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My Pain Is My Identity with Lawyer Johnson · The Trauma Therapist

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Welcome to the Trauma Therapists Podcast. My name is Gamiferson.
• 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
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: to our sponsors and our guests who are supporting this show.
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: Five four three two one our folks, welcome back. Very
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: excited to have with my guest today, Lawyer Johnson.
• 0:22
  Speaker 2: Lawyer, welcome, Thank you guy, Thank you for having me
• 0:25
  Speaker 2: on your show.
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: Appreciate it. Lawyer is the author of My Pain Is
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: My Identity, a raw and a redemptive memoir tracing his
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  Speaker 1: journey from childhood sexual abuse and incarceration to healing, forgiveness
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: and service abuse at age seven by a family acquaintance
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: in upstate New York. He spent years battling anger, addiction,
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  Speaker 1: and violence until finding faith, mentorship, and emotional truth while
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: serving time in North Carolina prisons. Now based in Arizona,
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: who runs two businesses, Creative Home Designs LLC and Creative
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: Electrical and Plumbing, and he speaks to young men about trauma, accountability,
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: and transformation. His story gives voice to men who've long
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: suffered in silence and reminds us that healing is always possible. Lawyer. Welcome.
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: Before we get going, share with the listeners where you're
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: from originally and where you are currently.
• 1:17
  Speaker 3: I'm originally from upstate Newburgh, New York, and currently, I
• 1:22
  Speaker 3: mean I reside in Gilbert, Arizona.
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  Speaker 1: So look, I read your bio and I'm like, come on,
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  Speaker 1: I'm you know, I'm thinking to myself, how it's just
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: so inspiring, so incredible. I mean, how the hell does
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: someone get through this? And look at you like you've
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: got And when I say that, I mean, you have
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: this amazing presence, you have this smile that just feels genuine.
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: How I'm thinking to myself, how the fuck does someone
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: get through something like this? And I'm sure we're gonna
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: hear it from you, I'm sure, but how does this
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: how does this start for you.
• 2:13
  Speaker 3: Start? In reference to what, how does the story start?
• 2:18
  Speaker 3: The story started? Uh? With me, It's just.
• 2:22
  Speaker 2: I gotta go to the beginning of how it was, like,
• 2:24
  Speaker 2: you know, I grew up in like Newburgh, New York,
• 2:29
  Speaker 2: and I'm I'm just a kid of a single parent.
• 2:35
  Speaker 2: Like it was just my mother and my two siblings
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  Speaker 2: and we just had a ball, you know, a typical childhood.
• 2:40
  Speaker 3: We just had a ball growing up.
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  Speaker 2: If you if you live in New York, or if
• 2:44
  Speaker 2: you ever lived in New York, you know, in the summertime,
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  Speaker 2: the fire high, you come on, you're playing in the water,
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  Speaker 2: Michael Jackson. You know, I was his biggest fan growing up.
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  Speaker 2: So I immilate everything this guy would do, sing all
• 2:57
  Speaker 2: his songs, and my friends and I would have like
• 3:00
  Speaker 2: concerts and stuff like in the like have concerts like
• 3:06
  Speaker 2: down on our stupid entertain our parents, and I'll go
• 3:09
  Speaker 2: with my aunt Darr's house and play in the basement.
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  Speaker 2: Like I was just this, this happy going kid. And
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  Speaker 2: then one morning, it's just a normal morning. I'm just
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  Speaker 2: coming out of my house and playing with my friends,
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  Speaker 2: and it's it's just my best sister, my sister's best
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  Speaker 2: friend uncle.
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  Speaker 3: He just knows.
• 3:30
  Speaker 2: It's just it's just a normal conversation, like, Lord, can
• 3:32
  Speaker 2: you help me, what's moved some stuff down in my basement?
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  Speaker 2: You know, without reservation, because I trusted this guy. He
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  Speaker 2: was just a you know, he was a childhood friend.
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  Speaker 2: He was no he was he was my my sister
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  Speaker 2: best friend uncle. So I went down in the basement
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  Speaker 2: to help him move something. And it turned into a
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  Speaker 2: trap for him to sexually abuse me. So that's where
• 3:53
  Speaker 2: my whole story from there to now, Oh why I'm
• 3:59
  Speaker 2: where I'm at right now? If that makes sense, That's
• 4:01
  Speaker 2: how everything started for me, that that basement, being tricked
• 4:04
  Speaker 2: into the basement and being sexually abused.
• 4:08
  Speaker 1: So does that begin to recur? Does that happen? Does
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  Speaker 1: that go on? That abuse.
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  Speaker 3: You're talking about for me mentally?
• 4:17
  Speaker 1: Yeah, well no physic physically.
• 4:19
  Speaker 3: Was it just that one time or it was just
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  Speaker 3: at one time? Yeah, it was at one time at one.
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  Speaker 1: Time, So how do things unfold after that? I mean,
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  Speaker 1: how old were you when this happened?
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  Speaker 3: You were seven years old?
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, I could tell that my personality went dormant, like
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  Speaker 2: because I.
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  Speaker 3: Was confused, Like you can you?
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  Speaker 2: I know, you you're like a You're like a little kid,
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  Speaker 2: and you trust everyone, you know, because when you're younger,
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  Speaker 2: you naive, you know, you trust everybody because no no
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  Speaker 2: one ever taught you that the world was bad. And
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  Speaker 2: then this guy he does something to you that you
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  Speaker 2: know is wrong, and you confuse because.
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  Speaker 3: You like, this is a guy I see every day.
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  Speaker 2: So I shut down, like my guards went up, like
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  Speaker 2: I would normally walk to my house.
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  Speaker 3: That never occurred anymore. You know, I had to be
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  Speaker 3: outside my mother.
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  Speaker 2: She's like, why you always want me to be outside,
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  Speaker 2: which I just want you to know be beside me.
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  Speaker 1: You know you didn't tell her. I never told her,
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  Speaker 1: didn't tell anyone.
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  Speaker 3: I didn't tell any one. Guy in two hours, like,
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  Speaker 3: who forty eight years old?
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  Speaker 1: I mean, not surprising, but wow.
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  Speaker 2: I was forty eight years old when I finally told
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  Speaker 2: my mother. And I wanted to tell her because I
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  Speaker 2: was in the process of doing a documentary and I
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  Speaker 2: didn't want to release the documentary without.
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  Speaker 3: My my siblings not knowing.
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  Speaker 2: And the first person I called and I told.
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  Speaker 3: Was my next older sister, Stella.
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  Speaker 2: And I told her, and she's like baffled, she was upset, mad,
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  Speaker 2: and she was like, no, why you told anyone? Like
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  Speaker 2: I didn't know how to process anything. I was a
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  Speaker 2: young kid. How how was I supposed to borrow that
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  Speaker 2: up and process it and be like this what happened
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  Speaker 2: to me as a little kid. But I was like,
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  Speaker 2: I'm an adult now, you know, I'm able to speak
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  Speaker 2: and defend myself, So I'm letting you know this is
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  Speaker 2: what happened to me. She was upset, and I told
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  Speaker 2: my older sister as well, and she was like, you
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  Speaker 2: lived all this long bothering that up and you didn't
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  Speaker 2: tell anyone about it. She's like, and then she shared
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  Speaker 2: a story with me, so I knew that I wasn't alone.
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  Speaker 2: So then I was like, listen, I told my sister Stella.
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  Speaker 2: I was like, listen, I'm gonna know talk to her
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  Speaker 2: mother about this, and I need you to be you know,
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  Speaker 2: I need you to be there for me as you know,
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  Speaker 2: a support system. And she was there and I explained
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  Speaker 2: it to my mother. My mother, you can tell she
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  Speaker 2: was just blown away. She's like, I always knew something
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  Speaker 2: was wrong with that boy, but she never knew that
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  Speaker 2: was that that happened to me from this guy. So
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  Speaker 2: she was kind of like disturbed about the whole situation
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  Speaker 2: and we moved on from there.
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  Speaker 1: Oftentimes, when I mean, obviously people different people process this
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  Speaker 1: stuff differently, but oftentimes, you know, when it happens as
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  Speaker 1: a young kid, many people grow up thinking, yeah, that
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  Speaker 1: something was wrong, but maybe it happens again, or they
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  Speaker 1: put themselves in certain situations that are risky. When you
• 7:25
  Speaker 1: started to grow older, was this something you thought about,
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  Speaker 1: did you looking back on it now, did you feel
• 7:32
  Speaker 1: it was affecting you in any way?
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  Speaker 3: I knew I was affected, but I didn't know why
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  Speaker 3: I was affected, Like I didn't learn, like I didn't learn.
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  Speaker 2: About trauma until like my motivational speaking coach she told me,
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  Speaker 2: She's like, if you want to be a motivator speaker
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  Speaker 2: about what you're talking about, you need to go into
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  Speaker 2: depth about why trauma happened. When I started realizing, I
• 8:02
  Speaker 2: started reflecting it, and I started seeing all these patterns
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  Speaker 2: and it was the same patterns that people were talking
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  Speaker 2: about that happened with kids that were sexually abused when
• 8:13
  Speaker 2: it was a kid. And that's when I was like, oh,
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  Speaker 2: so that's why I was going off going through this.
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  Speaker 3: That's why I was quiet.
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  Speaker 2: That's why I didn't like a male figure around me,
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  Speaker 2: or let's see, with someone close to my family. I
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  Speaker 2: didn't like people standing. I'm still I'm still like that
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  Speaker 2: to this day. I don't like people touching me. I
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  Speaker 2: don't like people standing around me because it triggers me.
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  Speaker 2: And I noticed this was something that was ingrained in
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  Speaker 2: me from the time of that basement, from the time
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  Speaker 2: I was in junior high school. I always have act
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  Speaker 2: outs because I didn't know how to bent my pain,
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  Speaker 2: so it came out in school, like me fighting all
• 8:48
  Speaker 2: the time, me and me being suspended from school, me
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  Speaker 2: being so on the edge and taking no risk with
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  Speaker 2: everything in my life, just and that comes from that trauma,
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  Speaker 2: that anger, that build up in all of that no
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  Speaker 2: pain within me. You know, I didn't know how to
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  Speaker 2: vent it. So I've been it out in activities. That's
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  Speaker 2: that's the only way I could get it out.
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  Speaker 1: I can't imagine uh being in prison.
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  Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean, and then dealing with that also, did
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  Speaker 4: you have to shove that down when you were in prison.
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  Speaker 1: Or even when when you got older, Because for a
• 9:35
  Speaker 1: lot for men, it can be very shaming to be abused.
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  Speaker 1: You know, I was bullied as a kid, and it's
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  Speaker 1: just really jacked up a lot of a lot of
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  Speaker 1: ways that I think about myself. And it took me
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  Speaker 1: a long time to be able to talk about it
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  Speaker 1: because I was ashamed.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah I think I know.
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  Speaker 2: And this sound weird, right, because trauma is a gift
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  Speaker 2: in the curse, right, So the gift in it was
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  Speaker 2: like my sensible awareness was already hypened when I went
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  Speaker 2: to prison, and I already had in my mind, like
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  Speaker 2: what happened to me at seven years old. I'm in
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  Speaker 2: this space of being in prison. I don't care what's
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  Speaker 2: going on. It's not gonna happen to me again because
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  Speaker 2: of that trauma. Right, So that's the gift of your
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  Speaker 2: hyper awareness, that fighting you. I'm not gonna let it
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  Speaker 2: happen to me again. But one thing it did for me,
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  Speaker 2: it made me face my reality. Like because in the streets,
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  Speaker 2: I can run from the pain, but I was behind
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  Speaker 2: these walls.
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  Speaker 3: I couldn't run from the pain.
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  Speaker 2: So I had to figure out, like, how do I
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  Speaker 2: suppress this pain? How do I you know, how do
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  Speaker 2: I face it head on? And how can I become
• 10:52
  Speaker 2: better when I get out of society? And all those
• 10:56
  Speaker 2: things came together once I saw my mother for the
• 11:01
  Speaker 2: first time after I escaped out of prison. I was
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  Speaker 2: on the run for like three years and and they
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  Speaker 2: finally caught me and I had to come do my
• 11:08
  Speaker 2: time in North Carolina and my mother she she hasn't
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  Speaker 2: seen me in like four years.
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  Speaker 1: God, so wait, hold on, he escaped.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, I scaped from jail before they before they put
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  Speaker 2: me in prison.
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  Speaker 3: I skaped.
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  Speaker 2: I skaped from jail and I was on a run.
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  Speaker 2: I was on the run for like three years and
• 11:26
  Speaker 2: I escaped out of jail. It was just ingenuity. I
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  Speaker 2: was just thinking one night, like I can't be in
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  Speaker 2: this jail. And at the time and Goldsboro, North Carolina,
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  Speaker 2: I knew it's a wild story.
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  Speaker 3: Guy, I'm like Jesus.
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  Speaker 2: So I was in Goldsboro, North Carolina, and the city
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  Speaker 2: there was in the process of building a new jail,
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  Speaker 2: this huge jail. So what they did they came up
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  Speaker 2: with this temporary process and put all these inmates inside
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  Speaker 2: of a warehouse and put some gates up in there.
• 12:00
  Speaker 2: Everything but me, my mind is always spinning. I'm like, listen,
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  Speaker 2: I want to break out of this jail. I was
• 12:07
  Speaker 2: consulting like old masonaries, like do you think that I
• 12:12
  Speaker 2: can break those bricks out the wall? Like, yeah, you
• 12:14
  Speaker 2: can break the bricks out the wall. They oh, you
• 12:15
  Speaker 2: chip one and then you can put some water on
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  Speaker 2: the old mortar. Then the bricks will just fall apart.
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  Speaker 2: So I knew I needed a chisel and I needed
• 12:24
  Speaker 2: a hammer. So it was sinks inside our dorms. I
• 12:27
  Speaker 2: pulled the whole sink apart, and you know the elbow
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  Speaker 2: part where the water run down. I used that part
• 12:33
  Speaker 2: as the hammer, and then the loan two that runs
• 12:36
  Speaker 2: down into the sink runs down into the drain. I
• 12:40
  Speaker 2: took that long piece and I just smashed it into
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  Speaker 2: the end and I made it out of chisel. So
• 12:44
  Speaker 2: my friends and I that escape right along with me,
• 12:47
  Speaker 2: We'll go on the top of this dorm where the
• 12:50
  Speaker 2: bricks was at and we chipped for probably like a week,
• 12:54
  Speaker 2: and we broke the wall open and then it was
• 12:56
  Speaker 2: like out of the move. We tied sheets up and
• 12:58
  Speaker 2: scaled down the wall. When they caught me, guy, I
• 13:03
  Speaker 2: was the Phoenix, Arizona.
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  Speaker 4: How'd they catch you?
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  Speaker 3: It was a dispute.
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  Speaker 2: Between my ex wife and I, and I wanted her
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  Speaker 2: family members told on me, and they locked me up
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  Speaker 2: in Phoenix, Arizona, and Federal Marshall was there within two
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  Speaker 2: days to cup picked me up and transported me back
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  Speaker 2: to gold bro.
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  Speaker 3: And I was and then.
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  Speaker 2: I went to court, gave my time, and spent my
• 13:31
  Speaker 2: close to five years in there.
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  Speaker 1: Oh God, how did things begin to shift for you?
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  Speaker 1: I mean, one could imagine hearing this story and it
• 13:44
  Speaker 1: could be ending a much different way. But something, I mean,
• 13:51
  Speaker 1: you obviously have something within you where you kind of
• 13:54
  Speaker 1: turned the corner and you were like, all right, I
• 13:57
  Speaker 1: want to use this to as you refer to, you know,
• 14:03
  Speaker 1: get out, be serving society, do something with myself. How
• 14:08
  Speaker 1: did that thought idea that?
• 14:13
  Speaker 2: It's three parts to that question. The first part is
• 14:15
  Speaker 2: me seeing my mother for the first.
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  Speaker 3: Time, like being on a run and I know my mother.
• 14:22
  Speaker 2: I'm a motherless boy, like I'm an only son and
• 14:24
  Speaker 2: I'm a baby, so you know, looking into my she
• 14:26
  Speaker 2: wouldn't even look at me. Like when I went to visitation,
• 14:28
  Speaker 2: She's sitting on one side, I'm sitting on another side.
• 14:32
  Speaker 3: She wouldn't even look at me.
• 14:33
  Speaker 1: And because she because you were in prison, and she was.
• 14:35
  Speaker 2: Always in prison, so you know what's going on in
• 14:38
  Speaker 2: your your parents' mind, like is somebody you know raping
• 14:41
  Speaker 2: him or something like that, So she's.
• 14:43
  Speaker 3: Scared and and and that she's scared.
• 14:48
  Speaker 2: And that in that space of someone's gonna harm and
• 14:53
  Speaker 2: I had to reel her back in. I'm like listen,
• 14:55
  Speaker 2: I'm good. Listen, nobody's doing anything to me. I'm okay.
• 15:00
  Speaker 2: And I had to reensure like listen, man, I'm gonna
• 15:03
  Speaker 2: be okay. I said, I'm gonna go to school in here,
• 15:06
  Speaker 2: I'm gonna do all the things I need to do
• 15:07
  Speaker 2: to be better for me and be better for you.
• 15:10
  Speaker 3: I don't want to.
• 15:10
  Speaker 2: Put you through this pain, just I said, just, I
• 15:13
  Speaker 2: want you to be happy. Because she was just so sad.
• 15:15
  Speaker 2: I could see the pain in her eyes and then
• 15:17
  Speaker 2: expression in her face, you know, and that's not my mother.
• 15:20
  Speaker 2: My mother's always it's always about love and embracing me.
• 15:25
  Speaker 2: In that moment right there, that was the paradigm shift
• 15:27
  Speaker 2: one like, man, I gotta do something better.
• 15:30
  Speaker 3: So when I was in prison, I received.
• 15:32
  Speaker 2: My ged, I received my electrical wiring certificate, and I
• 15:37
  Speaker 2: took that electrical wiring certificate and I balled that into
• 15:41
  Speaker 2: electrical contractor license, which I'm a licensed electrician now on
• 15:45
  Speaker 2: commercial and the residential side. But the second paradigm shift
• 15:49
  Speaker 2: in my life is when I started doing comedy. Comedy.
• 15:54
  Speaker 2: I just kept getting these voices and I know what's
• 15:56
  Speaker 2: God and people gonna say, oh, this is weird. He
• 15:58
  Speaker 2: is getting voice, And now I was actually getting voice
• 16:00
  Speaker 2: or something kept telling me that you need to do comedy,
• 16:02
  Speaker 2: you need to do comed like day now.
• 16:05
  Speaker 3: This was when I got out, Like when.
• 16:07
  Speaker 2: I got out of jail. Something just kept telling me
• 16:10
  Speaker 2: to do that. You need to do comedy. You need
• 16:12
  Speaker 2: to do comedy. You need to do comedy, you need
• 16:14
  Speaker 2: to do comedy. Just kept saying it on and on
• 16:16
  Speaker 2: and I said.
• 16:17
  Speaker 3: It out like I said, Okay, I do comedy right.
• 16:19
  Speaker 2: So so I didn't know how to do comedy. I
• 16:23
  Speaker 2: just you know, I watched the whole bunch of I
• 16:26
  Speaker 2: needed a reference point. So I watched Andy Murphy, Richard Pryor,
• 16:29
  Speaker 2: and Martin Lamb looking at all this stuff, and I
• 16:32
  Speaker 2: come up with my jokes.
• 16:33
  Speaker 3: I write it down.
• 16:33
  Speaker 2: I went to this place called Stand Up Scott's Step
• 16:36
  Speaker 2: and I tried it out and people just laughed like okay,
• 16:40
  Speaker 2: Like god, what you're trying to what you're trying to
• 16:42
  Speaker 2: do for me? So then I I contact one of
• 16:45
  Speaker 2: my good friends because he was going to be my manager,
• 16:48
  Speaker 2: and he was my manager at the time. But he
• 16:50
  Speaker 2: told me, and it was deep at the time, that
• 16:53
  Speaker 2: he said, he like lawyer in order for me to
• 16:56
  Speaker 2: get excited about what you're doing and help you push
• 17:00
  Speaker 2: the narrative for your comedy career so you can get
• 17:03
  Speaker 2: to where you're going at got you have to have
• 17:07
  Speaker 2: something that gets me excited. And in my mind, I'm thinking, oh,
• 17:11
  Speaker 2: he don't want to manage me. Oh I'm not good enough.
• 17:14
  Speaker 2: But he was just telling me I need something to
• 17:16
  Speaker 2: go off, to put you out there where you need
• 17:18
  Speaker 2: to be at. And I thought about it. I like,
• 17:20
  Speaker 2: you know what, I never shared this with anyone.
• 17:25
  Speaker 3: Before. This is before I shared it with my sisters.
• 17:27
  Speaker 3: I shared it with him.
• 17:28
  Speaker 2: I like, when I was seven years old, I was
• 17:30
  Speaker 2: molested by this guy and such and such and such,
• 17:33
  Speaker 2: and he.
• 17:34
  Speaker 3: Was like he was blown away. Boom. He's like what man,
• 17:37
  Speaker 3: he said, don't worry about it. I got you.
• 17:38
  Speaker 2: Said, man, that's powerful, dude, he said, don't you know
• 17:40
  Speaker 2: you got You have a powerful story.
• 17:42
  Speaker 3: So he at that.
• 17:43
  Speaker 2: Time and he booked me speaking engagement at a homeless
• 17:48
  Speaker 2: shelter and I told my story and people was crying.
• 17:51
  Speaker 3: And then.
• 17:54
  Speaker 2: My next one, my third shift, was like when my
• 17:57
  Speaker 2: sister passed away. She passed away like last year around
• 18:00
  Speaker 2: this time, and I'm like, you have all this information, like.
• 18:04
  Speaker 3: You just wrote your book. You need to get it edited.
• 18:07
  Speaker 2: And then you know, God started like like getting on me,
• 18:12
  Speaker 2: like you know you have all this information from everything
• 18:15
  Speaker 2: that you have done in your life, you from being
• 18:17
  Speaker 2: molested to selling drugs in the streets to being inconcrated,
• 18:22
  Speaker 2: you know, from breaking out of jail to become an entrepreneur,
• 18:27
  Speaker 2: to become a comedian. And that's when I realized that
• 18:32
  Speaker 2: God don't place no burden on it, you don't bear.
• 18:34
  Speaker 2: He was building me up for this, for this moment
• 18:37
  Speaker 2: right here, right but I had to be strong enough
• 18:39
  Speaker 2: to carry that weight.
• 18:40
  Speaker 3: And that's when I realized, like, all.
• 18:43
  Speaker 2: This stuff I've been going through, you have been preparing
• 18:47
  Speaker 2: me to be an advocate for trauma, you know, male trauma,
• 18:54
  Speaker 2: child trauma, or whatever trauma. You building me up for
• 18:56
  Speaker 2: this purpose in my life. And that's when it dawned
• 18:58
  Speaker 2: on me, like, Okay, this is what.
• 19:00
  Speaker 3: I supposed to be doing. I supposed to.
• 19:02
  Speaker 2: Go through all this pain, go through all the fire,
• 19:06
  Speaker 2: and then come out to end victorious and have this
• 19:09
  Speaker 2: amazing story to share with the world. That listen, no
• 19:12
  Speaker 2: matter whatever you're going through in your life, if you
• 19:14
  Speaker 2: continue to push on, it's a silver lining through it.
• 19:17
  Speaker 2: Just because somebody wanted your soul, they didn't kill it,
• 19:21
  Speaker 2: and you still have a part of you that you
• 19:24
  Speaker 2: can grow with inside to get back to who you
• 19:26
  Speaker 2: were when you was a little kid, when you was
• 19:28
  Speaker 2: happy before the trauma. So I realized that my purpose
• 19:32
  Speaker 2: in life is to speak my truth, show my vulnerability
• 19:37
  Speaker 2: because society they you know, society confuses, they confuse vulnerability
• 19:46
  Speaker 2: as a weakness. But in all action, now, all actuality,
• 19:51
  Speaker 2: trauma is being vulnerable is one of the highest forms
• 19:55
  Speaker 2: of strength.
• 19:56
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 19:56
  Speaker 2: So I'm this bigtimidating man, you know that went through
• 20:01
  Speaker 2: all this pain. I need to get out in front
• 20:04
  Speaker 2: of and tell people it's okay.
• 20:05
  Speaker 3: Man.
• 20:06
  Speaker 2: You know this happened to you as a child, and
• 20:10
  Speaker 2: you can't sit there and beat yourself up as an adult.
• 20:13
  Speaker 2: So the thing that I want to do, guy, is
• 20:17
  Speaker 2: start rewriting the social narrative around male sexual trump because
• 20:29
  Speaker 2: because people can't, they can't separate the two. They can't
• 20:32
  Speaker 2: separate the child from the man. And it's going to
• 20:35
  Speaker 2: require me to reframe it like socially, emotionally, psychologically, so
• 20:41
  Speaker 2: people could see survivors in a different light because right now,
• 20:47
  Speaker 2: no they.
• 20:49
  Speaker 3: And it's sad is that they.
• 20:52
  Speaker 2: Our silence only protect the predator, right, but it punishes,
• 21:00
  Speaker 2: it punishes the survival.
• 21:02
  Speaker 3: So we need to switch it back around.
• 21:04
  Speaker 2: Let's come out, speak our truth and punish the and
• 21:10
  Speaker 2: punish the predator and let the survivors start healing because
• 21:15
  Speaker 2: it's switched around, and that's the only.
• 21:18
  Speaker 3: One how to do it.
• 21:18
  Speaker 2: I have to kind of reframe everything so people stop
• 21:22
  Speaker 2: punishing the child, because it's like, whenever you start judging
• 21:26
  Speaker 2: a grown man for being vulnerable, you basically just punishing
• 21:30
  Speaker 2: the child for something he couldn't speak up for back then.
• 21:34
  Speaker 3: If that makes.
• 21:35
  Speaker 1: Sense, Jesus, you talked about there were kind of three,
• 21:45
  Speaker 1: uh what three reasons that kind of three paradigm shifts.
• 21:54
  Speaker 1: How did you get to the point where you even
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: felt comfortable talking about vulnerability. Men don't talk about vulnerability.
• 22:03
  Speaker 2: Comedy, because you know what, comedy comedy. That's why I
• 22:06
  Speaker 2: said that that paradigm ship was comedy. Comedy gave me
• 22:09
  Speaker 2: that I like this, I can see whatever I want
• 22:14
  Speaker 2: to say like I would just it was times on
• 22:16
  Speaker 2: stage I talk about being molested, but I put it
• 22:19
  Speaker 2: in a jokey way and people are cringed, but they
• 22:21
  Speaker 2: start like, they start laughing because I didn't care anymore.
• 22:25
  Speaker 3: Comedy made me feel I was accepted.
• 22:29
  Speaker 2: I didn't need to be perfect, and even if my
• 22:32
  Speaker 2: bit at that time is not perfect, people are gonna
• 22:35
  Speaker 2: forgive me to go back into the lab, rewrite it,
• 22:38
  Speaker 2: come back again, and rework it again to make it funny.
• 22:41
  Speaker 2: So you know, yeah, that comedy just made me feel
• 22:47
  Speaker 2: like I don't care. This is who I am. If
• 22:50
  Speaker 2: you don't like it, cool, But I'm gonna still be
• 22:52
  Speaker 2: lawyer Johnson. I'm gonna say these jokes. And I got
• 22:55
  Speaker 2: to the point like even when I was bombing, it
• 22:57
  Speaker 2: didn't bother me anymore because I knew that's how you work,
• 23:01
  Speaker 2: that's how you work in new material, and that's how
• 23:04
  Speaker 2: you can build up your defense and you know, make
• 23:09
  Speaker 2: your skin thick from rejection, but you still come.
• 23:12
  Speaker 3: Back to fight again, like y'all don't scare me. I'm
• 23:15
  Speaker 3: I'm gonna continue to do it.
• 23:16
  Speaker 2: So the comedy is that thing that brought out that
• 23:19
  Speaker 2: being vulnerable and not caring anymore.
• 23:22
  Speaker 1: Let me right remind everyone, I'm speaking with Lawyer Johnson.
• 23:26
  Speaker 1: The book is called My Pain is My Identity? Lawyer?
• 23:30
  Speaker 1: Howd the book come about?
• 23:34
  Speaker 2: The book came about because I got tired of carrying
• 23:37
  Speaker 2: my silence like a sentence, right, if that makes sense.
• 23:40
  Speaker 2: And for the longest time, for the longest time, I
• 23:43
  Speaker 2: thought that real men.
• 23:47
  Speaker 3: Supposed to bury their pain.
• 23:50
  Speaker 2: But in all actuality, vulnerability is what kills the pain, right,
• 24:02
  Speaker 2: it makes you feel better. So that's how I came
• 24:05
  Speaker 2: about that book. It was it was time to stop
• 24:08
  Speaker 2: uh living in silence and creating this death sentence for
• 24:13
  Speaker 2: myself and start living again by being vulnerable and carrying
• 24:16
  Speaker 2: that light. So that's what that that's why I started
• 24:19
  Speaker 2: writing that book. And I wanted to help people. I
• 24:22
  Speaker 2: want to I want to help people be vulnerable and
• 24:24
  Speaker 2: let them know that they're not the only ones out there.
• 24:27
  Speaker 3: And you know.
• 24:28
  Speaker 2: It's okay, no one's no one can judge you from
• 24:32
  Speaker 2: what happened to you as a child. You didn't have
• 24:36
  Speaker 2: a voice, you didn't have a you didn't have the strength.
• 24:39
  Speaker 2: You were just a victim of a horrible individual.
• 24:45
  Speaker 1: Was that hard for you to get? Was that hard
• 24:47
  Speaker 1: for you to understand? Because sometimes when you know, when
• 24:50
  Speaker 1: that happens to us as young kid again, we feel
• 24:54
  Speaker 1: why couldn't I do anything? How come I didn't tell anyone?
• 24:57
  Speaker 1: Why didn't I stand it? Why didn't I fight? On
• 24:59
  Speaker 1: and on and on.
• 25:00
  Speaker 3: I think it was hard for me to understand all
• 25:03
  Speaker 3: the way up unto the.
• 25:03
  Speaker 2: Time I started realizing trauma all the way up into
• 25:07
  Speaker 2: the time I got got to the point in comedy
• 25:09
  Speaker 2: and started realizing, like, you were a.
• 25:14
  Speaker 3: Defenseless little kid at seven.
• 25:17
  Speaker 2: At seven years old, it's like David trying to, you know,
• 25:22
  Speaker 2: conquer Goliath, but like you gotta look at it.
• 25:25
  Speaker 3: He was just.
• 25:28
  Speaker 2: But you got to reverse it. He didn't conquer the
• 25:30
  Speaker 2: big guy. He ended up getting hurt.
• 25:32
  Speaker 3: Right, So it's like I just had to get past it.
• 25:40
  Speaker 3: I understood that.
• 25:43
  Speaker 2: I couldn't blame myself anymore for what happened to a
• 25:47
  Speaker 2: little child. Right, And now I'm a man, Now I
• 25:52
  Speaker 2: can't like I'm strong enough to speak for myself. I'm
• 25:55
  Speaker 2: strong enough to protect myself with that little kid. He
• 25:58
  Speaker 2: wasn't strong enough to do that.
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: So did you did you seek out therapy of any kind? Uh?
• 26:07
  Speaker 3: Yeah? Yeah.
• 26:07
  Speaker 2: When I when my wife and my my wife and
• 26:10
  Speaker 2: I before we got married, she started noticing the trauma.
• 26:16
  Speaker 2: She just she notices when I don't have anything to
• 26:20
  Speaker 2: do that I start drifting off into this far right.
• 26:24
  Speaker 2: She noticed that, and she like, I think that we
• 26:28
  Speaker 2: know that we need to go to therapy for you,
• 26:33
  Speaker 2: but also for me to understand you better. So whenever
• 26:36
  Speaker 2: you start getting your triggers and you start going in fall.
• 26:39
  Speaker 2: I can understand you better, to know what to do,
• 26:41
  Speaker 2: to know how to respond to you better.
• 26:47
  Speaker 1: Who's the book for.
• 26:50
  Speaker 2: It's for anyone that doesn't have a voice, kids, adults,
• 26:59
  Speaker 2: for everyone that has gone through trauma and feel like
• 27:04
  Speaker 2: their soul has died in a place where the abuser
• 27:08
  Speaker 2: abused them at It's for those individuals that just need
• 27:13
  Speaker 2: to know that there's help on the other end, and
• 27:17
  Speaker 2: you need to find something to offset your pain. I
• 27:21
  Speaker 2: don't even care what it is, if you get some pets,
• 27:23
  Speaker 2: or you want to do off arts and crafts, or
• 27:27
  Speaker 2: you know, do something. It's for everyone that need to
• 27:31
  Speaker 2: know that the abuser he wrote that story, but you
• 27:41
  Speaker 2: are the one that can put the happy ending on
• 27:44
  Speaker 2: the back of it.
• 27:45
  Speaker 3: So it's for all those individuals.
• 27:47
  Speaker 2: That feel like they can't they can't make it, or
• 27:51
  Speaker 2: or they don't know how to make it.
• 27:54
  Speaker 1: My guess is that in prison there aren't a lot
• 27:59
  Speaker 1: of people talking about vulnerability. In fact, that's probably the
• 28:04
  Speaker 1: last thing you need to talk about. How did you
• 28:07
  Speaker 1: was that something you were thinking about in that time?
• 28:10
  Speaker 1: How do you keep yourself safe in a situation like that?
• 28:13
  Speaker 1: In an environment like that.
• 28:18
  Speaker 3: Re reference that question.
• 28:21
  Speaker 1: My guess is in prison, there are probably a lot
• 28:24
  Speaker 1: of people who've experienced trauma, of various guys in prison.
• 28:28
  Speaker 1: But my guess is also that there aren't talking about vulnerability.
• 28:33
  Speaker 2: Oh no, no, no, no, not in there anyway, when
• 28:37
  Speaker 2: they get home and realize that, you know, people need
• 28:40
  Speaker 2: help from the information they already have, and then they
• 28:42
  Speaker 2: become vulnerable. Yeah, But like in prison, I couldn't become vulnerable,
• 28:49
  Speaker 2: Like I couldn't like like let somebody attack me in
• 28:52
  Speaker 2: that way, or or express that I was molested as
• 28:56
  Speaker 2: a child in that way, because you know, you have
• 28:58
  Speaker 2: a lot of people that's mentally damaged in prison, and
• 29:03
  Speaker 2: they get the wrong idea and next thing, you know,
• 29:05
  Speaker 2: that situation that they think is a situation that can
• 29:08
  Speaker 2: turn into something else. So I don't think there's vulnerability.
• 29:14
  Speaker 2: I can't say that because some people are vulnerable in prison,
• 29:17
  Speaker 2: and you know, they slide off into a whole different light,
• 29:21
  Speaker 2: you know, but.
• 29:26
  Speaker 3: You can't you can't show weakness in prison, right because
• 29:33
  Speaker 3: the people look at your vulnerability as a weakness.
• 29:36
  Speaker 2: But I say, like, because I'm trying to answer your
• 29:39
  Speaker 2: question the best way I can.
• 29:40
  Speaker 3: When you outside.
• 29:44
  Speaker 2: And you realize that your life is a person a
• 29:47
  Speaker 2: p This is what I'm gonna say bout When you
• 29:51
  Speaker 2: realize that your life is not about you, and it's
• 29:55
  Speaker 2: about you helping other people and you becoming a reference
• 30:00
  Speaker 2: point for the people behind you, then you know all
• 30:03
  Speaker 2: that's out the door. Because after the longest time, I
• 30:06
  Speaker 2: thought it was all about me, which I was an idiot.
• 30:08
  Speaker 3: I thought everything was about me.
• 30:09
  Speaker 2: When I started realizing all the blessing God and giving
• 30:12
  Speaker 2: me to do this, I don't look at it as
• 30:15
  Speaker 2: a bad thing that happened to him. I just look
• 30:17
  Speaker 2: at it that he placed no burden on you can bear,
• 30:19
  Speaker 2: and I was strong enough to carry the weight. And
• 30:21
  Speaker 2: I had to get out of that mindset that it's
• 30:23
  Speaker 2: about me. It's not about me. It's about me helping people.
• 30:26
  Speaker 2: So that's how I killed my vulnerability. Like it ain't
• 30:29
  Speaker 2: about you, lawyer Johnson. It's not about you. It's about
• 30:32
  Speaker 2: the information you have inside you. You're helping others and
• 30:37
  Speaker 2: you being a rapist point for the people that's coming.
• 30:39
  Speaker 3: Up behind you.
• 30:41
  Speaker 1: Awesome, all right, lawyer? How do people learn more about you?
• 30:45
  Speaker 1: How do people learn learn about the book? Get the book?
• 30:49
  Speaker 3: You can get the book on all platforms.
• 30:52
  Speaker 2: It's on Amazon, it's on an audio book, it's on
• 30:55
  Speaker 2: e book. You can purchase in all those Apple Play, Audible,
• 31:03
  Speaker 2: Amazon Bonds and Nobles. You can also go to my
• 31:08
  Speaker 2: website which is Lawyer Johnson Motivational Wings. The Wings is
• 31:12
  Speaker 2: spelled with a Z instead of the S, and you
• 31:15
  Speaker 2: can purchase an autograph book off my website. That's how
• 31:20
  Speaker 2: you can find me. You can find me on Facebook
• 31:22
  Speaker 2: und the Lawyer Johnson. You can find me on Instagram
• 31:25
  Speaker 2: as Lawyer Johnson, and those are the places you can
• 31:28
  Speaker 2: find me. And if you have any questions about anything
• 31:30
  Speaker 2: that I have going on, you can go to my
• 31:32
  Speaker 2: web page and just email me and I'd be more
• 31:35
  Speaker 2: than happy to respond to your your email.
• 31:38
  Speaker 1: Awesome, all right, We'll have all those linked up at
• 31:40
  Speaker 1: the show notes page here at the Trauma Therapist Podcast
• 31:43
  Speaker 1: dot com. Lawyer come on amazing, seriously, dude, love to
• 31:48
  Speaker 1: have you back.
• 31:49
  Speaker 3: Oh yeah, I will love to have you back. Man.
• 31:52
  Speaker 1: It's just so inspiring. And thank you so much for
• 31:54
  Speaker 1: being here anytime. God, I appreciate having all right, take
• 31:58
  Speaker 1: care all right me.
• 31:59
  Speaker 3: I'm an actual buy to the offsida to retire