by Jesse Ayers, San Quentin State Prison, CA
Rehabilitation of emotionally challenged human beings, takes people down a long, lonely road. Excavating the bones that carried the carcasses that created the fossil fuel that burned the rage inside of us, is no easy task.
Can you imagine digging up a T-Rex? Staring into the skull of a terrifying T-Rex that once stalked you, hunted you down and gave you the scars that you now carry is the only way to describe the emotional pain, scars unseen carved by past trauma.
“Digging up bones,” as Randy Travis once wrote, “Examine things that’s better left alone. I’m resurrecting memories that had since been dead and gone, at night. I’m sittin’ alone diggin’ up bones.” As Randy describes in his hit song. Wallowing in misery is no good, digging up the bones is painful, but for those of us who have repeated the trauma, we have no choice but to dig up those memories.
We are forever in debt to the pain of our past. We didn’t cause it. We didn’t ask for it, nor did we ever wish to repeat it. But as violent offenders we have harmed someone else by allowing the danger and volatile state of feelings and emotions inside of us to explode on another human being.
At the realization that we would harm another human being, in an even more devastating way if we didn’t change, we hit our knees and humbly asked God to help us change.
Like a quadruple bypass, having open heart surgery is no joke and having God examine our hearts and being it was pitch black. We needed a transplant. So we should be grateful that our Creator is the author of love and the best doctor in the whole universe.
After a successful transplant and some long healing process a constant diet of prayer and being of service to others, the new heart stays beating without any infection. The only way the new heart can be infected and become diseased is if we forget to help others, if we forget to pray, or if we lose our gratitude.
Anyone who knows what it’s like to receive a second chance at life, be it a plane crash survivor, someone who made it through a domestically violent relationship, a victim of attempted homicide or suicide, gratitude is hard to come by when we ask, “Why me?”
However, it is impossible to live a life full of joy without gratitude. Not that we are grateful for almost dying, being raped, or robbed. But we are giving an opportunity, every day, to choose. We have an option to be grateful, or miserable. We have so many questions in between.
This “new life” to the old it puts into perspective how much we took for granted the everyday opportunity to share the gift of life with someone, well worth the scary feeling of facing our past trauma.
There are many ways to help emotionally challenged people. One way that helped me was being seen by a psychiatrist who had experience dealing with Vietnam veterans who suffered from PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder). (Dr. Vymeister)
I told Dr. Vymeister that I had never been to Vietnam and that I didn’t feel like I qualified or deserved to have PTSD to which she replied, “Yes, but you have been through your own personal battles. Your childhood home was your war zone.” To which I was utterly amazed. Someone finally got me.
From that point on I would open up to Dr. Vymeister in a way that I never had with anyone else. I had seen many “psyches” up to that point, to no avail, and even my clinician told me “Dr. Vymeister is the one that we all go to when we are having problems.”
Unfortunately, I was unable to continue to talk with Dr. Vymeister as I was transferred to another prison, and then here to San Quentin. But what I learned from her I continued to use and grow. I read a book called “Post Traumatic Stress Disorder for Dummies” and it taught me a lot.
I found out that routine and repetition are nothing for those who suffer from PTSD. For me, loud random noises trigger me as well as people who are angry and aggressive. I switched the church I go to. I stopped attending the Protestant Chapel because it was loud and aggressive preaching. I started going to the Catholic Church because it was quiet and solemn. The Catholic service is almost exactly the same, every week and the service is the same all over the world. The repetition is so soothing to me.
I cannot undo the past trauma, but I can pamper myself. My yoga instructor once said, “I know the world is painful and scary. I wish I could give you peace, but instead I can give you Yoga.” Yoga is the practice of focus, breathing, and enduring painful positions to strengthen the wind, body, and spirit to create a balance inside of us.
Another way I have been healed and continue to heal is what I call “Creative Arts Therapy.” Writing, rapping, singing, acting, directing, producing, all of them creative ventures are like prosthetic limbs that helps me be whole again. Emotional trauma stole my ability to walk and talk like a normal human being but creatively problems solving with others and coming up with spontaneous ideas in the heat of the moment created a fresh perspective inside of me that allows me to trust people in a way that I thought I never could. And for that I am grateful.
To sum up my point about being emotionally challenged, for me, it is like a person who has lost a limb and now needs a prosthetic limb. Since I was never taught what it was like to be a balanced person (in my childhood) and because I grew up in a domestically violent drug abusive alcoholic home, I was never emotionally well and
cursed since birth.
My inability to ever “get along” with others in school, my constant disruptions of teachers in class, led to me being “kicked out” of every school I was in. No one was able to talk to me and I wouldn’t be honest with anyone because I was scared if telling on my dad.
Today, I realize my parents love me, and I know that my parent’s addictions to the drugs and alcohol prevented them from being able to truly show their love. However, I am fortunate to still have my parents and to know they love me. Yoga has shown me that my breathing is key to my emotional health.
When I am holding a “crunch” and my abs are on fire, I know how to control my breathing and the burning abs get tighter but I can keep holding. When I am doing push-ups, my muscles get to burning and I concentrate on breathing “in” on the down and breathing “out” when I push up. This also helps when I am emotionally upset, triggered by an event or episode or incident, I have to breathe properly.
Breathing in through my nostrils alternate nostril breathing helps my left and right brain both receive oxygen. I hold my left nostril with my writing finger on my right hand. I breathe in through my right nostril. I hold my breath and plug my right nostril with my right thumb and release my left nostril breathing out through my left nostril. I repeat till I relax.
Creative Arts Therapy is my constant “crutch.” I used music to soothe me, writing songs helps me heal. Singing songs too. I listen to songs like “Seeing Red Again” and I realized that guy had anger issues and he was sharing his pain with us.
I admire artist who “share their truth” with the world. They are “Giving away the game” making us better, I am in awe and grateful. I realize why so many artist are loved by so many fans.
It’s because people can relate to the love, hate, pain, loss, emotional ups and down. Everyone who buys a ticket to a concert wants to “Feel” their feelings, especially after working hard all week, month, or years at a job that doesn’t allow them to express themselves.
I plan to use comedy, acting, writing poems and song to allow those who can’t speak up to feel like they belong.
Lots of love…