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Shelia Bruno - PICS: Post-Incarceration Syndrome · The soulnotskin Podcast with Jen SluMac

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_02: Jen, and the thing about it, one of the things that I ask individuals who come out come out, how did you survive prison?
• 0:06
  SPEAKER_02: And 99.9% said I had to become.
• 0:12
  SPEAKER_02: What did you have to become?
• 0:13
  SPEAKER_02: I had to become a monster so that I wouldn't get taken advantage of because I was terrified.
• 0:27
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome to the Soul Knot Skin Podcast, a virtual living room, a safe, welcoming place to land where you can pull up a chair and share stories straight from the heart.
• 0:36
  SPEAKER_00: I'm your host, Jen Slumack, or as my students like to call me, this Jen.
• 0:41
  SPEAKER_00: We talk about the real human experience, the hard stuff, the wonderful stuff, and the messy everyday growth that shapes who we become.
• 0:48
  SPEAKER_00: Real stories, real people, real insight, becoming who we are.
• 0:53
  SPEAKER_00: Settle in, and let's dive into today's episode.
• 0:58
  SPEAKER_00: Today I'm joined by Sheila Bruno, founder of Wife After Prison, author, re-entry coach, advocate, and international speaker.
• 1:07
  SPEAKER_00: Sheila's work was born from lived experience, both loving someone after incarceration and discovering that release doesn't always mean freedom.
• 1:16
  SPEAKER_00: She helps families and justice-impacted individuals name the invisible wounds.
• 1:21
  SPEAKER_00: I'm just going to hand it over to you and won't you tell us who you are and a little about this story?
• 1:26
  SPEAKER_02: All right.
• 1:26
  SPEAKER_02: Thank you so much.
• 1:27
  SPEAKER_02: I'm honored.
• 1:28
  SPEAKER_02: Thank you for choosing me.
• 1:30
  SPEAKER_02: I'm sure you could have chosen anybody else, but I want to thank you for uh the opportunity just to share my story and my journey on um, you know, the internal consequences of incarceration.
• 1:43
  SPEAKER_02: Again, my name is Sheila Bruno.
• 1:45
  SPEAKER_02: I am from Houston, Texas.
• 1:48
  SPEAKER_02: The name of my organization is Wife After Prison.
• 1:51
  SPEAKER_02: And no, I have not been to prison.
• 1:53
  SPEAKER_02: A lot of times, individuals hear wife after prison.
• 1:55
  SPEAKER_02: And I say, Oh, you've been to prison?
• 1:57
  SPEAKER_02: No, I have not been to prison.
• 1:59
  SPEAKER_02: Uh the story began when I reconnected with my high school sweetheart, Kevin Bruno.
• 2:05
  SPEAKER_02: Kevin and I dated in the ninth grade 1976, MB Smiley High School, just an amazing guy.
• 2:12
  SPEAKER_02: Used to walk me to my class, hold my books, you know, go to my locker with me, all that amazing uh stuff.
• 2:19
  SPEAKER_02: But Kevin and I lost touch the summer of 1976.
• 2:23
  SPEAKER_02: And in 2014, I was working overseas in Bargham at Afghanistan, and I received a friend request from Kevin Bruno.
• 2:32
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, lo and behold, I was surprised because I hadn't heard from Kevin again in 38 years.
• 2:38
  SPEAKER_02: Of course, I hurry up and I accepted that uh friend request, and uh within an hour or so, Kevin and I were Skyping back and forth.
• 2:47
  SPEAKER_02: And during the conversation, Jim, he uh said to me what he was uh typing, and at the bottom of the screen I could see Kevin is typing, and I was thinking, what can this brother be typing this long?
• 2:59
  SPEAKER_02: Hey, you know, but when the message popped up, it was a very lengthy message, and it said, Sheila, I've been to prison.
• 3:07
  SPEAKER_02: And I was really shocked because when we were in school, I never would have put Kevin Bruno in prison in the same sentence.
• 3:14
  SPEAKER_02: But he said, Sheila, I have been to prison.
• 3:17
  SPEAKER_02: He said, actually, I have been to prison twice.
• 3:20
  SPEAKER_02: And I'm like, Oh, okay.
• 3:21
  SPEAKER_02: So the first time Kevin went to prison, uh, he was 20 years old.
• 3:26
  SPEAKER_02: He went to prison for aggravated robbery.
• 3:29
  SPEAKER_02: For that uh uh sentence, it was 25 years, and of the 25 years, he did eight and a half years, and he got out, and one day his mom was watching the news, and who does she see?
• 3:43
  SPEAKER_02: She sees her son Kevin uh being handcuffed and put in the back of a police car nine months after he had uh been released, and this time he went back on a 60-year sentence, and of the 60 years he did 20 flat, he was released in 2010, and again, Kevin and I reconnected in 20 uh uh 2014, and we also got married in 2014.
• 4:10
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, because again, I say Kevin is an amazing guy, and I mean mean that from the bottom of my heart.
• 4:15
  SPEAKER_02: But um going into the third year, right around the end of the second year, I began to notice some behaviors.
• 4:26
  SPEAKER_02: And uh one day I say, Hey, you changing on me, you know, because Kevin is the breakfast in the bed kind of dude to, you know, kiss me before he goes to work and kiss me when he comes home and just checking on me throughout the day.
• 4:39
  SPEAKER_02: So I began, those that became less and less, you know, there was the isolation that was the withdrawn that was the easily irritated by the least things.
• 4:51
  SPEAKER_02: And I remember saying to me, I said, Hey, you changing on me?
• 4:55
  SPEAKER_02: I said, Have I changed?
• 4:57
  SPEAKER_02: And he said, No, and he said, No with a period.
• 5:01
  SPEAKER_02: No karma, that dot dot.
• 5:03
  SPEAKER_02: No with a period.
• 5:05
  SPEAKER_02: And so things really got very uncomfortable in the house because I was wondering what has happened to this dude.
• 5:13
  SPEAKER_02: I said, Well, maybe we got married too soon.
• 5:16
  SPEAKER_02: Maybe, you know, it's another woman because when you don't have answers, you know, you fill in the blanks.
• 5:21
  SPEAKER_02: So I was like, it's gotta be another woman, but it was none of that.
• 5:26
  SPEAKER_02: But uh again, things became really uncomfortable in the household, never physical, never physical, but the mental and the emotional of uh trying to figure out what has happened to my amazing husband.
• 5:41
  SPEAKER_02: Kevin and I separated numerous a time, and because he was incarcerated for 28 years, we knew we loved each other.
• 5:48
  SPEAKER_02: So, Jim, we were trying to figure this thing out.
• 5:50
  SPEAKER_02: So he said, Well, Sheila, maybe it's because I didn't get to court you.
• 5:55
  SPEAKER_02: He said, I want to corn you.
• 5:58
  SPEAKER_02: Okay?
• 5:58
  SPEAKER_02: So he said, I'm gonna move out and I'm gonna move back into my mom's with my mom and I'm gonna court you.
• 6:04
  SPEAKER_02: And I'm like, look, whatever we need to do, you know, to get back to where we were, I was down for it.
• 6:10
  SPEAKER_02: And so he did.
• 6:11
  SPEAKER_02: He moved out and he would uh come by and he wouldn't use his key.
• 6:16
  SPEAKER_02: He was courting me, hit that doe bear, you know.
• 6:19
  SPEAKER_02: Uh yeah, yeah, and we would go out on the date or whatever.
• 6:23
  SPEAKER_02: When he came back, you know, he walked me to the door and you know, just give me a little smack.
• 6:28
  SPEAKER_02: But uh he wouldn't stand the night, you know.
• 6:31
  SPEAKER_02: He wanted to court me.
• 6:32
  SPEAKER_02: And I was like, okay, so for a little while that was fine.
• 6:36
  SPEAKER_02: And he said, I'm ready to come home.
• 6:38
  SPEAKER_02: Come on, baby, I'm ready for you to come home.
• 6:39
  SPEAKER_02: Come on, baby.
• 6:40
  SPEAKER_02: So he did, and for a couple of weeks, things was, you know, things were good, but the behaviors kept coming back.
• 6:50
  SPEAKER_02: It was like a roller coaster ride.
• 6:52
  SPEAKER_02: I didn't know who I was going to get, whether I was gonna get Dr.
• 6:56
  SPEAKER_02: Jack in the morning or Mr.
• 6:58
  SPEAKER_02: Hot, but all I know that it was messing with my head.
• 7:03
  SPEAKER_02: Right?
• 7:03
  SPEAKER_02: It was messing with my head.
• 7:05
  SPEAKER_02: And I think the last time that we were separated, I reached out to him one uh Saturday and I said, well, uh earlier that week, and I said, can we just go to dinner and go to a movie uh this weekend?
• 7:17
  SPEAKER_02: And so he agreed.
• 7:18
  SPEAKER_02: And I remember he picked me up, Gene.
• 7:20
  SPEAKER_02: I put on my best everything, my best perfume, my best outfit, right?
• 7:25
  SPEAKER_02: I'm gonna go win my man back.
• 7:27
  SPEAKER_02: And uh we went to the restaurant, and I was just so happy to be in proximity with him.
• 7:33
  SPEAKER_02: And I was just talking, talking, talking, da-da-da-da.
• 7:35
  SPEAKER_02: And he would just stare.
• 7:38
  SPEAKER_02: It was just like I was talking to a brick wall, and uh so we left there and we went to the movies, and I'm saying I was like, sure there's gonna be some cuddling and some popcorn thieving and all of that.
• 7:54
  SPEAKER_02: It was like I was sitting next to a stranger, and um on the way home, I said, I can't do this, I can't continue to do this because when I was in Afghanistan, I was working on me to become the woman that I knew that I could be.
• 8:17
  SPEAKER_02: So I was working on developing my best self.
• 8:21
  SPEAKER_02: And uh when we got married, I was all of that, you know, and I began to lose myself mentally, resorting to sleeping pills, taking sleeping pills like an addict because that was the only time I wasn't in pain when I was asleep.
• 8:37
  SPEAKER_02: And so this particular uh Saturday when we went to the movies on the way back, uh I said to myself, can't do it, won't do it.
• 8:47
  SPEAKER_02: I'm losing me.
• 8:48
  SPEAKER_02: I'm taking sleeping pills, and I'm not talking one a day, I'm not talking two a day, I'm not talking three a day, sometimes five and six a day.
• 8:58
  SPEAKER_02: And water, wine had replaced my water, I had replaced my water with wine.
• 9:03
  SPEAKER_02: So I would throw it back and I chase it with a glass of wine, knowing that was very unhealthy for me.
• 9:09
  SPEAKER_02: And so on the way home, I decided, I didn't say anything to him, but I had decided Monday morning I'm going file for divorce.
• 9:18
  SPEAKER_02: And I came into the house and I went into the room and I burst out to in tears, and I was crying and I cried out to God, like, what has happened to Kevin?
• 9:29
  SPEAKER_02: What has happened to my amazing husband?
• 9:31
  SPEAKER_02: And uh I got at the foot of the bed and I was in just tucked in in like a fetal position, and I was, I mean, just crying out to God, and I dozed off.
• 9:42
  SPEAKER_02: And when I woke up, Jen, I heard God say, Google, can a boy become a man in prison?
• 9:48
  SPEAKER_02: And I know a lot of people, I heard him clear as day, I know his voice, and I I know a lot of people hear that, and uh, you know, especially individuals who have been in prison, they get I'm a man.
• 10:02
  SPEAKER_02: I'm I'm look, I'm sure God was just that was metaphorically for me to my yeah, yeah, because they go there, right?
• 10:09
  SPEAKER_02: And so another thing, Gene, I'm gonna come back to this because I always have to make this disclaimer, right?
• 10:14
  SPEAKER_02: Prison is not a one-size-fits-all experience, every person's journey is different.
• 10:19
  SPEAKER_02: You know, what I share, it comes from lived experience, it comes from stories, and it comes from patterns, okay?
• 10:25
  SPEAKER_02: So I have to get that out the way for those who had did 40 years and they came out and they say what they wasn't affected.
• 10:31
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 10:31
  SPEAKER_02: Sure.
• 10:32
  SPEAKER_02: All right.
• 10:32
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, it's important to point out.
• 10:33
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 10:34
  SPEAKER_02: And so anyway, I did.
• 10:36
  SPEAKER_02: I grabbed my laptop and I Googled that, and a list of websites popped up.
• 10:41
  SPEAKER_02: And the very first one was the psychological impact of imprisonment by psychologist Craig Haney.
• 10:48
  SPEAKER_02: And what I read is what I was witnessing.
• 10:52
  SPEAKER_02: And then the next one was uh posting conservation syndrome and relapse by the late Terry Gorsky, and what I read is what I was uh witnessing in Kevin, the behaviors.
• 11:04
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, and so I copied and paste those links and I emailed it over to him in a couple of days.
• 11:09
  SPEAKER_02: He called me and he was very emotional and he said, This is my struggle, this is it.
• 11:14
  SPEAKER_02: So we now had language.
• 11:16
  SPEAKER_02: We we now had language for what we were going through.
• 11:20
  SPEAKER_02: He couldn't explain it, he didn't know.
• 11:23
  SPEAKER_02: I most certainly didn't know.
• 11:24
  SPEAKER_02: And during the phase before we got married, when I was still in Afghanistan, you know, every day he would call me and I would have a laundry list of questions because I'm like, I'm getting ready to hook my caboose to this train right here, so I need to know everything.
• 11:39
  SPEAKER_02: But Jen, I asked him, I asked him so many questions, but the most important question that I did not ask was, Were you affected by prison or how did prison affect you?
• 11:54
  SPEAKER_02: I didn't answer that.
• 11:55
  SPEAKER_02: I didn't ask that question right.
• 11:56
  SPEAKER_02: I didn't even consider that you've been living in this environment for 28 years, you know, your nervous system on high alert for 28 years, in a deprivation, a deprivation state for 28 years.
• 12:11
  SPEAKER_02: I didn't even consider how that had affected him psychologically, emotionally, or behaviorally.
• 12:18
  SPEAKER_02: I had I I didn't.
• 12:20
  SPEAKER_02: I did.
• 12:21
  SPEAKER_02: And then years, years after that, maybe not too long ago, you know, we were having a conversation, and I said, you know, had I asked you that, what would you have said?
• 12:30
  SPEAKER_02: He said, Sheila, I would have told you it did not.
• 12:34
  SPEAKER_02: So many.
• 12:34
  SPEAKER_02: See, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 12:37
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, he he said, I wouldn't have told you it did not.
• 12:40
  SPEAKER_02: So many are in that environment to when they come over to this environment, a lot of times they think this is abnormal.
• 12:46
  SPEAKER_02: That's normal over there.
• 12:48
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, because they've gotten used to it.
• 12:49
  SPEAKER_02: They they they've adapted.
• 12:51
  SPEAKER_02: So, so what I found out is that what he was struggling with is post-inconstruction syndrome, and that's what Terry Gorsky, he is the first one to coin that phrase because Mr.
• 13:04
  SPEAKER_02: Gorsky he worked with individuals who were coming out of prison and he noticed patterns that did not fit into PTSD.
• 13:13
  SPEAKER_02: Right?
• 13:14
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, it's a different monster.
• 13:16
  SPEAKER_02: It's whole, it's totally, totally different.
• 13:19
  SPEAKER_02: And a lot of people, Jen, they don't touch this because it's so easy to label it as PTSD.
• 13:26
  SPEAKER_02: And I refuse to give it that title, that label, because I know that it's not just PTSD.
• 13:34
  SPEAKER_02: A lot of people just sweep it up under the rug, sweep it up under the rug, and it'll go away.
• 13:40
  SPEAKER_02: Well, it's not going away, it is just it's destroying lives every single day.
• 13:45
  SPEAKER_02: And one of the things, so once Kevin and I uh uh found out about post-inconservation syndrome, Jim.
• 13:51
  SPEAKER_02: By this time, I was so messed up in the head, I was like, okay, we understand what's happening with you.
• 13:56
  SPEAKER_02: Now I got to deal with what's happening with me, right?
• 13:59
  SPEAKER_02: I said, I so I said, I need to find a support group for families whose loved ones have been incarcerated and they're dealing with the same thing, right?
• 14:09
  SPEAKER_02: Took to Google, nothing, nothing, nothing for families whose loved ones have been incarcerated and come home and was struggling.
• 14:18
  SPEAKER_02: Not one group.
• 14:20
  SPEAKER_02: And so back then I was just really getting into Facebook.
• 14:23
  SPEAKER_02: So I wasn't a really big Facebook fan, but for this particular uh instance, I went to the search bar and I keyed in prison wives, and up popped a slew of uh groups.
• 14:36
  SPEAKER_02: There has to be a prison wife group for every prison in the world, not in Texas, not in California, in the world as a prison wife group.
• 14:45
  SPEAKER_02: And so what I did, I went in several other groups.
• 14:48
  SPEAKER_02: I just want to check the temperature, I want to see what y'all are talking about in here, right?
• 14:53
  SPEAKER_02: I don't want to talk about count time, I don't need countdown time here, right?
• 14:57
  SPEAKER_02: I don't need that.
• 14:58
  SPEAKER_02: I don't need to know about the rude COs, I don't need to know what you weighing for your next visitation.
• 15:04
  SPEAKER_02: I need to know have your loved one come home and he's struggling.
• 15:07
  SPEAKER_02: And so that wasn't the conversation they were having in those groups.
• 15:10
  SPEAKER_02: So I I selected 26 groups, just randomly selected 26 groups, and I went into those groups and I just typed in, have you heard of post-inconservation syndrome?
• 15:21
  SPEAKER_02: Right?
• 15:22
  SPEAKER_02: And so, so, and then and let me, I'm gonna come back to this, but I want to give the definition of what PICS is because I'm just talking about PICs.
• 15:29
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 15:30
  SPEAKER_02: So, post incarceration syndrome, and it's a framework.
• 15:33
  SPEAKER_02: I want you guys to understand this.
• 15:34
  SPEAKER_02: So, post-inconceration syndrome is a set of adaptive thinking, emotional, and behavior survival patterns, right, develop uh through prolonged incarceration.
• 15:51
  SPEAKER_02: So these patterns are shaped uh through prolonged exposure to control, to institutionalization, to uh uh deprivation, to emotional uh detachment, and to environmental conditioning.
• 16:06
  SPEAKER_02: So a lot of times what people uh call laziness, what they call manipulation, is actually adaptation developed in an environment, in this environment where they were conditioned.
• 16:19
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, so PICS is go ahead.
• 16:22
  SPEAKER_02: Go ahead.
• 16:23
  SPEAKER_02: No, so PICs is not a mental disorder.
• 16:26
  SPEAKER_02: Let's be clear about that.
• 16:27
  SPEAKER_02: It's not a mental disorder, it is a set of adaptive survival.
• 16:34
  SPEAKER_02: These individuals inside, they ain't cat lacking in there, they're surviving every day, 24-7.
• 16:42
  SPEAKER_02: You are in survival mode, your nervous system is all over the place, all over the place, right?
• 16:50
  SPEAKER_02: And just because an individual comes home, it doesn't mean that your nervous system is just gonna line up.
• 16:56
  SPEAKER_02: It doesn't happen like that.
• 16:58
  SPEAKER_02: It does not happen like that.
• 16:59
  SPEAKER_02: So, Jen, I went in 26 of those groups.
• 17:02
  SPEAKER_02: Have you heard of post-incarceration syndrome?
• 17:05
  SPEAKER_02: I was very, very nervous, I was very, very leery myself, and so three days later, I went back just to check the replies, and I didn't have one yes.
• 17:19
  SPEAKER_02: Everything was no, no, what is it?
• 17:22
  SPEAKER_02: No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, right, no, and I'm like, wow, right?
• 17:28
  SPEAKER_02: So I went to Kevin and I said, Hey, we need to talk to it, talk about this, and he's such an amazing guy.
• 17:34
  SPEAKER_02: He said, Absolutely.
• 17:36
  SPEAKER_02: He wasn't one of these, hey none, I ain't he said, absolutely, and we did a video and I post in those groups, and man, that's when that's when hell broke loose.
• 17:49
  SPEAKER_02: You know, that's that's when people started.
• 17:53
  SPEAKER_02: I know the very first three comments that I received, uh uh, the messages that I received, said the first lady said, Had I known this, maybe me and my husband would still be married.
• 18:07
  SPEAKER_02: He did 10 years, I had to walk away to save myself.
• 18:11
  SPEAKER_02: And another lady said, uh, had I known this, maybe my husband wouldn't be back inside.
• 18:18
  SPEAKER_02: He just couldn't get it together.
• 18:20
  SPEAKER_02: And then one lady said, Had I known this, maybe my husband would still be alive.
• 18:27
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, three days after he got out, he committed suicide.
• 18:32
  SPEAKER_02: Three days after he got out.
• 18:35
  SPEAKER_02: So that's when uh, you know, I just became the voice of this thing, Jen.
• 18:42
  SPEAKER_02: And I I I I will say that I am one of the loudest, if not the loudest, voice about this, because although housing and transportation, all of that is critical, that's vital, but if we're not talking about the internal consequences of uh incarceration, we're really doing a disservice to those individuals who are coming home and to the families, to the communities, to the employers.
• 19:11
  SPEAKER_02: Because what I've learned, Jen, there's a gap, and the gap is language.
• 19:16
  SPEAKER_02: People think it's complicated.
• 19:18
  SPEAKER_02: No, you don't have to turn around 10 times, jump up and down, or do it's language.
• 19:23
  SPEAKER_02: Because when individuals come home who have lived in survival mode for years and decades, guess what they're speaking?
• 19:31
  SPEAKER_02: They're speaking survival.
• 19:34
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 19:34
  SPEAKER_00: I have to tell you, so early in this conversation or a little earlier, you said um, you know, thank you for choosing me.
• 19:43
  SPEAKER_00: I'm honored to be here.
• 19:44
  SPEAKER_00: And I have to tell you, this is why I chose you, because you are the loudest voice I've heard talking about this uh exact thing.
• 19:53
  SPEAKER_00: Would you say that recidivism is largely due to this?
• 20:01
  SPEAKER_00: And if we wanted to solve the problem, isn't it the rehabilitation work that I've been trying to do and other folks have been trying to do, where we can help folks with language?
• 20:13
  SPEAKER_00: What is happening to me, what has happened to me, rather than what's wrong with you, shut up, get in line.
• 20:19
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 20:20
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and even they are saying, What's wrong with me?
• 20:23
  SPEAKER_02: And I tell you, you know, and I talk about data because we live in a data-driven society.
• 20:29
  SPEAKER_02: Where's the sparklines?
• 20:30
  SPEAKER_02: Where's the pie chart?
• 20:31
  SPEAKER_02: I don't have it, I don't have it, but what I do have is real voices, right?
• 20:38
  SPEAKER_02: I have real voices, and the thing about this, I absolutely believe, Jen, if we would just give individuals language, we will give them tools, practical things that they can do.
• 20:51
  SPEAKER_02: Everybody is not, you know, uh uh up to saying a uh a therapist or counselor or whatever, but we can give them language and we can give them practical tools.
• 21:02
  SPEAKER_02: I'm telling you, let me tell you something.
• 21:04
  SPEAKER_02: Anybody who wants to get some data, go to a wife after prison tick tock page.
• 21:09
  SPEAKER_02: Mind blowing.
• 21:11
  SPEAKER_02: Mind blowing.
• 21:13
  SPEAKER_02: Just the other day, I got a message, I think yesterday, and this guy was so grateful just to understand.
• 21:20
  SPEAKER_02: He said, I finally found someone who understands me and who can explain to me what I'm going through.
• 21:28
  SPEAKER_02: Another guy said, he said, ma'am, he said, you have helped me more than my therapist has.
• 21:34
  SPEAKER_02: And this is the thing when I talk about language, Jen, because again, they're speaking survival, the wife is speaking affection, family is speaking emotions, parole is speaking compliance, therapist is speaking clinical, pastor is speaking faith.
• 21:52
  SPEAKER_02: Right?
• 21:52
  SPEAKER_02: Everybody's coming from a different dictionary.
• 21:55
  SPEAKER_00: That's right.
• 21:56
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, so few are truly.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_00: Asking the individual what's been your experience?
• 22:02
  SPEAKER_00: What does it feel like?
• 22:04
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
• 22:05
  SPEAKER_00: What are you what are you experiencing?
• 22:06
  SPEAKER_00: Or asking the family, what are you experiencing?
• 22:08
  SPEAKER_00: I love what you said earlier.
• 22:10
  SPEAKER_00: You said uh when you read Terry Gorsky's, okay, so that gave me language for everything I had observed.
• 22:16
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 22:16
  SPEAKER_00: So the observation came first.
• 22:19
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 22:20
  SPEAKER_00: And I think that's the best data.
• 22:22
  SPEAKER_02: I'm trying to tell you, Jim, but the thing about it is, me.
• 22:26
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 22:27
  SPEAKER_02: So there are five core components to posting conservation syndrome.
• 22:31
  SPEAKER_02: You have institutionalization, you have social and sensory deprivation, you have antisocial personality trait, you have uh substance abuse, and oh, where does my number five?
• 22:44
  SPEAKER_02: Let me find it right here.
• 22:46
  SPEAKER_02: Um, so Jen, for me, I needed to know uh PTSD like symptoms.
• 22:54
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, that's my five.
• 22:55
  SPEAKER_02: I needed to know what that looks like.
• 22:58
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, what is that?
• 22:59
  SPEAKER_02: What is institutionalization?
• 23:01
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, what does what does that look like, right?
• 23:04
  SPEAKER_02: And that's one of the things that sets me apart from everybody out else out there who was talking about pics, I dialed that thing back, I peeled it, I stripped it.
• 23:15
  SPEAKER_02: I needed to know if you go into that room and you don't come out for hours, it's not about me.
• 23:24
  SPEAKER_02: So I don't have to take it personal.
• 23:27
  SPEAKER_02: I know that there's that's emotional shutdown.
• 23:30
  SPEAKER_02: Right?
• 23:31
  SPEAKER_01: That's right.
• 23:32
  SPEAKER_02: If we go into the store and you have to bag out of there because there's so many choices, I don't I don't have to think something wrong with you, you tripping.
• 23:43
  SPEAKER_02: I know that's institutionalization because majority of the choices for years and decades have been either limited or removed.
• 23:52
  SPEAKER_00: That's right.
• 23:53
  SPEAKER_02: Right?
• 23:53
  SPEAKER_00: That is so important to bring to light.
• 23:56
  SPEAKER_02: I'm telling you, because families think it's funny.
• 23:59
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, man, he can't even go into the store he always chipping, chipping, chipping.
• 24:03
  SPEAKER_02: Now he may laugh with you, but you know, exactly, exactly.
• 24:10
  SPEAKER_02: He's he's he's going through something you don't understand, you don't have the language for it, so you make fun of you make fun of it, or you're taking it personal.
• 24:20
  SPEAKER_02: It ain't about you, baby.
• 24:22
  SPEAKER_00: Also, it's just so much how this impacts the individual who's trying to be a man and live up to society's expectations of what a man is, both inside to survive and hold himself together, and then a totally different set of skills necessary, returning to the family, who a lot of times is like, Daddy, you're finally home.
• 24:41
  SPEAKER_00: What about me?
• 24:42
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, baby, I've missed you, you're finally home.
• 24:44
  SPEAKER_00: Give me your attention.
• 24:46
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and meanwhile, just because sweet, it's not overwhelmed.
• 24:50
  SPEAKER_02: Right, it's it's overwhelmed.
• 24:51
  SPEAKER_02: And the thing about it is, when they were inside, they had less, less responsibilities, less opportunities, less decisions to make.
• 25:03
  SPEAKER_02: The moment you cross over, you got more, you got more conversation, more people, more responsibilities, more choices, more, more, more.
• 25:14
  SPEAKER_02: Overwhelming, overwhelming to the nervous system.
• 25:18
  SPEAKER_02: That's why, you know, I got a call, I'll never forget it.
• 25:21
  SPEAKER_02: October the 19th, uh, 2019, I think it was.
• 25:26
  SPEAKER_02: I got a text.
• 25:28
  SPEAKER_02: And I was in Florida at the time, and it said, I want to go back.
• 25:35
  SPEAKER_02: And I didn't recognize the phone number, and it was so late, but first thing that morning, who's this?
• 25:44
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I recognized the voice.
• 25:46
  SPEAKER_02: I say, Hey, what's going on?
• 25:49
  SPEAKER_02: Miss Bruno, I want to go back.
• 25:51
  SPEAKER_00: And it was Kevin?
• 25:52
  SPEAKER_02: No, no, no.
• 25:53
  SPEAKER_02: It was another guy that I had mentored while he was in the inside.
• 25:57
  SPEAKER_02: And he said, Miss Bruno, he said, I can do prison all day long.
• 26:02
  SPEAKER_02: He said, This is too much.
• 26:03
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah, because you gotta you gotta pay them bills, you got to learn how to pay stuff online, you got to learn how to do all this technology.
• 26:11
  SPEAKER_02: He said, I done took this foam and I done threw this foam across this floor, this house three times.
• 26:16
  SPEAKER_00: And there's so many opportunities that we could find compassion for these experiences these men and women are having, but we just don't because of who they are.
• 26:24
  SPEAKER_02: We don't, Jen.
• 26:25
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, you could go back, you could go back to all of the studies that suddenly became important about what isolation can do to you during COVID.
• 26:33
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you.
• 26:34
  SPEAKER_00: People who had everything, thank you, people who had each other, thank you, people who could walk around outside, thank you, people who could do anything and everything.
• 26:42
  SPEAKER_00: Suddenly, there's all these studies about the psychological and physical and emotional nervous system impact of isolation.
• 26:50
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and I remember sitting there and thinking, shocking.
• 26:54
  SPEAKER_02: Let me tell you something, and even the social and the sense social sensory deprivation, that's the lack of even human touch.
• 27:03
  SPEAKER_02: Let me tell you what it's doing for relationships.
• 27:06
  SPEAKER_02: You know, mama think they finna get it in.
• 27:09
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 27:10
  SPEAKER_02: And he doesn't even want to touch you, right?
• 27:14
  SPEAKER_02: He doesn't even want to sleep in the bed with you because he's been in solitary confinement for so long.
• 27:20
  SPEAKER_02: He's having slept with in the bed with nobody for decades.
• 27:24
  SPEAKER_02: She said, He's been home three years.
• 27:26
  SPEAKER_02: We have not consummated the marriage.
• 27:29
  SPEAKER_02: She said, He he told me, you know, he sleeps on the couch and I sleep in the bedroom, and he says, you know, I'm I'm just afraid of what I may do to you if you roll over and touch me.
• 27:44
  SPEAKER_00: Because it's been a trauma response.
• 27:46
  SPEAKER_02: Yes.
• 27:46
  SPEAKER_00: Is that right?
• 27:47
  SPEAKER_00: That yeah, somebody touches me.
• 27:49
  SPEAKER_02: He said I would yes, yes.
• 27:52
  SPEAKER_02: And it's another lady was saying that she was wondering why her husband sleeps holding the pillow like that.
• 27:59
  SPEAKER_02: He went to the restroom, she looks under the pillow.
• 28:02
  SPEAKER_02: He done got a homemade shank.
• 28:08
  SPEAKER_00: So just living in this terror that nobody can see.
• 28:10
  SPEAKER_02: I'm telling you, and Regina, I didn't share this with you though, but I think I did share you well.
• 28:15
  SPEAKER_02: I had entered in a partnership with Texas Prison Alliances and they uh on the Edovo tablet.
• 28:21
  SPEAKER_02: We talked about Edovo Tablet.
• 28:23
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, so a couple of weeks ago, I received an email from a professor at uh uh Campbell University, and she teaches social work.
• 28:36
  SPEAKER_02: Uh she teaches the social work class to the individuals who are studying their socials in their bachelor's degree.
• 28:43
  SPEAKER_02: And she reached out, she said, My students, a few of my students heard you on Edovo, and they made it.
• 28:55
  SPEAKER_02: They asked me to reach out and uh see if you would mind talking to them.
• 29:01
  SPEAKER_00: That makes me want to cry for two reasons, probably more, but let's focus on these two.
• 29:08
  SPEAKER_00: Number one, you got in there, you gave somebody hope.
• 29:12
  SPEAKER_00: For those who don't know, Adobo is the educational platform that folks who are living inside have access to on their tablets.
• 29:20
  SPEAKER_00: Millions of you managed to get your message there, yeah.
• 29:22
  SPEAKER_00: But secondly, and this is what I was gonna ask you when you said some folks aren't up for therapy, even if they were, do therapists understand this?
• 29:32
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, we're getting there.
• 29:35
  SPEAKER_00: Well, because of your voice, I would imagine.
• 30:15
  SPEAKER_02: We're getting there, and you know, uh a couple of weeks ago I did a presentation for a um transitional housing, um, and it was, you know, some mental health professionals on the call, and one of the things that I said is, you know, you we have to dial back the language because again, they're speaking survival and you're speaking clinical.
• 30:41
  SPEAKER_02: And one of the things that individuals had said to me, you know, because I'm always saying, hey, well, you're open to talk about something, and several of them have said, Miss Bruno, they got to come out in books, they got to come, they got to come out of the books, and so that's what I'm I'm saying to to uh, because Jen, the thing about it is, and the more I think about, it's not that complicated, it's just learning how to interpret a behavior, you know.
• 31:07
  SPEAKER_02: It's biology, yeah, man.
• 31:09
  SPEAKER_02: It's it's not that, you know, it's not that heavy, right?
• 31:15
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it's just learning another language, but it impacts everything, everything, everything, and this is the thing about it, is too, Jen.
• 31:25
  SPEAKER_02: And I was doing some because I'm always trying to see where I am in this space.
• 31:30
  SPEAKER_02: So I did a comparison, and um, so the report came back in, and it says that you know, the what sets wife after prison apart is that you know, I cater to the family, and a lot of the organizations they cater to the citizens, they support the citizens who are coming home, right?
• 31:52
  SPEAKER_02: And that that's good, but I'm everybody, everybody gets to come to the picnic, everybody gets a seat at the table because this affects the the uh family as well.
• 32:03
  SPEAKER_02: And this is another thing, the reason why I I teach in such a simplistic manner.
• 32:09
  SPEAKER_02: Number one, I needed it like that.
• 32:10
  SPEAKER_02: Don't come to me with these uh uh clinical terms with these 24 alphabets in it.
• 32:15
  SPEAKER_02: Uh-uh.
• 32:16
  SPEAKER_02: No, yeah, yeah, I can't.
• 32:17
  SPEAKER_02: No, no, I understand what you're talking about.
• 32:19
  SPEAKER_02: Yes, yes.
• 32:20
  SPEAKER_02: So I teach in such a simplistic manner, and that's why I simplified the definitions so anybody can get it.
• 32:27
  SPEAKER_02: Whether you got a D G E D, you don't have a GED, whether you got a PhD.
• 32:32
  SPEAKER_02: Because the thing about it is shared language.
• 32:35
  SPEAKER_00: Well, and that's the thing, you know.
• 32:36
  SPEAKER_00: There's this um the National Institute of Health put together this whole plain language campaign, and its effort is to sort of uh encourage health care systems and education entities to use plain language when talking about uh legal things, healthcare things, clinical things, not because you have to dumb things down for people, but because why are you talking in code?
• 33:00
  SPEAKER_00: Man, we're trying to give people information to live their best lives, yeah, and they're not understanding.
• 33:06
  SPEAKER_02: And when I first started talking about this on LinkedIn, there was this uh uh uh psychologist, he reached out to me, right?
• 33:14
  SPEAKER_02: And uh so he he taught a class every Sunday to individuals who were mandated by the courts to go through this DUI program, and so afterwards, you know, he and I would hang back and he wanted to talk to me and whatever, whatever.
• 33:30
  SPEAKER_02: And I would just be sitting up there look looking at him, G and I couldn't take it one day.
• 33:33
  SPEAKER_02: I said, wait a minute, hold up, hold up, hold up, hold up.
• 33:36
  SPEAKER_02: I said, I don't understand nothing you say.
• 33:40
  SPEAKER_02: I said, Look, look, you're waving your breath.
• 33:43
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah, I didn't did look, I didn't did this two weeks in a row, I can't do it no more.
• 33:47
  SPEAKER_02: I don't understand anything that you have said, right?
• 33:52
  SPEAKER_02: So I knew, you know, and looking at the facial expression of those who were on the Zoom, man, they wouldn't get nothing.
• 33:57
  SPEAKER_02: They was in there just checking the box.
• 33:59
  SPEAKER_02: I went through this program, check the box, right?
• 34:01
  SPEAKER_02: But wasn't nothing sticky, yeah.
• 34:04
  SPEAKER_02: That wasn't sticking, but when you tell an individual, when you say to an individual who has went in the who has been incarcerated, you ask them when you go in that restaurant where you're gonna sit.
• 34:15
  SPEAKER_02: And when I tell them, I know you're gonna sit watching that door, right?
• 34:19
  SPEAKER_00: Nobody behind you, yeah.
• 34:22
  SPEAKER_02: She's speaking my language, you know.
• 34:24
  SPEAKER_02: I didn't know that was called hypervigilance.
• 34:26
  SPEAKER_02: Is that what I mean doing?
• 34:28
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, right, yes, but when they're teaching and they're saying hypervigilance, I don't know what you're talking about.
• 34:33
  SPEAKER_02: That's what I said, Gen.
• 34:35
  SPEAKER_02: I had to dial this thing back to say, what does that look like?
• 34:40
  SPEAKER_02: You can tell me hypervigilance all day long, you can tell me I anti-social personality trait all day long, you can tell me institutionalization, because people throw that word around like whatever.
• 34:50
  SPEAKER_02: What does it look like?
• 34:52
  SPEAKER_02: Huh?
• 34:52
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, tell me what does it look like?
• 34:55
  SPEAKER_02: And so again, that's what you know it that sets go ahead.
• 35:00
  SPEAKER_02: I don't want to interrupt you.
• 35:02
  SPEAKER_02: No, no, no, no, no, no, no.
• 35:03
  SPEAKER_02: I'm just saying that's what sets me apart, and I I'm okay with that.
• 35:08
  SPEAKER_02: I'm okay with, you know, because it's reaching people and people are getting it, you know.
• 35:16
  SPEAKER_00: I say this with all due respect to you know, psychologists and psychiatrists.
• 35:21
  SPEAKER_00: I've benefited tremendously in my life from therapy and from um, you know, psychiatric assistance medication.
• 35:30
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm not poo-pooing on folks.
• 35:32
  SPEAKER_00: However, I think what you've done and what we're doing on this conversation right now is just calling to light that respectfully, like I went to a conference all about addiction medicine, and all the presentations, it sounded like PhDs mentally and vocabulary masturbation with each other.
• 35:56
  SPEAKER_00: Like I was sitting in the audience, I've studied these things, I've lived addiction, I've lived these things.
• 36:02
  SPEAKER_00: I'm sitting there like, what?
• 36:03
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and I said, you know, there's such a dramatic disconnect between the folks studying this stuff, yeah, and the people who need the information.
• 36:12
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's a gap.
• 36:13
  SPEAKER_00: And Sheila, Miss Sheila, you are being that bridge, and that's what I want to be too.
• 36:19
  SPEAKER_02: I had to, and I continue to study, Jen.
• 36:23
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, this is my morning wake up and my good night.
• 36:27
  SPEAKER_02: I continue to study.
• 36:29
  SPEAKER_02: And one of the things is, you know, Kevin and I did uh end up getting a divorce, but I still get to call that brother my friend.
• 36:38
  SPEAKER_02: I still get to call that brother when I, you know, when I'm having a moment, or when I'm when I've gotten an invitation to get into a room and I start feeling some kind of way.
• 36:50
  SPEAKER_02: I call him, hey, I'm going in this room.
• 36:53
  SPEAKER_02: And dah, he said, You got that.
• 36:55
  SPEAKER_02: You know, he's my number one fan.
• 36:58
  SPEAKER_02: He is my uh number one encourager.
• 37:01
  SPEAKER_02: Um and how is he doing today?
• 37:03
  SPEAKER_02: He is doing amazing, he is doing amazing.
• 37:06
  SPEAKER_02: He's still uh working in this space, not like I would like him to be, uh, because he's a bad brother, man.
• 37:13
  SPEAKER_02: And if Kevin had not told me that he had been to prison, I would just have a conversation with him, you know, his intellect and his dialect, and oh man, he is he's just sharp.
• 37:25
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, but uh Kevin had uh you know had the pre-inconsturration trauma, which I talk about, you know, the 3D plus the V, uh, the before prison trauma, that's the distress phase, you know, life was already life in, you know, you you you know, mom, OD, dad, and I'm not saying this about Kevin, but I'm just saying, you know, you already had these trauma experiences.
• 37:51
  SPEAKER_02: Then you go to prison, right?
• 37:53
  SPEAKER_02: That's the disconnect phase.
• 37:55
  SPEAKER_02: You're disconnected from yourself, you're disconnected from the world, you're seeing all of these traumatic events day in and day out, thousands upon thousands, micro traumas.
• 38:05
  SPEAKER_02: Then you come out, and this is the distress phase.
• 38:08
  SPEAKER_02: You come out of one environment, and then behavior, because you don't, because of the in the impact of incarceration, your behaviors, it not only affects you, but affects the people who are around you.
• 38:21
  SPEAKER_02: So that's the vicarious trauma that attaches itself to the family members.
• 38:25
  SPEAKER_02: Where she says, I have to walk away to save myself, I can't do this no more, right?
• 38:30
  SPEAKER_02: Not knowing, not knowing that all that he was carrying has now attached itself to you.
• 38:36
  SPEAKER_02: Now, I'm gonna tell you this too, Jen.
• 38:38
  SPEAKER_02: The thing about it is the family has to heal.
• 38:41
  SPEAKER_02: I I you know, I never, I never ever said to Kevin, you know, oh you've been to prison and this, that's got that.
• 38:49
  SPEAKER_02: I didn't I never did that.
• 38:50
  SPEAKER_02: I never did that.
• 38:52
  SPEAKER_02: But look, his behavior and not knowing his be what was happening began to affect me in a way that my behavior changed.
• 39:00
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, see?
• 39:02
  SPEAKER_02: My behavior changed till he told me you need to go talk to somebody.
• 39:05
  SPEAKER_02: I don't need to go talk to nobody.
• 39:08
  SPEAKER_02: And then one day I was like, you know what?
• 39:10
  SPEAKER_02: Yes, I do.
• 39:11
  SPEAKER_02: Yes, I do.
• 39:13
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 39:14
  SPEAKER_02: I said, yes, I do.
• 39:16
  SPEAKER_02: And so this is why I encourage family members too, is that, you know, a lot of times we think that our loved ones, because they have been to prison, that they have all the issues and we squeak it clean, not sir, not sir.
• 39:28
  SPEAKER_02: All right.
• 39:28
  SPEAKER_02: So I remember, I remember the first time I went into that uh that session, I actually love Miss Yelanda, little shop woman.
• 39:36
  SPEAKER_02: I was sizing that lady up, G, and I was like, man, what is this little lady gonna tell me, baby?
• 39:40
  SPEAKER_02: If I tell you she cracked me open, she cracked me open.
• 39:44
  SPEAKER_02: That first session, you know, she was like, I'm gonna give you four C's.
• 39:46
  SPEAKER_02: I think she said she didn't, you didn't cause it, you can't cure it, cure it, care for yourself, don't contribute to it.
• 39:52
  SPEAKER_02: I'm like, okay, all right, I see you, I see you, Miss Y.
• 39:56
  SPEAKER_02: I'm going down Kingwood Drive.
• 39:58
  SPEAKER_02: I'm thinking about I'm trying to recap everything he did last week.
• 40:01
  SPEAKER_02: Let me see.
• 40:02
  SPEAKER_02: Now he didn't he did this on Monday, he did this.
• 40:04
  SPEAKER_02: I got my list ready.
• 40:06
  SPEAKER_02: I'm going to talk to my home girl.
• 40:08
  SPEAKER_02: Maybe I got it now.
• 40:09
  SPEAKER_02: And I was like, Kip, she said, hold up.
• 40:13
  SPEAKER_02: She said, not today.
• 40:15
  SPEAKER_02: She said, today we're gonna stay on our side of the street, me and you.
• 40:20
  SPEAKER_02: Kevin's over here with his therapist, and if y'all decide y'all want to come together, then you can do this.
• 40:26
  SPEAKER_02: But today I need to talk to you.
• 40:28
  SPEAKER_00: Uh Machina, listen, we're coming upon time here, but I want to make sure that we cover two things before I let you go.
• 40:35
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 40:36
  SPEAKER_00: First of all, I'm interested in your perspective.
• 40:40
  SPEAKER_00: I know I can almost hear people in the audience saying the hug-a-thug thing, uh, going in there trying to, these people might have killed somebody.
• 40:49
  SPEAKER_00: Like they deserve to be, they need to be in there.
• 40:52
  SPEAKER_00: But here's the thing, right?
• 40:53
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, we so over-incarcerate.
• 40:56
  SPEAKER_00: We do.
• 40:57
  SPEAKER_00: We that we need to take the folks that don't need to be there, or at least that have the capacity to return.
• 41:05
  SPEAKER_00: We need to help them.
• 41:07
  SPEAKER_02: That is the thing, the capacity, because a lot of times, you know, and this is what I say uh as it relates to individuals coming home and on parole, and they got all of these checklists, and they got the you know, certain things they need to do.
• 41:21
  SPEAKER_02: And if you don't do it in a certain amount of time, then there's there's the uh a violation or uh uh you know gonna re be uh revoked or whatever.
• 41:31
  SPEAKER_02: But have you ever stopped to say see capacity versus compliance?
• 41:39
  SPEAKER_01: That's right, right?
• 41:40
  SPEAKER_02: And gee, let me tell you something.
• 41:42
  SPEAKER_02: This is the deal, man.
• 41:43
  SPEAKER_02: I took I created a practical tool just to see where you are, where you were before you went to prison as it relates to coping skills, where you are now that you're in prison.
• 41:55
  SPEAKER_02: And I had the individuals inside of prison check take that uh assessment.
• 42:01
  SPEAKER_02: And Justin Smith, 14 years in, he came up to me after class and he said, Miss Bruno, this me.
• 42:09
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, when he before he went to prison, his his uh percentage was 40 percent coping skills in prison 29.
• 42:20
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, see and he said, Miss Miss Bruno, this me.
• 42:26
  SPEAKER_02: I said, Well, based on the answers you you selected, partner, I think it is.
• 42:32
  SPEAKER_02: He said, Miss Bruno, he said, I can't leave here like this.
• 42:36
  SPEAKER_02: That's right, and I tell you, I'm so super proud of Justin.
• 42:39
  SPEAKER_02: He has been out five years now, and he called me not too long ago and he said, Miss Bruno, he said, I ain't want nothing.
• 42:46
  SPEAKER_02: I just call and say thank you.
• 42:47
  SPEAKER_02: He said, I still have the notes from your class on my nightstand.
• 42:52
  SPEAKER_02: And he said, every now and then I pull them out and I go over them.
• 42:56
  SPEAKER_02: He said, But you are what you you are, you know, because of what you uh your class, I am where I am today, and I want to say thank you.
• 43:05
  SPEAKER_02: He is uh he's had two jobs since he's been out.
• 43:09
  SPEAKER_02: The very first job he stayed on a year, he needed a little more money, and now this job, he's been on that job for three years.
• 43:15
  SPEAKER_02: He went from a laborer to a supervisor, now he's a manager, and they're putting him all through OSHA certification and farklift uh operator certification, and I'm just so golly proud of him.
• 43:28
  SPEAKER_00: He did not go to therapy because you know what, you gotta give him the language, which we've been hitting all that this whole time, because if folks don't know where to start, they don't they don't know where to start, they don't know what to start.
• 43:41
  SPEAKER_00: Here's where we are.
• 43:42
  SPEAKER_00: Now they got something to build on.
• 43:44
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, yes, yes.
• 43:45
  SPEAKER_00: Last thing before I let you go, tell me about H3.
• 43:48
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, okay.
• 43:49
  SPEAKER_02: So a few years ago, uh, I don't know, four or five years ago, I was invited to speak.
• 43:58
  SPEAKER_02: Uh it was uh Las Vegas DLC, another uh organization.
• 44:04
  SPEAKER_02: I can't even think of the name of it right now.
• 44:06
  SPEAKER_02: Department of Correction, DLC, Department of Correction.
• 44:10
  SPEAKER_02: And uh so uh afterwards, this this guy came up to the mic, oh my God, and he said, What's the solution?
• 44:24
  SPEAKER_02: And he looked tired, he was emotionless, and he said, I've tried therapy.
• 44:32
  SPEAKER_02: He said, What's the solution?
• 44:35
  SPEAKER_02: And at the time, That's all I had.
• 44:39
  SPEAKER_02: And I remember getting off of that Zoom.
• 44:42
  SPEAKER_02: And I just sit back in my chair and I cried.
• 44:47
  SPEAKER_02: And I said, Sheila, for a whole hour.
• 44:51
  SPEAKER_02: You sit here and you dump.
• 44:53
  SPEAKER_02: You dumped the problem.
• 44:55
  SPEAKER_02: You dumped the behaviors.
• 44:58
  SPEAKER_02: You dumped all of this.
• 44:59
  SPEAKER_02: And you didn't even have a solution for the people.
• 45:02
  SPEAKER_02: And I said, never again will that happen.
• 45:06
  SPEAKER_02: So, gee, I studied longer and harder and deeper.
• 45:10
  SPEAKER_02: And I came across a statement, Craig Haney.
• 45:13
  SPEAKER_02: I absolutely love him.
• 45:14
  SPEAKER_02: Uh his teaching is so simplistic.
• 45:18
  SPEAKER_02: He's a psychologist, but I tell you.
• 45:20
  SPEAKER_02: Craig what?
• 45:20
  SPEAKER_02: Haney, A-J-N-E-Y.
• 45:22
  SPEAKER_02: You can look at some of his videos on uh plant.
• 45:25
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah.
• 45:26
  SPEAKER_02: And so uh he says prisons are psychological powerful places capable of transforming the thoughts, the behaviors of those who enter them often in a negative way.
• 45:42
  SPEAKER_02: And I played with that thing, G, and I pondered.
• 45:45
  SPEAKER_02: I made sticky notes all over my house, and I kept saying prisons are psychological powerful places.
• 45:53
  SPEAKER_02: And then I read something else that said prison is a whole body disruption.
• 45:57
  SPEAKER_02: And I was like, okay, prison is a whole body disruption.
• 45:59
  SPEAKER_02: So if prison is a whole body disruption, then we're gonna have to have a whole body reconstruction starting with the head, the heart and the hands.
• 46:09
  SPEAKER_02: That's how I came up with the H3 framework.
• 46:12
  SPEAKER_02: The head is thinking patterns because in prison, your thinking, how you think, has changed, right?
• 46:20
  SPEAKER_02: Heart, emotional impact.
• 46:22
  SPEAKER_02: Inside prisons, emotions are shut down.
• 46:27
  SPEAKER_02: In prison, being vulnerable can get you hurt.
• 46:30
  SPEAKER_02: Shut down.
• 46:32
  SPEAKER_02: Hands, real world capacity.
• 46:34
  SPEAKER_02: This is where we find the employment, the relationships, you know, the skills or whatever.
• 46:39
  SPEAKER_02: That's hands, right?
• 46:41
  SPEAKER_02: A lot of times with a lot of reentry programs, G, they start, Jim, they start here with the hands.
• 46:46
  SPEAKER_02: Get the job, get the job.
• 46:47
  SPEAKER_02: You haven't even assessed the head.
• 46:50
  SPEAKER_02: That's exactly it.
• 46:52
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 46:52
  SPEAKER_02: You haven't even assessed the head.
• 46:55
  SPEAKER_02: How is he thinking?
• 46:57
  SPEAKER_02: Is he institutionalized to the point where you know he can't make decisions?
• 47:02
  SPEAKER_02: That decision-making skill has to be rebuilt.
• 47:05
  SPEAKER_02: Right?
• 47:06
  SPEAKER_02: Have you even did an assessment on the heart?
• 47:09
  SPEAKER_02: Huge.
• 47:10
  SPEAKER_02: A gentleman called me, he said, ma'am, he said, look, he said, I don't feel nothing.
• 47:15
  SPEAKER_02: He said, I don't feel nothing.
• 47:16
  SPEAKER_02: And my he said, my lady thinks it's her, but I know it's me.
• 47:21
  SPEAKER_02: Right?
• 47:22
  SPEAKER_02: Had to suppress those emotions so that he won't appear vulnerable.
• 47:27
  SPEAKER_02: Another gentleman, he said, ma'am, let me tell you something.
• 47:28
  SPEAKER_02: He said, I went in and shitting all that emotional stuff down.
• 47:31
  SPEAKER_02: He said, Because I know with the type of time I had that my mom and my dad was gonna die.
• 47:37
  SPEAKER_02: He said, so I don't feel nothing.
• 47:40
  SPEAKER_02: Right?
• 47:40
  SPEAKER_02: So we don't even assess that.
• 47:42
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, we don't even, yeah, absolutely right.
• 47:44
  SPEAKER_02: We don't even assess where are they emotionally, right?
• 47:49
  SPEAKER_02: We don't assess that their emotions, the impact it has on the emotion.
• 47:53
  SPEAKER_02: We put them on the job.
• 47:54
  SPEAKER_02: We put them on the job, they speak in survivor, they speak in I get with you real real fast, and then the employer is speaking performance.
• 48:03
  SPEAKER_02: Excuse me, yeah.
• 48:05
  SPEAKER_02: The employer is speaking performance, different dictionaries.
• 48:11
  SPEAKER_00: You talk about these uh H3, right?
• 48:14
  SPEAKER_00: The head, the heart, and the hands.
• 48:16
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, so frequently we forget or we don't know, and we being the employer, the family, society, that not only is this person thinking differently due to institutionalization, uh, shut down emotionally, yeah, and don't have the skills, but they've been in an environment where they they shake their head, yes, they'll say I do, yeah, because they have to say face and they have to look like a man or a grown woman.
• 48:49
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 48:49
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm not gonna let you know that I don't know.
• 48:52
  SPEAKER_00: Let me tell you because there's that vulnerability that I can't afford.
• 48:55
  SPEAKER_02: That's it, Jen.
• 48:56
  SPEAKER_02: And the thing about it, one of the things that I ask individuals who come up, come out, how did you survive prison?
• 49:02
  SPEAKER_02: And 99.9% said, I had to become.
• 49:08
  SPEAKER_02: What did you have to become?
• 49:10
  SPEAKER_02: Kevin said, I had to become a monster so that I wouldn't get taken advantage of because I was terrified.
• 49:19
  SPEAKER_02: Right?
• 49:19
  SPEAKER_02: So you wear that mask for 20 years, right?
• 49:24
  SPEAKER_02: And then you come out and you have to done another mask for society.
• 49:28
  SPEAKER_02: I'm good, yeah, I can handle it, I can do it, I'm a man, I'm a woman, whatever.
• 49:34
  SPEAKER_02: So now you still got part of that becoming on.
• 49:37
  SPEAKER_02: Then you done this one.
• 49:38
  SPEAKER_02: Guess what?
• 49:39
  SPEAKER_02: They're gonna get heavy, G.
• 49:41
  SPEAKER_02: They're gonna get heavy, and they're gonna start slipping.
• 49:45
  SPEAKER_02: That's what happened in here.
• 49:47
  SPEAKER_02: They got heavy.
• 49:49
  SPEAKER_02: They got heavy.
• 49:51
  SPEAKER_02: He told me one time when I got look, G, look, I'm good.
• 49:54
  SPEAKER_02: Long as we we good, I'm good.
• 49:56
  SPEAKER_02: But when I I I couldn't get no answers out of him, then he got.
• 50:00
  SPEAKER_02: I need you to be more responsible.
• 50:02
  SPEAKER_02: That's what I told him one day.
• 50:04
  SPEAKER_02: I need you to be the head of the household because I was mad, because I didn't understand the behavior.
• 50:09
  SPEAKER_02: You didn't understand.
• 50:10
  SPEAKER_02: And you didn't need that, you didn't want that.
• 50:12
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, but look, Jim, this is what he told me.
• 50:16
  SPEAKER_02: He said, one day I'll never forget, I'll never forget the look on his face.
• 50:20
  SPEAKER_02: Such an amazing guy.
• 50:21
  SPEAKER_02: And now I can I can look back and say, when he said that, he was hurting.
• 50:27
  SPEAKER_02: And so he looked back at me when I was like, I need you to be more responsible, I need you to be the head of the household.
• 50:33
  SPEAKER_02: I'm yappity yapp now, because I don't know what's wrong with you, so I'm you know, I'm gonna throw some weight around.
• 50:38
  SPEAKER_02: And he looked back at me and he said, She go, what does that look like?
• 50:42
  SPEAKER_02: He said, What does that look like?
• 50:44
  SPEAKER_02: He said, In prison, responsibilities are removed or limited, right?
• 50:52
  SPEAKER_02: And I was like, wow.
• 50:54
  SPEAKER_02: And then one day he and I was doing a live and he we were talking about that moment.
• 51:00
  SPEAKER_02: He said, Sheila, he said, you had me on crutches.
• 51:06
  SPEAKER_02: He said, and it's like you came up from you came up behind me and you snatched those crutches from up under me.
• 51:11
  SPEAKER_00: Uh-huh.
• 51:13
  SPEAKER_00: And then he judged me for falling over.
• 51:18
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 51:19
  SPEAKER_02: But if we can't, before we close, G, I want to talk about the second sentence.
• 51:24
  SPEAKER_02: I love this, this, this second sentence.
• 51:26
  SPEAKER_02: You've written two books.
• 51:27
  SPEAKER_02: I've written two books.
• 51:28
  SPEAKER_02: The first one I wrote, Wife After Prison, Caught in the Aftermath.
• 51:31
  SPEAKER_02: Kevin and I was still in the thick of things.
• 51:34
  SPEAKER_02: But after I found out that there were so many people out here, I had to put something together.
• 51:40
  SPEAKER_02: And so that's when I wrote Wife After Prison, uh uh Caught in the Aftermath, has donated over 500 copies, completed 17 states, uh, received letters from all over saying thank you for writing your book.
• 51:54
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, I now understand what's wrong with me, or I have messed up my wife's head.
• 51:59
  SPEAKER_02: One gentleman said, sis, uh, keep doing what you're doing.
• 52:02
  SPEAKER_02: He said, Had I known this, he said, This is my third bid, had I known this, maybe my wife would still be alive.
• 52:08
  SPEAKER_02: He said, when a civil conversation turned home aside and I jumped off the couch and I murdered my wife.
• 52:16
  SPEAKER_02: The second sentence, I got wrote this when I got on TikTok.
• 52:20
  SPEAKER_02: I did that one video that now again has been shared over 8,000 times.
• 52:25
  SPEAKER_02: I said, these people just need to understand.
• 52:28
  SPEAKER_02: And so this is not just a book, this is a lifeline.
• 52:32
  SPEAKER_02: There's quizzes in here, there's real life stories, there's scenarios in here, uh, there's resource information, how to seek out therapy if you decide you want to go to therapy.
• 52:42
  SPEAKER_02: But uh, this is a lifeline right here.
• 52:45
  SPEAKER_02: So I just want you to.
• 52:46
  SPEAKER_00: Sheila, I want to thank you for all the work that you're doing.
• 52:49
  SPEAKER_00: I know that you've been compelled to do this, you've been called to do this.
• 52:52
  SPEAKER_00: It's very clear, inspired by Google search.
• 52:55
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I need you to send me the links to those books so I can put them in the show notes.
• 53:01
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 53:01
  SPEAKER_00: And um, I want to talk to you again after this, even if we're not on the air.
• 53:05
  SPEAKER_00: I so appreciate and admire you.
• 53:07
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I know, I know how bad the world needs this work.
• 53:12
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah, they definitely do.
• 53:14
  SPEAKER_02: And the thing about it is we need more boots on the ground, Jen.
• 53:17
  SPEAKER_02: It takes a level of boldness.
• 53:21
  SPEAKER_02: And uh, I think I I I I mentioned this to you before.
• 53:25
  SPEAKER_02: The first three years I was trying to convince, I'm no longer convincing, I'm conveying, I'm just a seed planter.
• 53:30
  SPEAKER_02: I'm gonna plant the seed, but I need some other farmers out here that are willing to plant these seeds because I'm telling you.
• 53:36
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I got some boots.
• 53:37
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 53:38
  SPEAKER_00: I'm trying to tell you out.
• 53:40
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I'm not kidding.
• 53:41
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, people I'm in California.
• 53:43
  SPEAKER_00: Let's close in across the country.
• 53:45
  SPEAKER_02: And then part it is, what I'm finding out in California, you know, they're really trying to help the individuals.
• 53:50
  SPEAKER_02: I'm here in Texas, and Texas ain't trying to hear nothing.
• 53:54
  SPEAKER_01: I know.
• 53:54
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, they're not trying to hear anything right now.
• 53:57
  SPEAKER_02: But again, and that's why I created the online course.
• 54:00
  SPEAKER_02: And the thing about it is I created the online course, right?
• 54:04
  SPEAKER_02: So the the information that the individuals are getting on the Edovo is pretty much what's on the online course.
• 54:11
  SPEAKER_02: So you listen at it in here, your family take it out here.
• 54:15
  SPEAKER_02: Guess what y'all have?
• 54:16
  SPEAKER_02: Y'all have shared language.
• 54:18
  unknown: That's right.
• 54:18
  SPEAKER_02: Y'all have shared language.
• 54:20
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, so Jen, I appreciate you.
• 54:22
  SPEAKER_02: Thank you so much for reaching out and extending this.
• 54:25
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, you have the mic, so I want to encourage you to keep doing what you're doing.
• 54:29
  SPEAKER_02: Don't drop that mic because we need you.
• 54:32
  SPEAKER_02: I appreciate you.
• 54:32
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 54:33
  SPEAKER_02: I appreciate you so much.
• 54:34
  SPEAKER_02: Thank you, Sheila.
• 54:35
  SPEAKER_02: All right, my pleasure.
• 54:36
  SPEAKER_02: We'll be in contact, okay?
• 54:38
  SPEAKER_02: All right, bye-bye.
• 54:41
  SPEAKER_00: If this conversation sparked something for you, or if you want to dive deeper, head over to soulnotskin.com and take a look around.
• 54:48
  SPEAKER_00: Grab a copy of the book, Soul Knot Skin, free resources, or get on the wait list for our next workshop.
• 54:55
  SPEAKER_00: I hope you'll pull up a chair next time to hang out with us again.
• 54:59
  SPEAKER_00: We're figuring out this world and ourselves at the same exact time, growing as we listen to the stories of others.
• 55:06
  SPEAKER_00: Let's keep getting to know each other.
• 55:09
  SPEAKER_00: After all, we are in this together.
• 55:11
  SPEAKER_00: See you next time.