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7 Therapy in Prison for The Scarlett Letter · Miles Behind Miles Ahead

• 0:26
  SPEAKER_01: This podcast is meant to be about the journeys from life-changing setbacks to restoration.
• 0:32
  SPEAKER_01: This journey takes on many forms and encompasses many different stories and topics, including addiction, prison, abuse, loss, illness, and other setbacks.
• 0:44
  SPEAKER_01: The primary message is not so much the setbacks, but the personal, mental, spiritual, societal, physical, and other forms of recovery needed to emerge from these challenges with renewed hope and as better versions of ourselves.
• 1:03
  SPEAKER_01: We will explore our personal journeys and celebrate those who have waded through their own personal struggles that come out on the other side and enough to survive, but against all odds are better because of the journey.
• 1:16
  SPEAKER_01: This is meant to be a message of hope, with the overriding thing that it is not the flaws that define us, but rather the getting up.
• 1:26
  SPEAKER_01: That's the title.
• 1:45
  SPEAKER_01: How are you doing, Miss Pat?
• 1:48
  SPEAKER_00: I've been better.
• 1:51
  SPEAKER_01: Has some travel issues, huh?
• 1:53
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, oh definitely.
• 1:56
  SPEAKER_01: Yep, yep.
• 1:56
  SPEAKER_01: Well, well, welcome to the show.
• 1:58
  SPEAKER_01: Um thank you.
• 1:59
  SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna just yes, ma'am.
• 2:01
  SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna jump right in.
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_01: Um so uh before we go any further, tell us a little bit about yourself.
• 2:08
  SPEAKER_00: Oh well, my um graduate degree was in clinical psychology, and I did that for three years from 70 to 73, and then I saw that there was an opening for psychologist in the North Carolina prison system, so I applied.
• 2:27
  SPEAKER_00: And um, when they did hire me, they told me I wouldn't last six months.
• 2:33
  SPEAKER_01: And how long were you there?
• 2:36
  SPEAKER_00: Until 2020, COVID retired me involuntarily.
• 2:42
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah, that's a little bit overseas.
• 2:45
  SPEAKER_00: I was still going strong and I was 75 years old.
• 2:49
  SPEAKER_01: How about that?
• 2:50
  SPEAKER_01: How about that?
• 2:51
  SPEAKER_01: Um, yeah, so um where I met you was in the SOAR program.
• 2:57
  SPEAKER_01: SOR stands for sex account, sex offender accountability and responsibility and responsibility program, yes.
• 3:08
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so could you tell me uh how that started?
• 3:13
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, but we're gonna have to go back to the mid-80s.
• 3:17
  SPEAKER_00: Can you go that far back?
• 3:19
  SPEAKER_01: I can go back as far as you want, ma'am.
• 3:20
  SPEAKER_01: It's my show.
• 3:21
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 3:22
  SPEAKER_00: Well, in the mid-80s, I actually became, I left the prison system and just was a contract psychologist.
• 3:31
  SPEAKER_00: And one of the things they asked me to do was would I like to do pre-sentence diagnostic evaluations, which is the person has already been convicted, but the judge wants additional information and sentencing recommendations.
• 3:46
  SPEAKER_00: So I was part of a crew, I did the psychological, the sex offender specific evaluation.
• 3:54
  SPEAKER_00: And guess what?
• 3:55
  SPEAKER_00: All the judges wanted to know about.
• 3:58
  SPEAKER_01: What's that?
• 4:00
  SPEAKER_00: What caused someone to commit a sex offense?
• 4:05
  SPEAKER_00: So I got inundated with all of these evaluations.
• 4:09
  SPEAKER_00: The primary um or the majority of them were about men who had committed sex offenses, not only adults but juveniles.
• 4:18
  SPEAKER_00: Uh rare there were females, mostly um males.
• 4:24
  SPEAKER_00: So I started researching, you know, how to set this up and ended up in a task force in the prison system where we spent from about 1985 until maybe the next five years meeting trying to design how we wanted to go about creating an in-patient, that means in the prison unit that would do treatment.
• 4:52
  SPEAKER_00: And finally, we got financed by the legislature and we started the program in January of 1991.
• 5:01
  SPEAKER_00: But before that, for those five years, I started doing individual and group therapy at a maximum security prison in Raleigh.
• 5:10
  SPEAKER_00: And so I got to know a bunch of the guys, especially the ones that had long sentences.
• 5:15
  SPEAKER_00: So in 91, when we actually started the program in a medium custody camp, many of the guys that I already knew and had been working with had been transferred to that camp and they were in my first group.
• 5:29
  SPEAKER_01: Gotcha, gotcha.
• 5:31
  SPEAKER_01: Wow, that was a long journey, huh?
• 5:34
  SPEAKER_00: It really was.
• 5:35
  SPEAKER_00: And of course, what you probably already know about me is I can be very contrary, and when somebody tells me I can't do something, I think maybe I can.
• 5:46
  SPEAKER_00: And at that time in the 80s, people were not particularly um favorable, or they believed that these guys could not uh profit from any kind of psychological treatment.
• 6:00
  SPEAKER_01: Gotcha, gotcha.
• 6:02
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I actually I know very well that uh that you've proven them wrong.
• 6:08
  SPEAKER_01: So much for that.
• 6:10
  SPEAKER_01: Um, that was a lot of fun.
• 6:13
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I bet it was, I bet it was.
• 6:16
  SPEAKER_01: Uh so um about the program, right?
• 6:21
  SPEAKER_01: Uh I I got there uh probably 10, 12 years ago.
• 6:27
  SPEAKER_01: Uh there were a lot of parts of that program that really impacted me, but one of the things that really resonated with me, um, because when I got there, I was full of shame and guilt and remorse.
• 6:42
  SPEAKER_01: Uh one of the things that really resonated with me was you said to us, and I remember you saying this vividly, that what we did is not who we were.
• 6:55
  SPEAKER_01: And I never thought of that, and it and it took a huge weight off my shoulder.
• 7:03
  SPEAKER_01: Uh it was a deep breath.
• 7:05
  SPEAKER_01: Now, I still was steeped in some shame and guilt, but but it it was the the beginning of of alleviating that.
• 7:16
  SPEAKER_01: Um, could you expound on um why that's something uh you said to the inmates in your care?
• 7:24
  SPEAKER_00: Right, because at this point they'd already been tried, convicted, and judged, right?
• 7:31
  SPEAKER_00: So why waste all this energy on going back when what I wanted them to do was to focus on getting the information that they needed so that there were no more victims?
• 7:46
  SPEAKER_00: And that was the theme of the entire program.
• 7:49
  SPEAKER_00: No more victims.
• 7:50
  SPEAKER_00: We can't do anything about the victims you already had, but no more victims.
• 7:55
  SPEAKER_01: Gotcha.
• 7:56
  SPEAKER_00: So by by saying that to you, I invited you.
• 8:00
  SPEAKER_00: If you remember, I invited you to stop focusing on what you had had already done, but start focusing on how you could not do it again in the future.
• 8:13
  SPEAKER_01: Gotcha, gotcha.
• 8:15
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I I remember that vividly.
• 8:16
  SPEAKER_01: And a lot of the work that that went into that was about uh not re-offending and uh progressive steps uh that we took that we were uh we were given uh to prevent that from happening.
• 8:31
  SPEAKER_01: So yeah, I remember that vividly.
• 8:33
  SPEAKER_01: Uh I also um another part of the program I remember was former inmates would come in, right?
• 8:41
  SPEAKER_01: And they would talk to us about reintegrating into society and how they handle this such different situations.
• 8:49
  SPEAKER_01: Uh one of those situations being uh friends or neighbors or other people um all of a sudden uh treating us like pariah or not not really wanting uh being wary of men that have committed a sex offense.
• 9:08
  SPEAKER_01: My thoughts are, and and this comes directly from being in the SOAR program, is that people have a right to take care of their family against threats, whether perceived or real.
• 9:21
  SPEAKER_01: And so once I understood that, um, the next thing was um getting past that.
• 9:27
  SPEAKER_01: And I and we talked a lot about um uh how uh those visiting inmates talk to us a lot about their experiences and how they worked through that by inviting people to um to kind of pay attention.
• 9:48
  SPEAKER_01: And um eventually through time uh maybe things would get better.
• 9:53
  SPEAKER_01: Um and that worked for me, right?
• 9:56
  SPEAKER_01: I I uh over time, uh I I have a neighbor who uh was when I when I first moved here was very uh very wary.
• 10:07
  SPEAKER_01: Uh that she he and she had they had children and they had girls, and they were very wary.
• 10:13
  SPEAKER_01: And now uh we talk on a regular basis.
• 10:16
  SPEAKER_01: So um could you talk about uh why that visitation for former inmates who had integrated back into society was such a big part of the program?
• 10:28
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I think the first concept was it gave you all in the program, still in prison, hope.
• 10:36
  SPEAKER_00: Because the general attitude of men in prison is that they're gonna have a um bullseye on their back and everybody's gonna be after them.
• 10:48
  SPEAKER_00: When the reality is, is everybody's got their own life and they're not particularly concerned about you.
• 10:55
  SPEAKER_00: So I think that by bringing inmates or citizens back into the prison who had been prisoners and telling you all that they made it and how they made it was incredibly uh positive compared to the negative feelings that all of you all had in prison, that you nobody was gonna uh be willing to work with you.
• 11:19
  SPEAKER_00: The other thing is that I constantly told you good help was hard to find.
• 11:25
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and what you all didn't realize is in order to be a good employee and a good friend and a good citizen, I wanted to turn convicts into citizens.
• 11:37
  SPEAKER_00: You had to do what you say and say what you do.
• 11:42
  SPEAKER_00: And in terms of a work environment, you're supposed to show up on time, you're supposed to do your job, you're not supposed to call in.
• 11:49
  SPEAKER_00: And if you looked at some of y'all's work histories, you weren't the best workers in the world.
• 11:54
  SPEAKER_00: And the program, because it was so structured, required you to do an enormous amount of work.
• 12:02
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and it did.
• 12:04
  SPEAKER_01: There was a lot of work.
• 12:05
  SPEAKER_01: I remember uh, so I had you as my uh primary counselor, and uh I remember writing my ass off um for you uh lots and lots and lots and lots of writing.
• 12:19
  SPEAKER_00: I remember a tired puppy's a good puppy.
• 12:23
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I was a good puppy, I'll tell you that.
• 12:28
  SPEAKER_01: But uh also um, yeah, I I uh I specifically remember uh going, coming home, and getting work.
• 12:41
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, it was hard.
• 12:43
  SPEAKER_01: I I speak a little bit about that on my on my podcast, but but one of the things uh that I did um because so I wasn't a long-term prisoner, so some of the inmates were long-term.
• 12:54
  SPEAKER_01: So I I spent four years in prison as opposed to 30 years or 25 years, so I had um a lot shorter than I did.
• 13:03
  SPEAKER_00: I spent almost 50 years, right?
• 13:07
  SPEAKER_01: So I had some um some things to come back to, which was pretty helpful, and I also had a skill set that uh because I had been educated, and so uh went went back to work, and uh, and a lot of the things that that you said were really true.
• 13:23
  SPEAKER_01: Like uh I kind of worked my way up uh and uh was able to in fact uh help some of the other guys uh get work.
• 13:35
  SPEAKER_01: In fact, uh the uh one or two of them still I'm retired now, but one or two of them still work at that place and and are doing pretty well.
• 13:45
  SPEAKER_01: So uh that that visitation uh was a big part of that and it was pretty effective.
• 13:51
  SPEAKER_00: Well what you did sorry, I'm interrupting you, but what you did, Stan, was you all were so grateful, the majority of men were so grateful that they got the the that they got through the program and that what we had done to help them, that I told them they had to pass it on, and you did a really nice job of doing that.
• 14:13
  SPEAKER_00: And the guys that came to visit you took a day off work and they were passing it on to help somebody else because one of the rules of treatment was you had to learn to live outside yourself.
• 14:26
  SPEAKER_01: Yep, yep, I got it.
• 14:29
  SPEAKER_01: Uh there was another part of the program, too.
• 14:31
  SPEAKER_01: Um I'm gonna skip over to this, where we had uh some of the victims uh would come and talk to us, and I remember what an impact that had on me, right?
• 14:42
  SPEAKER_01: Um these pe these women had um had actually been victimized and were willing to come and talk to us.
• 14:50
  SPEAKER_01: Uh a couple of questions was how did you get them to do it?
• 14:54
  SPEAKER_01: And um where did the idea come from?
• 14:58
  SPEAKER_01: And and the effect that it had on us.
• 15:01
  SPEAKER_00: The idea came from first, I wanted you all to be able to put yourself in the shoes of a victim.
• 15:09
  SPEAKER_00: And in order to do that, I had to write an entire treatment module on empathy, and part of that was reading at least two books by a victim similar to your own, their memoir.
• 15:23
  SPEAKER_00: But we didn't have any real people, we just had a very few.
• 15:26
  SPEAKER_00: I had a very small library, but I kept researching and expanding on it.
• 15:31
  SPEAKER_00: But interestingly enough, there was a reporter for the News and Observer in Raleigh who interviewed a woman who had just written a book about being sexually assaulted, and I contacted him and said, This is who I am, this is my phone number.
• 15:48
  SPEAKER_00: Could you pass this on to her?
• 15:50
  SPEAKER_00: I would like very much to talk to her.
• 15:53
  SPEAKER_00: Because I had treated both victims and offenders an outpatient basis too.
• 15:59
  SPEAKER_00: So I knew a little bit about victims, but I needed an actual victim.
• 16:03
  SPEAKER_00: So I just met her for breakfast one day, and she was incredibly positive and said that she was doing a lot of outreach and educational programs, which I said, would you come to the prison?
• 16:17
  SPEAKER_00: And she said, Of course.
• 16:18
  SPEAKER_00: And so she started coming.
• 16:20
  SPEAKER_00: She came for years again until COVID hit, twice a year and talked to the groups.
• 16:25
  SPEAKER_00: And I think that it was very impactful.
• 16:28
  SPEAKER_00: And then as a result, we reached out and found other victims that were willing.
• 16:33
  SPEAKER_00: And it takes somebody very brave to come, but what was interesting is the guys were more scared of the victims than the victims were scared of the guys.
• 16:44
  SPEAKER_00: The men in the program were very anxious when the victims came.
• 16:48
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and and speaking for myself, um I I think just I can't speak for other folks, but for me, knowing uh that that I had uh committed a sex offense and um and then having to face that uh was kind of scary.
• 17:06
  SPEAKER_01: Right?
• 17:07
  SPEAKER_01: It's just kind of scary on on several different levels.
• 17:10
  SPEAKER_01: So uh, but once they were there and uh and talked through their um their experiences, some of which were uh which seemed really traumatic, uh there was that empathy did happen.
• 17:28
  SPEAKER_01: And uh and you know, one of the things I thought about that I didn't think about and and I don't know why, but I I really didn't think about uh the effects that my behavior would have on others, um my victim and others, but uh but but one of the things that happened to me is that I started realizing that uh I was that the world didn't revolve around me, that this that these that uh those victims uh coming to the prison and telling us their story um impacted me greatly.
• 18:08
  SPEAKER_01: And I did, I did.
• 18:10
  SPEAKER_01: Um I can't tell you that I was not an empathetic person.
• 18:13
  SPEAKER_01: What I can tell you is that I understood that my um that that there was something that happened where my behavior threw empathy out of the window.
• 18:27
  SPEAKER_01: And then coming back in, coming into the system and and being in the SOAR program, uh it it re uh it re-awakened that, and and it's been with me ever since.
• 18:40
  SPEAKER_01: So, so yeah, that was a pretty pretty powerful part of the program.
• 18:45
  SPEAKER_00: If you remember correctly, I'm sorry, go ahead.
• 18:48
  SPEAKER_00: If you remember correctly, I had you all write questions after you had read this woman's book, and I sent the questions to her, and then afterwards I had you write a thank you note because she took off her day to come to visit you, and that was another constant reminder of putting yourself in somebody else's shoes and living outside yourself, right?
• 19:13
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, which is important.
• 19:14
  SPEAKER_01: I I I appreciate that.
• 19:17
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so we want to talk about some larger societal things.
• 19:23
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 19:24
  SPEAKER_01: So there's a sex offender registry, right?
• 19:27
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 19:27
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I'm on it.
• 19:29
  SPEAKER_01: Um I travel.
• 19:33
  SPEAKER_01: Uh there are some things I can't do, right?
• 19:35
  SPEAKER_01: I can't go to certain, I can't go to amusement parks, I can't go to uh certain countries.
• 19:42
  SPEAKER_01: Uh my uh sweetheart and her family are going on a Caribbean cruise.
• 19:50
  SPEAKER_01: And because of uh some of the because some of the countries on that cruise uh have strict uh prohibitions against sex offenders, I can't go on that cruise with them.
• 20:04
  SPEAKER_01: Uh so uh there's a sex offender registry.
• 20:09
  SPEAKER_01: Um but at the same time, there's not a manslaughter registry or a domestic violence registry or a child abuse registry.
• 20:18
  SPEAKER_01: My question for you, and I'd like your thoughts on this, should there be other registries?
• 20:25
  SPEAKER_00: I am not a fan of the registry at all because there's it's not research backed up.
• 20:32
  SPEAKER_00: In other words, it's a one shoe fits all.
• 20:36
  SPEAKER_00: And there are men that should be on a registry and should be overly very much supervised, okay?
• 20:46
  SPEAKER_00: But the problem is that they don't make any distinction, and there is it's not based on anything except the actual offense, which is not in itself predictive of what they're gonna do or re-offend.
• 21:03
  SPEAKER_00: So I think it's an enormous amount of diluted supervision.
• 21:11
  SPEAKER_00: Uh uh so I'm I'm not a fan.
• 21:13
  SPEAKER_00: Um if it was more it, if it was fair, maybe so because there are guys that really are high risk, but the problem is is the general public thinks that everybody that commits a sex offense is like the serial offenders on TV.
• 21:33
  SPEAKER_00: So it's it's it's just diluted.
• 21:38
  SPEAKER_01: It is, and and uh there is no there is a there is a standard here in North Carolina for if you've been on it for 10 years, um you can get off, and if you get if you've uh offended twice, you you're on it for a lifetime.
• 21:57
  SPEAKER_01: Uh which I still think is very is a very much an over uh generalization.
• 22:04
  SPEAKER_01: Um for example, uh I took my grandson to Miami to see the Buffalo Bills uh versus uh the Miami Dolphins.
• 22:14
  SPEAKER_01: I'm a huge Bills fan.
• 22:18
  SPEAKER_01: Love my Bills, but we uh we went down there, and Florida has a law that if you're there more than three days, then You have to register for life.
• 22:29
  SPEAKER_01: So I couldn't take him to different places because I had to get in and get out.
• 22:37
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 22:37
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 22:38
  SPEAKER_01: And so it's kind of half how I'm kind of having to live my life is to navigate that.
• 22:44
  SPEAKER_01: Now, having said that, I will say this.
• 22:46
  SPEAKER_01: I'm not feeling sorry for myself.
• 22:49
  SPEAKER_01: I don't have the whole self-pity thing.
• 22:51
  SPEAKER_01: That's the way it is.
• 22:52
  SPEAKER_01: I don't like it.
• 22:53
  SPEAKER_01: And I know it's political suicide for any politician to try to change that.
• 22:59
  SPEAKER_01: Because as soon as they do, their opponent is going to say something like, he's letting uh child offenders or perverts or he or uh get out here in our general society.
• 23:10
  SPEAKER_01: So that's not going to change.
• 23:13
  unknown: Right?
• 23:14
  SPEAKER_00: Well, again, I don't think the general society has enough awareness, and I can understand that, uh, of what the dynamics are in this situation, and that they are low-risk offenders, medium-risk offenders.
• 23:33
  SPEAKER_00: It's not an either-or here.
• 23:35
  SPEAKER_00: High-risk offenders.
• 23:36
  SPEAKER_00: And the problem is that we should be really targeting the very high-risk offenders.
• 23:44
  SPEAKER_00: But you've got an either-or, you either got 10 or you got life.
• 23:47
  SPEAKER_00: There's or is the worst word in the English language, you know that.
• 23:52
  SPEAKER_00: You know why?
• 23:53
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's because it only gives you two options.
• 23:56
  SPEAKER_01: Right, right.
• 23:57
  SPEAKER_01: I I uh I I don't know if it was you or or my therapist.
• 24:01
  SPEAKER_01: We we have conversations about uh black and white thinking, right?
• 24:06
  SPEAKER_00: Right, right.
• 24:07
  SPEAKER_01: And uh, and so yeah, that uh I don't think there are black and white thinkers, and I'm not saying they're good or bad.
• 24:14
  SPEAKER_01: I'm saying black and white options are not good for for the general society, whether it's whether it's uh in a working environment or uh unless there's safety involved, or because we have to make personnel decisions, and it though those decisions are not black and white, nor decisions uh black and white in this situation.
• 24:33
  SPEAKER_01: So I get it.
• 24:34
  SPEAKER_00: Um yeah.
• 24:35
  SPEAKER_01: So uh another question.
• 24:38
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 24:39
  SPEAKER_01: I always ask this because you know, this this program, this podcast I'm doing is really about hope.
• 24:46
  SPEAKER_01: It's really about um uh, and I say this uh in my um intro, it's not the falling down that defines us, but rather the getting up.
• 24:57
  SPEAKER_01: So, and you mentioned a word that I think was very important to me, and that is hope.
• 25:02
  SPEAKER_01: Because uh without hope, there is no light at the end of the tunnel.
• 25:07
  SPEAKER_01: Uh so what would you say to a person that has committed a sex offense, has paid their debt to society, and is trying to start over again?
• 25:17
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I the for I think the first thing is somewhere seek treatment, whether it's in prison or whether it's outpatient, get some you you make better decisions with information.
• 25:30
  SPEAKER_00: There's a wonderful quote by Aristotle that says that the only evil is ignorance and the only good is knowledge.
• 25:39
  SPEAKER_00: So get as much information as you can to make better decisions, and that could be from any kind of a therapist who you click with, a community group, a church inclusion.
• 25:55
  SPEAKER_00: You want to be, everybody wants to be part of something, a family, a community.
• 26:01
  SPEAKER_00: And without that support or that support network, you're out there all alone, and the lone wolf doesn't get very far by itself.
• 26:10
  SPEAKER_01: Gotcha, gotcha.
• 26:12
  SPEAKER_00: So, you know, again, get support if you if you went through a treatment program and you feel like that uh you're backsliding, that's a prison term, get back into treatment with somebody.
• 26:26
  SPEAKER_00: Find a support group in your community.
• 26:29
  SPEAKER_00: It could be based on your uh spiritual beliefs, it could be based on your interests, whatever.
• 26:36
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm not saying that you have to have 50 million people around you, I'm just saying you need a couple of people that have your back, not on your back.
• 26:47
  SPEAKER_01: Gotcha, gotcha.
• 26:49
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I uh I so here is what I did and and and how I made one of the things that I did.
• 26:59
  SPEAKER_01: Um people who decided they wanted to constantly punish me for something that happened years or decades ago, I love them from a distance, right?
• 27:13
  SPEAKER_01: We we're not you don't get to beat me up every day, right?
• 27:18
  SPEAKER_01: I have beat myself up enough, I have done my time, so I love them from a distance.
• 27:24
  SPEAKER_01: And then, like you said, I found people who um, and there were people when I came home.
• 27:30
  SPEAKER_01: There's a there's a young man who who coaches at a a major university, um who uh who I had the fortune of uh of mentoring uh years and years ago.
• 27:46
  SPEAKER_01: And when I came home from prison, he was the very first person that came to my house.
• 27:53
  SPEAKER_01: And um and uh and it was uh it was, I don't think he realizes how beneficial that was.
• 28:03
  SPEAKER_01: Then I had another friend, I I go to a 12-step program, I've been going for 35 years, but I had another friend from that program who went out of his way to find me and provide transportation and get me to and from meetings.
• 28:16
  SPEAKER_01: So um, so yeah, it was really helpful for me.
• 28:20
  SPEAKER_01: Uh the other thing, Ms.
• 28:21
  SPEAKER_01: Pat, is I um I still had some shame because I I I I live in a small community, right?
• 28:28
  SPEAKER_01: So when you come back to a small community, people still know you.
• 28:32
  SPEAKER_01: And um, and and so I still had trouble um getting past the shame.
• 28:40
  SPEAKER_01: So one of the things that's helped me through that, and and I I just shared on an earlier podcast that one of the things that helped me through that was therapy, right?
• 28:50
  SPEAKER_01: I um I uh just in the last year or so am at a place where uh that lodestone is not around my neck from shame.
• 29:02
  SPEAKER_01: Uh so yeah, it's a it's a it was it's just been a long journey for me.
• 29:08
  SPEAKER_01: What I will tell you is the SOAR program was the beginning of my was first of all, it was very impactful.
• 29:15
  SPEAKER_01: It was life-changing for me.
• 29:17
  SPEAKER_01: And then it was the beginning of my of my uh getting uh to where I am now spiritually, emotionally, because it was really, really important.
• 29:29
  SPEAKER_01: I have another question for you though, that's that's let me before you go on with the your other question.
• 29:33
  SPEAKER_00: Let me jump in with you you have to understand that by your offense you violated trust, and then you have got to be able to be do the work that requires to get that trust back.
• 29:48
  SPEAKER_00: In some cases you'll never get it back, in other cases you will get it back.
• 29:53
  SPEAKER_00: But the reality is it's on your your work is to get that trust back, right?
• 30:02
  SPEAKER_01: And and add to that, to get that trust back and also to take care of myself emotionally, right?
• 30:07
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, just again, I'm just not gonna let people beat me up.
• 30:11
  SPEAKER_01: I'm just I'm not gonna sign up for that.
• 30:13
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but I'll tell you something that's that's really funny to me, right?
• 30:18
  SPEAKER_01: Uh so here you are in the North Carolina prison system, uh coming to this close custody prison camp, nice little white lady, um and and showing whether I'm nice or not.
• 30:38
  SPEAKER_01: You nice enough, and not taking any shit, right?
• 30:41
  SPEAKER_01: Like, right, you know, and so uh and and and it was amazing, right?
• 30:47
  SPEAKER_01: You you it how did you do that?
• 30:49
  SPEAKER_01: Like, how did you were able to how were you able to walk around there and be so authoritative and yet so supportive and loving?
• 30:57
  SPEAKER_01: Because I I felt the love.
• 31:01
  SPEAKER_00: Stan, I loved my job.
• 31:04
  SPEAKER_00: I felt very um, I just felt like that I was making a difference.
• 31:12
  SPEAKER_00: But one of the funniest things that ever happened when one of the guys came back, somebody out in the group said to him, Well, do you ever think about doing any committing another offense?
• 31:23
  SPEAKER_00: And he said, Oh yeah, I think about it, but then I see her face, me, and I have to say and I said to myself, I don't have to deal with her again.
• 31:33
  SPEAKER_00: So I, you know, I believe there's I you know, I love quotes, and there's this wonderful Oscar Wilde quote that says, good friends stab them, stab, stab their friend in the front.
• 31:46
  SPEAKER_00: So I called it like it was, and you know, men, you all respected that.
• 31:51
  SPEAKER_00: I told you many times I didn't care whether you liked me, but I did care whether you remembered something I said five years from now because it was gonna keep you out of prison.
• 32:01
  SPEAKER_01: Mm-hmm.
• 32:02
  SPEAKER_01: Yep, I do remember.
• 32:04
  SPEAKER_01: So we're out of time.
• 32:05
  SPEAKER_01: Here's what I want to tell you, Miss Pat.
• 32:07
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 32:07
  SPEAKER_01: First of all, I want to thank you.
• 32:09
  SPEAKER_01: You, you, I want to thank you twice.
• 32:11
  SPEAKER_01: I want to thank you for the experience in SOAR because that was life-changing in the beginning of my journey to where I am now.
• 32:20
  SPEAKER_01: And then also thank you for having the willingness to come on your podcast and share your knowledge with us.
• 32:26
  SPEAKER_01: Um, yeah, you are have always been a part of my life, and it's really good to hear from you and take care of yourself.
• 32:36
  SPEAKER_00: I I will definitely do that.
• 32:38
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you, sir.
• 32:39
  SPEAKER_01: Alrighty, bye bye.
• 32:41
  unknown: Bye.
• 32:43
  SPEAKER_01: Well, again, thanks for listening in.
• 32:46
  SPEAKER_01: I hope this gave you some insight uh into a place where a lot of people have no knowledge of.
• 32:53
  SPEAKER_01: We'll see you next time.
• 32:55
  SPEAKER_01: Thanks for coming.