventions which are manualized, and hopefully I'll get a chance to talk about some of the interventions later. But with complex PTSD, it gets to be a lot more chronic, and the diagnostic criteria requires you to have extreme symptoms, including reactivity, avoidance, flashback, hyper, arousal, all of those pieces. It's only one part of it. There's a lot more to it, for more than a month, and that would be the critical diagnostic criteria. If you have it for less you can have acute stress disorder. You can still manage your life without having taking a nosedive. But the critical piece, as with any other diagnoses in the DSM is for PTSD to be developed or to be considered a diagnosis, for it to have significant impact on your social, occupational, academic, functioning, et cetera.

Nancy Barrow:

Does trauma end up being PTSD? Let me ask you that.

Dr. Jyothi Vayalakkara:

Yes trauma can actually evolve into PTSD. And sometimes you have the delayed onset PTSD, which is really that talks about the complexity of PTSD, it can actually add up, and there can be other factors that can also add to it. And then it creates, the way I look at it the perfect storm for PTSD to develop. Even though we talk about 6% 7% the percentage seems low, but if you look at it in numbers, it's actually a huge population, and it has a significant impact when it comes to impact on family. I cannot say enough about the reason why trauma informed care is what I gravitate toward constantly in my practice, whether it is at the hospital, work at writing forensic hospital or in my private practice, the reason being, it doesn't just impact that individual. It impacts pretty much not just the family, even the community. I was listening to the 60 Minutes piece on combat veterans and their children and how it was also called contagious, which I don't use the word contagious, because that also can add to the stigma. But yes, the impact on family members, especially the most vulnerable, which is the younger children, is beyond imagination.

Nancy Barrow:

And Renee, what is your experience with PTSD, I know you have a Veterans Program at Healing Hoofbeats, but tell me what your experience is with PTSD.

Renee Bouffard:

Yeah. So when I started as a therapist years ago, I worked with specifically children who were within the Department of Children and Families and so they had gotten there through years of traumatic events with their caregivers or within the community and and so by the time they had gotten to me, their PTSD was pretty complex, and then through the years, My passion for working with those with PTSD grew and continued from kids to all ages and with veterans, specifically with veterans, because I feel like our community does not do enough for them, and so I understand the healing power of the horses, and I also understand the res. Motivations that a lot of veterans have in going for treatment, and many people don't enjoy coming to an office and sitting in with four walls, and that feels very intimidating for a lot. So being able to be outside, being able to be with the animals, really kind of helps bring down that guard so that they can start to do the work. So, yeah, being around the animals, I enjoy that, because I get to see the work being done and the healing

Nancy Barrow:

So did you fall in love with horses first? being done.

Renee Bouffard:

Yes!!

Nancy Barrow:

And then you decided to incorporate it. You were like, Oh, this clinical, you know, this clinical stuff for social work, maybe I can make them both work together

Renee Bouffard:

wasn't that quick, years of seeing people work with horses in many different avenues. You know, I was a riding instructor, I was a therapeutic riding instructor, so I worked with kids with a lot of physical or cognitive disabilities as well, and in all

Nancy Barrow:

Yeah, I always say, you know, I have a horse, so I completely understand what you're talking about. My My horse is my therapist, so he's got me, he's got me through a lot. So I understand that connection. But a lot of people maybe are afraid of horses because they're huge, right? They're 1000 pound animal, you know, very intimidating for some aspects, it always brought me back to the horses, that the people. Have people come on the farm like that and left differently. horses are really helping us do that great work.

Renee Bouffard:

Absolutely, they are, they're. They can be very intimidating. And if you don't know about horses, and if you don't understand their psychology, then they can, you know, they can be seen as very scary. And so there are definitely some people that come to the farm and want nothing to do with the horses, or they really want to come and see the horses, but oh my gosh, that's really scary. And so you know, the biggest thing that we do is meet our clients where they're at. And so if being in the driveway is as close as you want to be to the horses right away. Then that's where we stay. If you're ready to jump in and go into their space and into their paddock, then we go there. So it really is about meeting the client where they're at and allowing them to set the pace.

Nancy Barrow:

And how long do you feel treatment is? And this is something that I'll ask you to Dr Vayalakkara, but tell me about the treatment process for someone who comes in with PTSD. Is there a length in program that you do, or is it kind of never ending if it is a chronic health condition?

Renee Bouffard:

So I think it looks different for everybody, and there are a ton of different modalities out there for PTSD and a lot of different things, and so we treat every case individually. One thing that I always say about equine and animal supported psychotherapy is that because it's experiential and because it's relational, what we do works faster than a lot of traditional therapy, because they're in the moment, working with the animal and the therapist is there, helping to point out different things, helping to process the the very organic interaction that's happening between, you know, the human and the animal, and how that's related to their life, rather than a client coming into my office talking about what happened, and then me saying, Okay, I want you to go and try X, Y and Z, kind of skills. And let's talk about how that works. So we're doing that in the session. I can see what's going on. I can help the client process. I'm also seeing what the horse is doing in response to the client, and so the horse really helps me in understanding what's going on for the client when they don't want to be verbal, or when they're doing such an amazing job of putting on that mask, the horse sees right through that so I can see what's going on for the horse, and allow that to kind of be that transitional mode to really help the client. Say, Yeah, this is what's going on with me.

Nancy Barrow:

Yeah. So amazing. So amazing. Dr vilacar, what do you use for for treatments of people with PTSD? And I know like, as Renee said, every person is different, so I'm sure there's not just, like, one modality that you would use.

Dr. Jyothi Vayalakkara:

that is so true. And listening to Renee, it's fascinating, right? Isn't it amazing? I am the biggest fan of animals as a matter of. Fact, an intervention which hasn't been tried and tested out by me, but something I want to do in the next 10 years would be to start working with the PTSD individuals with PTSD with, you know, working with them toward being more part of the nature piece, which I love. Hiking, trekking is a big deal for me, because its my care is trauma for providers, it's also a real deal. So that is my way of actually handling that piece. But with animals, I love all animals, but elephants. I wanted to start an elephant farm, so actually back home in India there, so I can use that as an intervention for PTSD.

Nancy Barrow:

They are so sentient, like they're just

Dr. Jyothi Vayalakkara:

so just fascinating. They're just fascinating.

Nancy Barrow:

I have a family. It's just amazing.

Unknown:

It is, I have a brother who's a vet who has since retired, but I used to go to the elephant areas where they were being rehabilitated, and I used to give them baths, etc. But I digress here. No, that is not the intervention that I'm using right now, but I use it for myself. Whenever I'm back there, I feel most at peace when I'm with those wild elephants who have been traumatized, some of them actually, they have been injured and they're being rehabilitated, but the kind of depth of intelligence and compassion that these animals possess is amazing. I don't have a horse. I wish I had.

Renee Bouffard:

Come on down!

Nancy Barrow:

You'll have to go to the farm.

Dr. Jyothi Vayalakkara:

I think after this, I will be coming over, but talking about intervention. So once I use in my office, yes, 20 years, I cannot say enough about what Renee mentioned about the four walls. So I try to make it as comfortable as possible. And also, it's not a one glove fits all approach. But for the purpose of this podcast, I'm going to talk about a couple of interventions that I use, which are tailored one toward one time critical event, one time trauma, sexual assault survivors, especially the ones that I use, can include exposure therapy, prolonged exposure, or EMDR, the tapping Eye Movement Desensitization response, works the way I look at it. That's more of a recent intervention that I've incorporated, which works fantastic, especially with the one time trauma with combat veterans whom I see mostly in my practice. I actually do have as a neuropsychologist, it's easy for me to be focusing on CPT or cognitive processing therapy, which is a bit of a specialized modality that incorporates cognitive behavioral therapy, CBT techniques, but it also gives me the luxury of incorporating a lot more aspects of what I'm trained to do, So I'm able to individualize it based on the individual who's coming in. One of the examples I have is of a combat veteran who absolutely did not want to come in, but was on the wrong side of the law. That is how we ended up in my office. But the way even the simplest of interventions worked for this individual, once trust was developed, trust goes a long way. More than 50% of the job is done once you have that trusting relationship, and that is where I believe that animals can play such a big role. So it's a little bit more harder when it's just you as a human being trying to deal with that and have them trust you. So it does take much longer time when it comes to complex PTSD, and especially the kind of and the reason I gravitate toward the combat veteran PTSD is because it's as complex as it gets, and also the accumulative trauma, not just your own trauma. A lot of them come into the office. Their limbs are lost, but they still look at it as I'm not the one to be here. I'm not the one to seek help. It's a survivor's guilt. It's also the piece about the people out there suffering more than me. So there's so many factors that we as a society can work on to take away that guilt, take away that kind of an aspect that is stopping so many of those individuals. I hope some of them would be listening to your podcast so they can actually come into offices like mine or go to Rene's farm to really start the process. Because one thing I've realized about the brain through all these years is it does not go anywhere if you do not process it and heal it. And this is exactly what, unfortunately, what veterans are trained to do is you have to move on. You have to shed that. But the way they shed it is by trying to deny it, and that does not work. And they realize it's some too late in the game. But I do believe that there's definitely a positive change happening in that arena, where people are feeling that they can actually come into the office without being thrown stones at.

Nancy Barrow:

Like judged or something. And is there a stigma attached to PTSD?

Dr. Jyothi Vayalakkara:

Absolutely, I do believe that that is one of the biggest treatment refractory factors that I encounter, at least it is not about not having the interventions that can actually meet the needs of the individual. Because. A lot of interventions out there, it's not optimal. Still. We're still working on more and more but having said that, the interventions that are out there not being utilized optimally, exactly because of what you just said, stigma actually stops people from accessing the resources that are out there.

Nancy Barrow:

And for you, for Operation warrior horse, which I think is just amazing, that is a veteran program that you have, yes, and so is it free for veterans?

Renee Bouffard:

It is free. So again, kind of going back to I don't feel like we do enough as as a nation for our veterans. I didn't want cost to be a barrier, and I think we can all kind of appreciate that animals, especially the larger ones, cost a lot, a lot of money, right? And so it's, it's our job, you know, as my organization, to find that funding and to find those the means to be able to provide it for free, because I don't want it to be that should never be the barrier, right? Like, let's just easily take that one piece out. So, so yeah, so we do, we do offer it for free. Our operation, Warrior horse has kind of morphed over the years, and it started out as a 10 week, two hour a week group program. And you know, myself and my co facilitator spent a lot of time developing it and and we had a lot of people very excited about it, including veterans who wanted to participate. And one of the biggest things that we figured out was that it's really hard for people to take two hours a week off for 10 weeks, you know. And so the the feasibility was kind of a factor for us. And so now, and and another piece that I really realized was that for a lot of veterans who are coming in and doing our program, this was their first step into mental health treatment and and it wasn't enough. You know what? What we could do in those 20 hours just wasn't enough. And so now what we have done is created smaller like one day intensives where we can really kind of help jump start that and then we have more individualized, individual therapy for the veterans.

Nancy Barrow:

And do you do also like family therapy with them as

Renee Bouffard:

We do yeah, we do. We see, actually, right now, well? we have a lot of children of veterans that that also come to see us. We offer couples interventions so that it's the spouse and the veteran. And actually, this coming fall, we are working on a retreat for veterans. So it's an actual overnight retreat where, again, we're jump starting that. You know that that journey, it's not nearly enough, but it is that starting point.

Nancy Barrow:

And have have people come back and said, I can't tell you how much these horses helped,

Renee Bouffard:

Yes, yeah, yeah.

Nancy Barrow:

I understand that. I can understand how people who don't have horses wouldn't understand, like, how healing they are, yeah, you know, they're so grounded. That's what I say. They have four feet on the ground. They're so grounded, it's hard not to be grounded around them. Do you let them get on the horse? Or is it more of a bonding, you know, situation on the ground, like doing groundwork with them?

Renee Bouffard:

Yeash so, the way that our farm is set up in the horses that we have right now, it is all unmounted on the ground, simply because my 30 year old guy just can't, can't hack it anymore. And our Mustang also had a neurological disease, which unfortunately makes him not rideable as well. So it's just the logistics of our horses at the moment, but there is some really great work that can be done with mounted work, and I always distinguish that between riding, because I'm not there to teach horsemanship skills and to teach riding, but when when a client is mounted on top of the horse, it is such a different connection, and it's it's obviously more more visceral and more felt through that, throughout the body, and so it just enhances the connection that they have with the horse. So my hope is that we can eventually have some horses that will will allow for us to do that, to continue to enhance the work.

Nancy Barrow:

And what are you hoping that happens with Healing Hoofbeats in the in the future. Like, do you have other programs that you're working on? Are you pretty focused on what you've done already?

Renee Bouffard:

So my, my, my hope for everything would be that I run myself out of business because we no longer. Or need mental health services, right, right? That is, you know, that is the ultimate goal. But of course, for Healing Hoofbeats itself, I think that we do a really great job at what we do right now, you know, and really focusing on individual therapy for people of all ages. You know, we have kids as young as three, and I think my eldest right now is 89 so, you know, huge, huge age spectrum. But, but to really be able to be a communitysafe haven, that that all people from the community can come, you know, we have, not only do we have the animals, but we have seven and a half acres where we do the nature walks, where we have a community garden where, you know, I'm a firm believer that what you put into your body, you know, really affects your mental health. And so unfortunately, we live in a society where really good food is really expensive, and I think that's awful, you know. So in the summer, when we have our community garden that is offered to our clients in the community, you know, at for whatever they can donate, we have 25 blueberry bushes that always need picking, you know, and so, you know, kind of back to what can Healing Hoofbeats be? I want it to be that oasis for people in the community to come and feel safe and to feel healed.

Nancy Barrow:

Yeah, I think it's beautiful. And you have other animals besides horses, right ?

Renee Bouffard:

We do. Yeah. So the whole menagerie is five horses, one pig, three goats, 10 chickens, two therapy dogs. And right now I have like two dozen cats, because our adult cats had kittens, and so before they can be adopted out, we have a mass amount of kittens.

Nancy Barrow:

Barn Cats are essential.

Renee Bouffard:

They are, they absolutely are, and they're, you know, they're a wonderful partner in therapy as well. So it's, you know, it's the organic parts of having a farm that really allow people to work through different things. You know, whether it's grief and loss or excitement or fear, all of those things just organically happen. And what better way to work through it with a therapist and an animal.

Nancy Barrow:

Are women more prone to it? Are men more prone to PTSD? Or does it It's really runs the gamut. There's not like a demographic that gets more affected.

Dr. Jyothi Vayalakkara:

Actually. You know, if you look at the statistics, yes, women gets impacted more than men. And also, the age range of 20s and 30s seems like the age range where women also because of the other co morbidities and further trauma, and women get to be more susceptible to especially the sexual violence and the domestic abuse. So there's there are all other variables that are also included in that. But I don't want to lose sight of the fact that across all age groups. PTSD is definitely, you know, that's not really, even though the prevalence might be higher in certain demographics. It is all across the board.

Nancy Barrow:

And let me ask you this, because you know, our program covers a lot. It covers safe leave, which is domestic violence and sexual assaults. They get up to 12 Days of income replacement to move or to get mental health or physical needing medical treatment or to go to court civil or whether it's criminal. So with Connecticut paid leave in the fact that it helps with mental health and all these aspects, how important is this program to people that you both treat?

Dr. Jyothi Vayalakkara:

I can actually start off by saying that it's a huge asset, because of the fact that if you look at PTSD, and the development of PTSD, social support is one of the safety nets, one of those buffers, anchors that keeps them afloat, and factors like Connecticut Paid Leave, for example, that get to be such a huge factor, not just on the financial and the more visible aspects that are beneficial to them, but from all ends, because a lot of individuals who actually suffer from trauma, they usually don't have the most optimal support system. So it is that would be my first thought, is we need more of it not less.

Nancy Barrow:

And for caregiver leave. You know, if people are driving their kids to treatments like they have to leave work and so they'll get income replacement for that, so they don't have to worry about that. That's what, that's what I love about this program. It really does help a lot of people.

Dr. Jyothi Vayalakkara:

Thank you for doing that.

Renee Bouffard:

Yeah, yeah. I think that, you know, I have seen it help a lot of our clients, because, you know, there's, there's only so many hours in the day, and so a lot of parents, or a lot of adults are worried about having to, you know. Lose work or get reprimanded, or, you know, and so with us being able to educate them that that that's not a barrier that you need to worry about, and Connecticut Paid Leave can really help with that. It just, you see the burden, like, kind of wash away a little bit.

Dr. Jyothi Vayalakkara:

And what do you do with CT Paid Leave, I was about to mention that earlier was, you know, it is actually in a, in a way, it is an intervention. It is actually stopping or slowing down the process of trauma, which is exactly what all interventions do,.

Nancy Barrow:

Because it gives you time, like, if you need that, three months right away, altogether, you can do that. We do intermittent leave if you needed that, and reduced schedule from work if you need to take, like, you know, afternoons off, correct? So it is flexible, and it does help with that. I guess I wanted to ask you both this question, what are you both hoping comes from June being PTSD Awareness Month?

Renee Bouffard:

To lessen the stigma that that PTSD is around us and that it is a response to having been exposed to trauma, right? And so maybe instead of thinking of it as a disorder, that we think about it as as a response to what somebody has gone through and needing help, right? And so to also bring awareness to all of the programs that are out there and all of the different models of therapy that can help, because we're there, right? Like, that's what we talked about in the beginning, that these interventions are there, and they do help and and we want to be able to help more people so that you don't have to suffer.

Nancy Barrow:

Yeah and those animals are so important, right? Because they're so non judgmental. They don't know that you have PTSD.

Renee Bouffard:

They don't know no labels.

Nancy Barrow:

So that must be a safe haven for people.

Renee Bouffard:

It is, you know, and horses, especially, but all of the animals are very quick to tell somebody what they like or what they don't like, and it's not about the label, right? And it's not about the I'm a bad person. It's this is what happened in that interaction. And so now we need to fix that, and we can repair that. And I think for a lot of people, the the worry that they can't repair something that they can't repair a relationship that was broken. It can be so large that why even bother, right? Because that's just going to be too much. And so be being able to see that a repair can happen, and that changes can happen. It it allows. It gives people hope. It gives them that, hope that, okay, I can do this.

Nancy Barrow:

What do you hope that comes out of this month?

Dr. Jyothi Vayalakkara:

Actually, every year, my hope is we take one extra step forward in exactly what Renee was talking about, de stigmatizing. I cannot think about the de stigmatization because we are still lagging so way behind, despite all the interventions that we have, everything that we have, and also increasing the understanding. I'm hoping that this year would be the year we expand the process of society understanding the kind of burden that it also places on all communities. It's not just the individual and the family. It's about the impact on the community and how much we all can benefit from allowing these individuals who no fault of their own, have suffered the kind of trauma that is unfair to them, and helping them get out of it. I believe it's not just the individual and the family's responsibility. It's a community responsibility.

Nancy Barrow:

And I'm very thankful that both of you are aware of Connecticut Paid Leave and that you've used it on the farm, and that makes me so happy. And our caregiver leave, and it's just it's all really important, and so if we can help people with PTSD, we're really thankful that you both know about the program.

Dr. Jyothi Vayalakkara:

Thank you. Thank you for inviting us here.

Renee Bouffard:

Yes, absolutely.

Dr. Jyothi Vayalakkara:

And my clients are going to be hearing about CTP. Leave a lot more now.

Nancy Barrow:

We appreciate that. I want to thank my amazing guests, Dr Jyothi, Vayalakkara, and Renee Bouffard for lending their expertise about PTSD, and it's all because of PTSD Awareness Month, and thank you both for being on The Paid Leave Podcast. I really appreciate it.

Renee Bouffard:

Thank you for having us.

Dr. Jyothi Vayalakkara:

Thank you for having us.

Nancy Barrow:

For more information or to apply for benefits, please go to ctpaidleave.org This has been another edition of The Paid Leave Podcast. Please like and subscribe so you'll be notified about new podcasts that become available. Connecticut Paid Leave is a public act with a personal purpose. I'm Nancy Barrow, and thanks for listening.

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Nancy Barrow

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