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Speaker 2: You said you had a nervous breakdown or mental breakdown
Speaker 2: something right, was nervous breakdown.
Speaker 3: A mental breakdown, mental breakdown, but.
Speaker 2: We never really compounded upon that. So all right, as
Speaker 2: far as that is concerned, right, talk about that. As
Speaker 2: far as being incarcerated, what is that due to your
Speaker 2: mental health? Like even being in solitary confinement. There's been
Speaker 2: research said that I think like after like a couple
Speaker 2: of days, like you kind of clinically start to deteriorate mentally,
Speaker 2: like especially some people being the whole for six months,
Speaker 2: like three months at a time. Like, you know, it's
Speaker 2: just like a lot of mental illness that comes from isolation,
Speaker 2: that comes from just being around men all day, that
Speaker 2: comes from having trauma of seeing people killed in front
Speaker 2: of you, stabbed in front of you, dealing with CEOs
Speaker 2: that you know, abuse prisoners. It's a whole mental aspect
Speaker 2: of this. So we'll talk about the mental side effects
Speaker 2: of being incarcerated.
Speaker 3: Yeah, So interestingly, sexuayes into what I was talking about
Speaker 3: with the team. We're actually for those who serve time. Right,
Speaker 3: there's an article about the psychological impacts of prison, and
Speaker 3: we're all dissecting that article and identifying ourselves in it.
Speaker 3: So we're trying to build awareness of our trauma in
Speaker 3: order to overcome it. That's another thing, right, But the
Speaker 3: psychological impacts is deep. Right. I could go on and on, right,
Speaker 3: But for me, you know, part of what just feeling like,
Speaker 3: the feeling like it along the way, So feeling like
Speaker 3: so one of the concepts is that like, when you
Speaker 3: have served so much time, right, you feel abnormal, Right,
Speaker 3: you come out into this world. And I think part
Speaker 3: of my urge with building a support group was to
Speaker 3: try to like be around like minded people because there's
Speaker 3: this like otherness, this this concept of the other. Right,
Speaker 3: you know, it's a lot of African American scholars talked
Speaker 3: about being the other in a white man's space, feeling
Speaker 3: like the outside of the stranger. So the stranger concept
Speaker 3: is that I walked with that a lot, right, you know,
Speaker 3: being in spaces where I did thirteen years, somewhere around
Speaker 3: men talking about traveling and they're like, I just can't
Speaker 3: from Dubai. You feel like uncomfortable, uncomfortable, you can't partake
Speaker 3: in the conversation. You can't relate, right, you don't. You
Speaker 3: just did your whole thirteen years and your adult years
Speaker 3: in prison.
Speaker 2: Right, So it's it's some level of embarrassment, like you
Speaker 2: don't even want to tell people that you were incarcerated,
Speaker 2: type Like, well.
Speaker 3: For me, some people do have that, they have this
Speaker 3: shame of the identity. I owned it from this gate,
Speaker 3: like it became my advantage, actually, right, it became my
Speaker 3: currency because some people didn't know I served time. Right,
Speaker 3: I might have been working when I was at the
Speaker 3: fashion production company. People were like, oh, you know, he
Speaker 3: did thirteen years. I would have never knew. So, like
Speaker 3: I always didn't mind it, but some people are ashamed
Speaker 3: of where they came from, so they keep it deep
Speaker 3: down inside, you know.
Speaker 2: You know the guy that not to cut you off,
Speaker 2: the guy that runs Jordan Brand. You no history, nah,
Speaker 2: So the guy that runs Jordan Brand, he he killed
Speaker 2: somebody years ago and he went to jail for it.
Speaker 2: But it was like a thing that nobody knew about.
Speaker 2: So he worked his way obviously a very intelligent person,
Speaker 2: he worked his way up the corporate ladder to the
Speaker 2: point where the CEO of Jordan Brand, and it was
Speaker 2: something that it haunted him not having nobody knew about it.
Speaker 2: It was like a secret that nobody knew. And he
Speaker 2: like recently, like last year, two years ago, he wrote
Speaker 2: an article and that was like him coming out and
Speaker 2: telling his past. But for twenty years, nobody knew his
Speaker 2: past history. So it was one of these things. And
Speaker 2: like I said, he probably could have went to the
Speaker 2: grave with it, right. I guess it was before laws
Speaker 2: was so transparent where everything was, you know, it was
Speaker 2: probably like in the sixties or something. But he didn't
Speaker 2: feel comfortable living a double life. He felt like he
Speaker 2: just you know, like he had suppressed it and he
Speaker 2: was just hiding it for so long that even though
Speaker 2: nobody knew about it, it just was causing him anxiety
Speaker 2: because he knew about it and he wanted it to
Speaker 2: kind of get it off his chest.
Speaker 3: Yeah, no, no, it is deep. Somehow I'm blessed, you know,
Speaker 3: by the grace of God in that way where I
Speaker 3: was always okay with being vulnerable. You know what I'm saying.
Speaker 3: I think that we're so guarded when we come out
Speaker 3: out that we want to like protect this narrative and
Speaker 3: it's like, now, let people know who you are, right,
Speaker 3: So for me, I came home open to that, but
Speaker 3: I never really felt like my people's understood me. Right,
Speaker 3: So being the stranger, you know, there's times where like
Speaker 3: I don't play with the hands. I was called too serious.
Speaker 3: Oh you know, loosen up man, Like you know what
Speaker 3: I mean, you mad like on something. And it's like
Speaker 3: I just came from a hyper violent environment, right, So,
Speaker 3: like I can't just be flexible, And it took me
Speaker 3: time to like loosen up to new faces trust issues.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 3: I was questioning everybody in my bros. Circle like, nah,
Speaker 3: like you know, because of my own trauma, people telling
Speaker 3: so you start to generalize, and that's delusion. Right, you
Speaker 3: start to think everyone is who you experienced. That's like
Speaker 3: literally delusion. And one of the biggest experiences I remember
Speaker 3: was being in barbershops, right, you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 3: You behind the chair again, A lineup and one dude
Speaker 3: pulled up. He was a former cop, that's the funny part,
Speaker 3: pulled up with a hoodie on his hands in his pocket.
Speaker 3: I jumped up dumb fast, and I mean, I just
Speaker 3: came home to a town that I took a life
Speaker 3: fro him. Right. So those type of things where people
Speaker 3: dont understand your anxiety. Is the first time I hit
Speaker 3: in New York City to go to a contract, I
Speaker 3: seen like a herd of people and it's reminded me
Speaker 3: of the yard, Like people won't know what you're walking through,
Speaker 3: people walking past you, you like yo, you on super edge.
Speaker 3: So those moments made you feel abnormal, Like it made
Speaker 3: you feel broken, you know what I'm saying. And it's
Speaker 3: like what I learned was like accepting it that that's
Speaker 3: a I'm scared in that way, right, It's not really
Speaker 3: what happened is how I react to it because I
Speaker 3: can't change the past now, right, It's how I move forward.
Speaker 3: But those type of things, man are constantly walking with us.
Speaker 3: And I was just speaking at on Pacier University yesterday
Speaker 3: for the law school there, and I talked about the
Speaker 3: symbolic baggage of trauma that we all walk with on
Speaker 3: our backs, right, And I felt the heaviness of that
Speaker 3: trauma when I was in the school. You know what
Speaker 3: I'm saying. There was mad times I was in that school,
Speaker 3: Brugie Elite school, and I felt like I ain't belong
Speaker 3: you know what I'm saying. It's like you feel like
Speaker 3: the stranger. And that feeling is an internal thing, you
Speaker 3: know what I'm saying. And to get even deeper, you
Speaker 3: know what your relationships, right, you know, some of us
Speaker 3: got like you know, issues with our family, our fathers
Speaker 3: or moms. Right. And if you know, I served so
Speaker 3: much time as a kid, so like I learned that
Speaker 3: the impact that prison had on me was like the
Speaker 3: abandonment issue, right, you know, I ain't see people for
Speaker 3: so long, So you have trust issues, you know in
Speaker 3: your relationships. You see it come out right, and that's
Speaker 3: where you need to understanding partner, and you need to
Speaker 3: be aware of your own triggers, you know. And the
Speaker 3: good thing when I was working with the Why on
Speaker 3: the DCJS, like I got to understand trauma informed practices
Speaker 3: and how to like really like let go some of
Speaker 3: the issues I was holding on to. So a lot
Speaker 3: of it is letting go and understanding that it's there.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 3: A lot of us move into avoidance. A lot of
Speaker 3: men I know, even on my team, like you become
Speaker 3: so self sufficient in prison that you come out here
Speaker 3: think I do everything by yourself. And I'm like, that's
Speaker 3: a trauma response, right, you don't realize You're not in
Speaker 3: prison no more. Bro, You got the world out here,
Speaker 3: You got people to call you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 3: We had a deep conversation the other day with a
Speaker 3: brother that just did from sixteen to thirty nine years old, right,
Speaker 3: one of my guys again he identified somebody as a
Speaker 3: prospect for the organization. He's a Muslim brother. Again, diversity
Speaker 3: were looking to diversify the team. He just did all
Speaker 3: this time, solid brother up north. I actually know him,
Speaker 3: and Yo, beautiful experience was that he was not a
Speaker 3: prospect to serve. He needs to be receiver. He needs
Speaker 3: to be a recipient. He's like, Yo, I've been on
Speaker 3: five months and I'm like, you know, struggling, I'm like
Speaker 3: trying to figure it out. He's like, I need help,
Speaker 3: And that might have been the first time he said that,
Speaker 3: because for five months he's like, I gotta do this
Speaker 3: on my own. Like this is mindset that we have
Speaker 3: coming home from SO. And it's because prison, you know,
Speaker 3: makes you have to protect yourself from relying yourself. I
Speaker 3: talk about three battles that we experience in prison. You
Speaker 3: battling against the correction officers. That's a whole other culture, right,
Speaker 3: especially up north around white boys up north. That coach
Speaker 3: is mad conservative. Right. Then you're battling with yours, right,
Speaker 3: the just the segregation, the doggy dog world, the back
Speaker 3: door right. And then you battling with your own internal demons.
Speaker 3: You know what those three fights every day feel like.
Speaker 3: After many years, you come home and look at people different,
Speaker 3: your friendships, you define them differently. You know a lot
Speaker 3: of my brothers that I like, really filled my brothers,
Speaker 3: brothers who at the time with that's home now celebrating
Speaker 3: life for me, you know, despite my real brothers. But
Speaker 3: you know, SO is like it changes your dynamic with people.
Speaker 4: You know what I mean, an illegal alien from Guatemala
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Speaker 4: be allowed to return legally. Do what's right.
Speaker 3: Leave now.
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