Tonight we're taking a deeper look into a little talked about form of therapy horses healing humans.

We start by sharing the personal story of longtime Bloomberg News and Bergen Record journalist Elise Young, who just recently started writing about a brutal attack she endured 2 years ago on the streets of Trenton.

The assault, she says, left her scarred physically and emotionally, but it also brought her back to a childhood passion and a way to heal her trauma horses.

Elise Young is with me now.

Elise, I'm so thrilled to sit down and chat with you.

This is quite an ordeal that you've been through.

As someone who's covered the state as a journalist, you sort of have found yourself on the other side of a really significant, traumatic incident.

Tell me what happened.

Thanks for having me.

I live in Trenton and one morning 2 1/2 years ago, about 2 1/2 years ago, I spotted a woman on my street, a stranger, and I'll leave it to the courtroom for the details to come out.

But she she beat me.

She attacked me without any kind of provocation, and she left me with a traumatic brain injury and severe facial trauma as well.

You've gone through countless surgeries.

You wrote about in your personal essay, a lot of time healing internally, emotionally from such an attack.

What is that process been like for you?

How are you processing it?

Can you even at this point?

I think I got through it partly because of my past.

I was born with a bilateral cleft lip and that required an awful lot of surgeries through the age of about 25.

As this woman was beating me, I knew that my injuries were severe and I knew what was going to have to happen at some point when she was done beating me.

And so it brought back a lot of memories for me of being a child and going through those surgeries, dealing with kids who weren't very kind to me, who bullied me quite a bit.

After I healed, after the the rehab for the brain injury and after the surgeries to put my face back together again, there was a huge amount of internal damage.

I started to seek a a therapist to talk over this trauma and I just couldn't click with anybody.

And then I remembered I'd always wanted to get back to horses, which was something I had done from the time I was very young, did it into adulthood, and then had to leave it behind for various reasons.

And I figured horses were my safe and happy place to be, and horses are surrounded by caring people.

And I thought, let me let me give this a shot.

Maybe it is time to get back to horses.

And that that's where it led me.

They sometimes imitate the energy that you put out, right?

At least in the experiences that I've had.

What has it been like, getting back to, I'll say, your roots in terms of having horse working with the horses?

But also how has it enabled you to heal?

It sounds like the past traumas and the current horses have been human partners for about 6000 years.

Prior to that they were our food source.

Mostly.

Since we have domesticated horses, they have been our partners in war and in work, in sport and in pleasure.

And I don't know whether anybody has ever identified, what is it about horses that soothes us and makes us happy.

I don't know if it's the the visual.

They're they're they're beautiful.

If it's the earthy smells, the sweet smells that are around them.

The idea that this enormous creature, this 1200 LB creature could come walking over to you and start breathing at you as horses communicate, it's I think it's something that that ties us to ancient people and ancient cultures almost.

And in that we feel like this, this thing on four legs trusts me and wants to be around me and maybe I do have something to offer this creature.

And so it's it's brought me back into a community, certainly of horses but also the people who surround horses.

And whether you are the daughter of a billionaire or whether you're a person who muck stalls to pay for lessons, horses don't know this.

Horses don't care.

And neither did the people in your stable.

We we're all there to be surrounded by this beautiful, wondrous thing that you don't see every day, right.

We don't have them in our backyard like our dog.

We don't throw them in the car to go play Frisbee with.

It's something so different, some something that could could hurt us very much.

I've fallen off 1000 times, but it's also something that we trust and that trusts us.

And I needed to trust people again.

I needed to trust things bigger than me again.

Did having that affirmation and that trust enable you to write the essays that you've done?

Because you're not that far removed from this incident?

And I know when I read them, it still felt so raw, so close.

And yet you've been able to.

I mean, your writing is prolific anyway, but put it in such a poignant way that I think other people certainly would not be able to view it the way that you are.

This happened to me for a reason, and I'm not sure what that reason is.

But you're right.

I've lived very privately for many years as a reporter.

Like you said earlier, we don't like to be on the news pages ourselves.

But the more I think about what happened to me, the more it says the more questions it raises to explore as a reporter.

Who is this woman?

Where did she come from?

She appears to be suffering from mental illness.

Where did that come from?

I live in a section of town that's historically protected.

She lives in.

She came from a section of town that was that was rough and I am able to get the best healthcare that money can buy and I'm very, very fortunate for that.

This young woman is in the state hospital for people with severe and potentially criminal psychiatric disorders.

I can get in my car, I can go to my stable, I can be around the horse that I love and the people they care about very much.

And this woman doesn't have that opportunity.

She needs to continue being in the justice system until justice is done.

Elise Young, thank you for sharing this really personal journey.

There are two personal essays that Elise has written which will be published on our website.

You can check them out on Monday.

Elise, thank you so much.

Thank you.