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