Connecticut Veteran Overcomes Trauma, Studies Psychology to Help Others

A veteran is giving studying a second probability, going again to high school on the College of Hartford.

Cynthia Puerta says she selected to check psychology as a result of she needs to assist different veterans like herself who’re therapeutic from trauma.

The brand new pupil on the College of Hartford goes all over the place along with her service canine, Gypsy.

Psychology is a topic near Puerta’s coronary heart, after experiencing trauma. She was a Marine for eight years and deployed in Kuwait. The retired Sergeant discovered a number of camaraderie whereas serving, but in addition encountered troublesome conditions.

“Deployments, that nervousness of simply seeing what I noticed, what I skilled, what I heard, it was so traumatic that now like, if it is a sound, I like bounce or I’ve nervousness,” Puerta stated.

She has confronted main setbacks in her private life, too. Born and raised in Peru, Puerta says she skilled abuse.

“I went by way of a violent house, and I had a violent upbringing,” she stated.

Violence was additionally part of her grownup life throughout an abusive relationship. In addition to the tragedy of turning into pregnant with triplets, however shedding them at start.

“That was one other traumatic occasion, not solely only for me this time, but in addition my son,” Puerta stated. “So I needed to, I exploit my army information of, I’ve to push this to the facet, proper now, for now, and maintain shifting ahead.”

After ending her army profession, Puerta began utilizing social media to attach with girls therapeutic from trauma like herself. It’s what made her wish to examine psychology.

“After all of the traumas that I’ve went by way of I used to be like, I feel I can assist others, assist them heal and assist them perceive their very own emotions,” she stated.

Nonetheless, for the 31-year-old who now lives in West Hartford, taking class isn’t any simple feat.

In Kuwait, she sustained a traumatic mind damage. Puerta needed to spend three years re-learning how you can learn.

“To learn even like half a web page, it was exhausting for me to understand. Writing, I’ll flip the phrases,” she stated. “The medical doctors advised me that I won’t be able to go to high school.”

Via that problem, her son, now 11, was by her facet.

“We have been watching two, three-year-old youngsters reveals, and so to assist me extra with the pronunciations and so forth, and he’ll come subsequent to me and we are going to learn a youngsters’ ebook and he’ll learn it to me,” Puerta stated.

She nonetheless struggles.

“College students may simply learn and simply, ‘Oh, I perceive.’ For me, I learn, and I’ve to re-read once more,” Puerta stated.

But she has been hitting the books, ending off the primary semester with a report card of all As. It’s a success she hopes will in the end assist her make an impression within the lives of different girls and veterans.

“I need to have the ability to assist them see the sweetness inside themselves, be extra conscious of who they’re,” she stated. “If I overcame every thing, I do know what you may overcome.”

Puerta’s canine, Gypsy, additionally has an unimaginable story of overcoming adversity.

She was discovered as a stray, and residing along with her puppies. Puerta says she was skin-and-bones as a result of she was feeding her pups earlier than herself.

As soon as Gypsy was rescued and got here to Connecticut, she labored with a army service canine group, in order that she could possibly be paired up with a veteran, Puerta, and make a distinction on her life.