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Living In A World Without Sunlight with Doug Smith, MSSW · The Trauma Therapist

0:00
Speaker 1: Welcome to the Trauma Therapists podcast. My name is Gaming Person.
0:04
Speaker 1: I interview incredible people who've dedicated their lives to helping
0:07
Speaker 1: those who've been impacted by trauma. A big thank you
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Speaker 1: to our sponsors and our guests who are supporting this show.
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Speaker 1: Five four three two one our folks, Welcome back to
0:19
Speaker 1: the podcast. I'm very excited to have as my guests today.
0:22
Speaker 1: Doug Smith, Doug.
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Speaker 2: Welcome, Thank you, it's great to be here.
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Speaker 1: Doug is a managing partner of d Degree, a leadership
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Speaker 1: development and coaching practice focus on trauma informed leadership and
0:34
Speaker 1: personal transformation. Certified Trauma Informed coach and author of the
0:39
Speaker 1: Path of Rocks and Thorns Leadership Lessons from a Prison Cell.
0:43
Speaker 1: Doug draws on who lived experience with mental illness, substance
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Speaker 1: us recovery, and incarceration to help individuals and organizations lead
0:51
Speaker 1: with accountability, self awareness, and integrity. His work blends solution
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Speaker 1: focused coaching with trauma informed principles to support leaders in
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Speaker 1: creating cultures that acknowledge the whole person and cultivate resilience, purpose,
1:05
Speaker 1: and meaningful impact. Our Doug, obviously, just a little bit
1:09
Speaker 1: about you before we going share with the listeners. Where
1:12
Speaker 1: you're from originally and where you are currently, gotcha?
1:16
Speaker 2: Yeah, I was born in Princeton, New Jersey, which is
1:20
Speaker 2: why I'm so smart and exactly. Yeah, it just happens,
1:30
Speaker 2: Einstein to Doug. It just sort of yeah, that's how
1:33
Speaker 2: it works, right, yeah.
1:35
Speaker 1: Intelligence.
1:39
Speaker 2: Yeah, we moved around quite a bit. My father was
1:41
Speaker 2: very restless. He could never stay in one place for long.
1:44
Speaker 2: So I lived in about seven different places before I
1:49
Speaker 2: turned ten years old, and so we lived all through
1:52
Speaker 2: New York State. We lived in Iowa, New Jersey, and
1:57
Speaker 2: then moved to Austin, Texas. And my mom loved it.
2:02
Speaker 2: So when my dad was ready to leave to go
2:05
Speaker 2: to the next place, she said, well, you can go
2:07
Speaker 2: without me, and we sit in Austin. She absolutely loves Austin.
2:14
Speaker 2: So I've been in Austin since and then she was
2:17
Speaker 2: second great. Well, he did hang around for a little bit,
2:20
Speaker 2: but then ultimately went off to his next thing.
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Speaker 3: Okay, so your bio, I mean it's like, wow, wow, wow,
2:34
Speaker 3: a lot going on.
2:36
Speaker 1: How did all this start for you?
2:39
Speaker 2: Yeah? Well, thank you. Yeah, you're right, there is a lot.
2:44
Speaker 2: I think a lot of it. I've heard other guests
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Speaker 2: on the show they're so brave and sharing some of
2:49
Speaker 2: their trauma. For me, I'll just say that trauma happened
2:54
Speaker 2: to me around age four. It was kind of a
2:57
Speaker 2: psychosexual trauma with a baby sitter, and then later it
3:03
Speaker 2: just sort of like wrecked my life after my father
3:07
Speaker 2: left and just sort of fell into a pretty dark depression,
3:13
Speaker 2: massive anxiety, and kind of learned to live. I always say,
3:18
Speaker 2: I learned to live in a world without sunlight, and
3:22
Speaker 2: so I had to live with that, because you know,
3:24
Speaker 2: a lot of kids go unnoticed when they have pretty
3:28
Speaker 2: significant mental health challenges, So I just kind of learned
3:32
Speaker 2: to live with it. It wasn't until my twenties that
3:36
Speaker 2: I realized this actually wasn't normal and began to get
3:41
Speaker 2: some help for myself. But that didn't stop the frequent
3:46
Speaker 2: psychiatric hospitalizations and things like that, and interspersed with that
3:52
Speaker 2: where was some pretty pretty great success in my career
3:57
Speaker 2: and education, but it would always circle back back to
4:01
Speaker 2: psychiatric hospitalization. Once I got married, I started to use
4:08
Speaker 2: more alcohol, more prescription pills, things like that, just sort
4:12
Speaker 2: of cope with the dual pressures of being married, having
4:16
Speaker 2: a kid, and keeping my career going. And you know,
4:20
Speaker 2: as happens with a lot of people with mental illness,
4:25
Speaker 2: especially those who have experienced trauma. Alcohol turned into drug use,
4:32
Speaker 2: And it was after a suicide attempt that I actually
4:36
Speaker 2: went out in the streets looking for something much stronger
4:40
Speaker 2: than I experienced before, and I was introduced to crack cocaine,
4:45
Speaker 2: and with.
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Speaker 1: Crack, let's pause right there, crack cocaine. So you give
4:52
Speaker 1: me the timeline here, I just want to move back
4:54
Speaker 1: if we can. So you started out by saying there
4:59
Speaker 1: was a trauma experience early on, and then you jumped
5:04
Speaker 1: from when your father left, and you said that kind
5:08
Speaker 1: of carried over. You imply that that trauma carried over
5:12
Speaker 1: an impacted you. Had you ever sought out any help
5:18
Speaker 1: for that trauma? How did that impact you growing up?
5:22
Speaker 1: What did it look like?
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Speaker 2: So the trauma that occurred early on, you know, the
5:30
Speaker 2: no my I think my parents realized that there was
5:34
Speaker 2: something happening, basically because I ran away from the daycare
5:39
Speaker 2: and they realized that something was happening there. But they
5:44
Speaker 2: took me out, found another resource and that was it.
5:48
Speaker 2: And you know, my, every time I talked to my
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Speaker 2: parents about it, particularly my mom, she would say, well,
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Speaker 2: I'm sorry that that happened. I felt bad about that,
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Speaker 2: and I've come to realize that what makes something trauma
6:02
Speaker 2: is the ways in which people are there for you
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Speaker 2: or not. So when people meet you at that point
6:09
Speaker 2: of like, this was this should not have happened to you.
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Speaker 2: This was not normal. It's not your fault. I'm here
6:17
Speaker 2: to help, right, That's what can be really healing and help.
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Speaker 1: That would be nice. Yeah, when you don't get that,
6:25
Speaker 1: or get the opposite, it just fucks with your head
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Speaker 1: and likely and soul. Years did you so at any
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Speaker 1: point did you And I'm not judging here, I'm just curious,
6:38
Speaker 1: were you able to talk to someone? Did you get
6:40
Speaker 1: any kind of quote unquote help?
6:43
Speaker 2: No? No, okay, yeah, not with In fact, I didn't
6:46
Speaker 2: even even in the times that I might have been
6:48
Speaker 2: in and out of therapy, I didn't understand it as trauma.
6:53
Speaker 2: I just simply didn't. I didn't understand why I would
6:57
Speaker 2: dissociate during like moments of extreme stress or in certain situations.
7:04
Speaker 2: I didn't know why my body would go completely numb
7:08
Speaker 2: or I'd feel sick head to toe. I just thought
7:12
Speaker 2: that was one of my character flaws, right, that I
7:15
Speaker 2: just suffered from too much anxiety, and it was really
7:17
Speaker 2: hurting my social life. So I just felt the shame
7:21
Speaker 2: of that. I would say, you know, flashing forward, and
7:26
Speaker 2: I'm sure we'll get to this, but flashing forward. I
7:29
Speaker 2: didn't go to a trauma informed therapist that really works
7:35
Speaker 2: with people somatically until I was probably in my mid forties,
7:41
Speaker 2: and that's when I came to understand, oh, this was
7:44
Speaker 2: this is a trauma response that I'm experienced. These are triggers.
7:50
Speaker 2: And once I understood that, then we were often running
7:54
Speaker 2: we could actually do treatment for it.
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Speaker 1: Prior to that, you talked about substance use. Yes, when
8:04
Speaker 1: that started happening, how old were you?
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Speaker 2: So you know I went from just alcohol use four
8:12
Speaker 2: or five beers a day, then piled on you know,
8:16
Speaker 2: like benzo diazepins and things like that. But ultimately I
8:21
Speaker 2: tried crack cocaine at age thirty seven. Okay, yeah, so
8:27
Speaker 2: I was well into my thirties by that point, and yeah.
8:32
Speaker 1: I mean surviving working, had a.
8:35
Speaker 2: Family, surviving working. I was losing a lot of jobs,
8:39
Speaker 2: so I'd survive work. Excel. I always said that I
8:43
Speaker 2: was the best employee and the worst employee of any job.
8:47
Speaker 2: So I would take six months to impress the hell
8:52
Speaker 2: out of them, and then the next six months I
8:54
Speaker 2: would fall apart and they'd ultimately give me some type
8:58
Speaker 2: of severance and asked me to leave.
9:02
Speaker 1: What do you attribute your success too in that in
9:08
Speaker 1: that context you were in the fact that you were
9:11
Speaker 1: the best employee, What do you why were you the
9:14
Speaker 1: best employees? What do you attribute that to?
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Speaker 2: You know, I think ultimately like if you if I
9:20
Speaker 2: were in a state of recovery, right, My true nature
9:25
Speaker 2: is to excel. That is who I am, and I
9:29
Speaker 2: think it is for a lot of people. But that
9:30
Speaker 2: is in my true nature. I I care very deeply.
9:35
Speaker 2: I'm passionate. I do really good work. I became a
9:39
Speaker 2: social worker because I saw how people were treated on
9:45
Speaker 2: the streets of Austin, Texas. I said, this is just unacceptable.
9:50
Speaker 2: I went into the school of social work wanting to
9:52
Speaker 2: change systems. I worked around the Texas capital for a
9:56
Speaker 2: member of the legislature that exceedingly well. So you know,
10:01
Speaker 2: I'm passionate, I'm driven, I do really good work. That's
10:06
Speaker 2: who I am. So it's not normal for me to
10:13
Speaker 2: excel and then decline rapidly. That has to do with
10:19
Speaker 2: something else and that those are the mental and emotional struggles,
10:24
Speaker 2: and that really tore me apart. If I had been
10:28
Speaker 2: in a state of recovery, I would just excel in
10:30
Speaker 2: my career.
10:33
Speaker 1: The struggles. Did you feel that they were born out
10:40
Speaker 1: of this early trauma your father leaving? Talk about that
10:44
Speaker 1: a little bit, how those wanted to unfold for you.
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Speaker 2: And I didn't know it at the time, but one
10:52
Speaker 2: hundred percent I understand that now. Right when I when
10:56
Speaker 2: I am triggered, the memories tend to hover around four
11:00
Speaker 2: years old or fourteen, right, so I'm brought back there.
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Speaker 2: So like when I can relax and really sit with
11:09
Speaker 2: the trauma triggers, eventually what emerges is or who emerges
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Speaker 2: is someone younger and that person is either four or fourteen.
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Speaker 2: So I don't know why those ages, but that's where
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Speaker 2: it comes from. And that so that's the tell that
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Speaker 2: this is a trauma trigger because I'm taken right back
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Speaker 2: to that place.
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Speaker 1: And you say you don't know why those ages.
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Speaker 2: I think, Well, four is when it happened with the babysitter. Fourteen,
11:41
Speaker 2: I think because my father left at twelve. I but
11:47
Speaker 2: fourteen is when it happened. And what I think was
11:51
Speaker 2: happening was that I was, you know, like I was
11:55
Speaker 2: suicidal at age twelve. I was, you know, panic attacks
12:00
Speaker 2: things like that, and really along with it. But that
12:03
Speaker 2: alienated me from friends and from my schoolmates and things
12:11
Speaker 2: like that. So it just made me a target for bullies,
12:17
Speaker 2: and ultimately I had no friends. So that's I think
12:21
Speaker 2: that's where I go is page fourteen. It's when the
12:25
Speaker 2: trauma has so destroyed my adolescence that I'm completely alienated.
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Speaker 1: So how are you getting along? I mean, yeah, you
12:38
Speaker 1: have friends. I'm sure you have friends. At this point,
12:41
Speaker 1: you know.
12:42
Speaker 2: I lost my friends.
12:44
Speaker 1: How are you surviving? Seriously?
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Speaker 2: Yeah? I mean, like I said, you live in a
12:52
Speaker 2: world without sunlight and just go to school. I would
12:57
Speaker 2: lay on my bed and just stare at the ceiling.
13:01
Speaker 2: You know. I'd get a friend or two here and there,
13:04
Speaker 2: but then lose them. So it wasn't for some reason,
13:08
Speaker 2: it wasn't until I started, until I got a part
13:12
Speaker 2: time job that I started to get some traction on
13:17
Speaker 2: friends because we were outside of a school setting, and
13:21
Speaker 2: so that was really helpful. And of course trying alcohol
13:25
Speaker 2: at a young age also helped me be social with folks.
13:29
Speaker 2: So I would say, you know, seventeen eighteen is when
13:34
Speaker 2: I started to be able to have friendships.
13:37
Speaker 1: Okay, and did you go to college?
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Speaker 2: I did?
13:42
Speaker 1: Yeah, Okay, how did that work out for you?
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Speaker 2: I did really well in college. You know. I think
13:50
Speaker 2: the thing is I was I felt seen. You know,
13:54
Speaker 2: that's so important to someone with a druma history. I
13:56
Speaker 2: felt seen. My professors, you know, they they saw my performance,
14:02
Speaker 2: my grades, my initiative. They loved it. I went to
14:07
Speaker 2: a Catholic college, Saint Edward's University in Austin, and the
14:13
Speaker 2: brothers of the Holy Cross loved me, and my professors did,
14:17
Speaker 2: and so I was kind of hooked on school. I
14:21
Speaker 2: did my master's degree at University of Texas at Austin,
14:25
Speaker 2: and it was the same thing. It was just, you know,
14:28
Speaker 2: it was an abundance of being.
14:30
Speaker 1: Seen and what were you what you focus on there?
14:34
Speaker 2: When I focused on social work?
14:37
Speaker 1: Okay, So how did that come about when decided that?
14:41
Speaker 2: Yeah? Honestly, after undergrad I worked at at a homeless
14:47
Speaker 2: shelter and one of the things I did was try
14:51
Speaker 2: to find resources for people to prevent homelessness so that
14:55
Speaker 2: they didn't have to come to the shelter. And I
14:57
Speaker 2: remember a person calling me and she was pregnant, she
15:01
Speaker 2: was about to give birth within the next few weeks,
15:04
Speaker 2: and she needed fifty dollars to keep her from being evicted.
15:08
Speaker 2: Her or her landlord said he would absolutely evict her.
15:12
Speaker 2: And so I called around and I found a church,
15:16
Speaker 2: got fifty dollars for her. And then about six weeks later,
15:23
Speaker 2: she called me and she said that she named her
15:26
Speaker 2: child after me.
15:28
Speaker 1: What WHOA?
15:30
Speaker 2: And it? Actually I wasn't touched by that in the
15:34
Speaker 2: least bit. I was like, there was nothing I did
15:37
Speaker 2: that gave me the naming rights to your child. Nothing
15:43
Speaker 2: called it. I called a church, right, And I was like,
15:47
Speaker 2: I don't want to live in a world where a
15:50
Speaker 2: pregnant woman can get evicted because she can't make up
15:55
Speaker 2: fifty dollars. I just don't want to live in that world.
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Speaker 2: And I was like, sign me up for the school
16:01
Speaker 2: of Social word.
16:04
Speaker 1: So all right, let me just remind every when I'm
16:07
Speaker 1: speaking with Doug Smith here, the book is called The
16:11
Speaker 1: Path of Rocks and Thorns Leadership Lessons from a Prison Cell.
16:15
Speaker 1: So it's so interesting, Doug to hear you share your story,
16:23
Speaker 1: the early trauma, the traumatic experience, and the impacts it
16:28
Speaker 1: had on you continue to have on you and this
16:35
Speaker 1: experience with this well not even just that woman who
16:39
Speaker 1: was pregnant, even before that, you had this what yearning,
16:43
Speaker 1: this need to help other people.
16:46
Speaker 2: Yes, I felt that very early. Yes, it was the
16:52
Speaker 2: most natural thing for me. I wanted to be you
16:57
Speaker 2: know what it is. I just wanted to see people
17:00
Speaker 2: pull you know the way that I needed to be seen.
17:05
Speaker 1: Yeah, and that is very inspiring, It's amazing. So how
17:09
Speaker 1: do things unfold? I'm where does incarceration come in?
17:15
Speaker 2: Well, I said that crack cocaine entered into the picture,
17:19
Speaker 2: and so crack cocaine and incarceration sort of go together
17:23
Speaker 2: like peanut butter and jelly. There there's no desperation and
17:30
Speaker 2: human existence stronger than when you come down off of crack.
17:38
Speaker 2: The need to have more crack. It is the most
17:43
Speaker 2: devastating drug. I was instantly addicted, instantly, and that's pretty
17:48
Speaker 2: normal for crack. Yeah. And I think from the time
17:53
Speaker 2: I turned tried crack to the time I was sitting
17:57
Speaker 2: in County Jail on my way to prison, I'd been
18:00
Speaker 2: to the emergency room about six times. I see you
18:04
Speaker 2: three times. I sat in that rubber room in County
18:08
Speaker 2: jail freezing.
18:09
Speaker 1: What age you now we're talking about.
18:11
Speaker 2: This thirty seven to.
18:12
Speaker 1: Forty thirty seven to forty, Yeah, what were you doing
18:16
Speaker 1: professionally at this time?
18:18
Speaker 2: By that point, I pretty much had lost jobs. I
18:21
Speaker 2: was just going job to job.
18:23
Speaker 1: You know.
18:23
Speaker 2: I worked at a I taught business communication at a
18:27
Speaker 2: trade school. I was working in in telemarketing. Just it
18:33
Speaker 2: was any job that I could find at that point,
18:36
Speaker 2: because I kept on, you know, there's it's really hard
18:39
Speaker 2: to stay employed and use crack cocaine, even if you're
18:44
Speaker 2: binge using weeks apart. So yeah, I was losing jobst
18:49
Speaker 2: ultimately lost my marriage, the right to be with my
18:52
Speaker 2: child without adult supervision. It really was that bad. It
18:58
Speaker 2: had overdoses on heroin, and I always tried heroin to
19:02
Speaker 2: bring me down off of crack, which doesn't really work
19:07
Speaker 2: that well. So I was not a good chemist. So
19:11
Speaker 2: but ultimately, out of desperation, I went on a robbery
19:17
Speaker 2: spree and I robbed four establishments, a bank, two convenience stores,
19:26
Speaker 2: and a motel.
19:27
Speaker 1: Where are you living at this time, Austin? But we're
19:31
Speaker 1: in a home, a hotel or what?
19:34
Speaker 2: Oh? Yeah, So some was on the streets, some was
19:38
Speaker 2: at some was when I was at a facilitator facility
19:46
Speaker 2: for veterans. I didn't even mention that I was a veteran,
19:49
Speaker 2: but yeah, someone was a facility for veterans with substance
19:54
Speaker 2: use disorder. So I was living there. But that was
19:58
Speaker 2: week that was mere blue from an open air drug market.
20:02
Speaker 2: So I was just sort of being triggered every single
20:05
Speaker 2: day with urges to use drugs.
20:08
Speaker 1: Now And during this time, was was there any realization
20:20
Speaker 1: of what was going on for you?
20:25
Speaker 2: I would say, you know, I said to someone once
20:30
Speaker 2: after after a pretty bad relapse and I basically lost
20:36
Speaker 2: my car and blown, you know, lost another blame an opportunity,
20:42
Speaker 2: And I remember I said this to my stepfather. I
20:44
Speaker 2: just said to him, I can't believe this is me.
20:49
Speaker 2: He said, oh, yeah, it's you. I was like, but
20:51
Speaker 2: I couldn't believe it. I was like, this isn't me.
20:55
Speaker 2: I know who I am. This is not me, And
20:59
Speaker 2: I'm not trying to excuses or try to divorce myself
21:02
Speaker 2: from it. I just do not recognize the person who
21:07
Speaker 2: was doing this.
21:12
Speaker 1: How did you get into how did the jail prison
21:17
Speaker 1: experience happen?
21:19
Speaker 2: Well, it was I did the robbery spree and so
21:22
Speaker 2: that's kind of like, I punched my ticket to go
21:25
Speaker 2: to to go to prison, and I got a fifteen
21:29
Speaker 2: year sentence. I only served six of it, but that's
21:33
Speaker 2: certainly a long time. But yeah, I went into prison
21:36
Speaker 2: in six years in prison, Yeah, in Texas prisons.
21:40
Speaker 1: Wow. Yeah, I mean what was that?
21:44
Speaker 2: Like, that's sort of a big question. I think I
21:50
Speaker 2: got into prison. One of the things I write about
21:53
Speaker 2: in the book is prison. What prison did for me,
21:59
Speaker 2: and I don't commend you trying it, but what it
22:02
Speaker 2: did for me was it took away any other, every
22:07
Speaker 2: and all sources of motivation. That is to say, the
22:11
Speaker 2: things that motivated me before right to be seen, to
22:16
Speaker 2: be liked, to be loved, to be successful, to have relationships,
22:23
Speaker 2: to have financial security, all of those things that drove
22:27
Speaker 2: me and filled me with shame when I couldn't achieve them,
22:32
Speaker 2: all of those were gone, right, None of that was
22:35
Speaker 2: available to me. So I couldn't be motivated by that.
22:39
Speaker 2: And I learned also that even though I was eligible
22:42
Speaker 2: for parole, there was nothing I could do. There was
22:46
Speaker 2: no good behavior that would support the case for me
22:50
Speaker 2: to get parole, not in Texas. So basically means that
22:55
Speaker 2: I can't do. I can't be I just can't do
22:59
Speaker 2: good behavior, be on my best behavior, and that be
23:04
Speaker 2: any factor that our parole board considers. The parole commissioners
23:09
Speaker 2: only have like two minutes per case to make a decision.
23:14
Speaker 2: So that wasn't There was nothing I was going to do.
23:17
Speaker 2: There was no certificate I could do, no additional college degree.
23:22
Speaker 1: Technically you were eligible for parole.
23:24
Speaker 2: Technically, but I was turned down four times.
23:27
Speaker 1: Oh my gosh, okay, yeah.
23:29
Speaker 2: So and if you think about it, like what if
23:32
Speaker 2: you took all of those motivations away, what would your
23:36
Speaker 2: life be like? And for me, I was like, oh wait,
23:42
Speaker 2: I don't have to do anything right now to earn anything,
23:47
Speaker 2: because there's nothing I can earn. There's no special privilege
23:51
Speaker 2: for me. I just have to live my life. That's it.
23:55
Speaker 2: I just have to breathe and put one step in
23:59
Speaker 2: front of the other. And I returned to who I was,
24:05
Speaker 2: and that's that person who really wants to serve. But
24:09
Speaker 2: I learned to serve without having any opportunity for any
24:14
Speaker 2: special privilege at all, to simply serve for serving's sake.
24:21
Speaker 2: And so that's what I did. I got involved in prison,
24:25
Speaker 2: I became a sexual assault prevention trainer. I volunteered to
24:32
Speaker 2: help people parrolling the next day to find resources for
24:36
Speaker 2: AIDS or HIV. I served on the drama team and
24:41
Speaker 2: I wrote skits just served as a twelve step sponsor,
24:47
Speaker 2: and I was like, wait, I'm just doing this because
24:52
Speaker 2: it's in my nature to do it. I get nothing
24:54
Speaker 2: for this, and I that's something I took with me
25:01
Speaker 2: from prison, right Like, I just do the things that
25:06
Speaker 2: I do because it feels right. It matches my own
25:10
Speaker 2: sense of integrity. I don't expect anything for it above
25:18
Speaker 2: what I should be fairly given for it. It's just
25:22
Speaker 2: that's my life. I do it because it's in my
25:25
Speaker 2: nature to do it.
25:27
Speaker 1: So you do six years.
25:29
Speaker 2: I did six years.
25:30
Speaker 1: Obviously there's a lot more here. I don't have time
25:33
Speaker 1: to talk about it. But what are your thoughts when
25:37
Speaker 1: you get out? What are you thinking?
25:41
Speaker 2: Well, when I got out, like, I found out that
25:46
Speaker 2: there are very few opportunities for people with criminal records.
25:50
Speaker 2: It was turned down for every job for around fifty
25:53
Speaker 2: five months. I kept on going and applying, but it
25:58
Speaker 2: took me five months to find a nine dollars an
26:00
Speaker 2: our job working in a warehouse took me that long,
26:06
Speaker 2: but I worked with I worked it with gratitude, and
26:11
Speaker 2: I ultimately started to write about my experiences, what it
26:18
Speaker 2: was like to be in re entry and if this
26:21
Speaker 2: is what's experience, what I'm experience is experiencing think about
26:25
Speaker 2: the people with more significant barriers based on the color
26:28
Speaker 2: of their skin, educational background, things of that nature. And
26:34
Speaker 2: people started to read what I was writing, and that
26:37
Speaker 2: caught the attention of a criminal justice reform organization in Austin.
26:45
Speaker 1: This stuff on.
26:47
Speaker 2: I was writing it and sort of sending it out
26:50
Speaker 2: to the community of folks I know who are interested
26:53
Speaker 2: in criminal justice. So I wasn't familiar with blogging back then.
26:58
Speaker 2: I ultimately learned about it, so I would just send
27:02
Speaker 2: it little pieces to people I know, and that got
27:08
Speaker 2: me the introduction to this agency. And this agency put
27:11
Speaker 2: me to work right away. They said it was a
27:14
Speaker 2: criminal justice reform agency. They looked at me, they said, wait,
27:20
Speaker 2: you know how to pass a bill, and you know
27:23
Speaker 2: what the inside of a prison cell looks like. You're
27:26
Speaker 2: perfect for us, and within you have a unique skill
27:31
Speaker 2: set exactly. Yeah. Got the job two weeks later, and
27:37
Speaker 2: within three days they had me testifying at the Texas
27:41
Speaker 2: Capital and over the next four years or excuse me,
27:46
Speaker 2: six years, we decrease the rate of incarceration in Texas.
27:50
Speaker 2: There are thirty thousand fewer people in Texas prisons. We
27:54
Speaker 2: have one of the best occupational licensing acts for people
27:59
Speaker 2: with criminal records, making it easier for them to get jobs,
28:02
Speaker 2: created opportunity, and we've worked and I worked at the
28:05
Speaker 2: intersection of mental health and criminal justice, which is once
28:09
Speaker 2: I left that job. That's largely my life right now.
28:14
Speaker 2: As a consultant in leadership development, trainer and coaches, I
28:17
Speaker 2: work with people at that intersect and help to develop
28:21
Speaker 2: them as leaders so that they can be effective in
28:25
Speaker 2: changing systems.
28:27
Speaker 1: And when you're talking about d degree, yeah, okay, and
28:31
Speaker 1: back up again, so you work with who.
28:38
Speaker 2: So I have two main things that I do. I
28:42
Speaker 2: work right now doing leadership development. I focus on organizations
28:48
Speaker 2: that where the potential for people who have trauma triggers
28:55
Speaker 2: where they would work. And so it's a lot of
28:57
Speaker 2: organizations that hire people lived experience of trauma, mental illness,
29:04
Speaker 2: substance use disorder, incarceration. So I'll work with them to
29:08
Speaker 2: create environments that are that reduce hypervigilance, that help to
29:16
Speaker 2: create help to direct people to the supports they need
29:19
Speaker 2: that don't shame emotions out of proportion, but treat them,
29:28
Speaker 2: treat them compassionately and professionally. So I so I work
29:33
Speaker 2: with organizations, I train them in leadership and creating a
29:37
Speaker 2: trauma informed workplace. I also work across the state of
29:42
Speaker 2: Texas on contract with Supreme Court of Texas to help
29:47
Speaker 2: communities reduce the referral of people with mental illness into
29:53
Speaker 2: the juvenile or adult system. And it really relates to
29:57
Speaker 2: what I'm doing on the larger scale because it's really
30:00
Speaker 2: supporting leaders doing really significant systems change work.
30:07
Speaker 1: Let's talk about the book as we kind of wind
30:09
Speaker 1: down here, The Path of Rocks and Thorns, Leadership Lessons
30:12
Speaker 1: from a prison cell. When did you start thinking I
30:17
Speaker 1: want to write a book.
30:19
Speaker 2: Yeah, I thought that about two years ago. I just, honestly,
30:26
Speaker 2: I read a leadership book by a Navy seal about
30:30
Speaker 2: a Navy seal going on seal operations, something going wrong,
30:34
Speaker 2: him taking responsibility for it, and the leadership lessons he
30:38
Speaker 2: got from that. I said, that's amazing. I could do that.
30:44
Speaker 2: I know what my career was like prior to prison.
30:48
Speaker 2: I know the turning points that happened in prison, and
30:51
Speaker 2: I know how I applied them in the world, and
30:55
Speaker 2: I think these are all very relatable because people understand failure.
31:00
Speaker 2: They may not have gone through what I did, but
31:02
Speaker 2: they understand career failure, career destruction. They could benefit from
31:08
Speaker 2: those turning points, and I think that they would appreciate
31:11
Speaker 2: what life could be like, what their career could be
31:16
Speaker 2: like on the other end of that. So I decided
31:21
Speaker 2: to write that book when what I realized was that
31:25
Speaker 2: the before times thing, the failure part of it was
31:28
Speaker 2: pretty traumatic, was right. I didn't go to prison for
31:33
Speaker 2: just for no reason at all. There were things that
31:35
Speaker 2: happened that led to it. And as I described it,
31:39
Speaker 2: I realized that the book is going to be much deeper,
31:43
Speaker 2: much more difficult to write, but I did it. I
31:47
Speaker 2: kept the same structure. This is what happened, Here are
31:51
Speaker 2: the turning points in prison, and this is the lesson
31:56
Speaker 2: I bring outside into the world. So it's a tough read.
32:01
Speaker 2: It's a tough it was a tough to write. But
32:05
Speaker 2: everyone I've spoken to has found deep inspiration and they've
32:10
Speaker 2: seen themselves in that book, even if they didn't go
32:14
Speaker 2: to prison.
32:15
Speaker 1: Can you share maybe one or two parts that were
32:18
Speaker 1: really tough for you to write.
32:21
Speaker 2: I think a couple of parts, but one was really
32:24
Speaker 2: detailing the downward spiral into addiction and what was happening
32:31
Speaker 2: in my mental state going down into into addiction and
32:39
Speaker 2: ultimately into prison. So writing that particular piece was it
32:43
Speaker 2: was difficult. So through that writing process, I remember I
32:47
Speaker 2: had to read it out loud three times and during
32:50
Speaker 2: the copy editing process, and every time I felt sick
32:56
Speaker 2: for two days, just sick for two days. It was
32:59
Speaker 2: really difficult. So yeah, and that was one part of it.
33:05
Speaker 2: There were other parts that were similarly difficult. You know.
33:11
Speaker 2: I got into what happened well into the past because
33:15
Speaker 2: it's really important to understand that how trauma triggers are
33:20
Speaker 2: impacting your professional career, that those came from somewhere, and
33:24
Speaker 2: so I was writing about the somewhere. That was incredibly
33:28
Speaker 2: difficult to write.
33:31
Speaker 1: How so much? I want to ask you, but I
33:34
Speaker 1: want to be mindful of the time here. How has
33:38
Speaker 1: that type of exploration, this obvious vulnerability you've had to
33:44
Speaker 1: cultivate to some degree, how has that helped you now?
33:47
Speaker 1: Do you feel?
33:49
Speaker 2: Yeah? I think in a lot of ways it's helped
33:51
Speaker 2: to complete it. You know, if that if you understand
33:55
Speaker 2: that term right that, you know, putting it on paper,
33:59
Speaker 2: going through it over and over again. One of the
34:02
Speaker 2: things that helped me to understand was just that it
34:07
Speaker 2: was it's that process of going through not using drugs
34:13
Speaker 2: or alcohol, that whole process of going through to the
34:17
Speaker 2: other side of it, or learning that I can I
34:20
Speaker 2: can do that, that people have that capacity to do that,
34:26
Speaker 2: and learning to kind of expand my emotional bandwidth helped
34:31
Speaker 2: me enormously. So that's one of the things that the
34:33
Speaker 2: book did. I think the book also introduced me to
34:38
Speaker 2: people who have had similar life experiences, even though they
34:41
Speaker 2: didn't go to prison, and realizing that I'm part of
34:45
Speaker 2: a community of people who have experienced trauma, that we're
34:51
Speaker 2: in it together. It expressed itself differently in our lives,
34:55
Speaker 2: but we're all in this together.
35:01
Speaker 1: Once again. The book is the Path of Rocks and Thorns.
35:03
Speaker 1: Leadership Lessons from a prison cell, Doug. How do people
35:06
Speaker 1: learn more about you the book and what you're doing.
35:09
Speaker 1: It's the best way.
35:11
Speaker 2: Well, you can definitely go to my website. It's the
35:14
Speaker 2: hyphen degree like college degree d hyphendegree dot com. You
35:20
Speaker 2: can get on my mailing list. You're also welcome to
35:24
Speaker 2: email me at Doug at d hyphendegree dot com. It'd
35:30
Speaker 2: be great to hear from you.
35:32
Speaker 1: Awesome, all right. We'll have all that linked up here
35:33
Speaker 1: at the show notes page at the Trauma Therapist podcast
35:36
Speaker 1: dot com. Doug, appreciate you for sharing your story. It's Jesus,
35:43
Speaker 1: it's inspiring.
35:45
Speaker 2: Thank you.
35:46
Speaker 1: Yeah. Thanks the love with the book. We'll be in touch,
35:48
Speaker 1: all right.
35:49
Speaker 2: All right, take good care.
35:50
Speaker 1: Thanks,