| I recently read a book called, “The Gift of Fear”, and I recall this passage from the book: “As I sit in my classroom each week I look at the other participants, all felons, all serving prison sentences for crimes that to us was just a way of life, all of us lost in a world of addiction and regarded as the bottom of the barrel by society”.
That is how I felt every Saturday that I walked through the door and took my seat (in the Life Skills class). I honestly thought that for me there was no hope. It is true that many of us were the dregs that society believes us to be. As for me, I felt that I was lower than the rest. Of all the mean, vicious, animalistic men in that room, I was their boogeyman. I was what they feared. I was proudly the worse of the worst.
I was physically, sexually, and emotionally abused by my mother. The mother that I trusted and depended upon to meet my needs, played a crucial role in creating the man I would become. She was not partial in her abuse either. She did similar things to my sister and my brothers. My brothers committed suicide when I was 16 years old. According to mom, that too was my fault because I did not stop them. Little did she know that I had intended to join them but backed out at the last minute. Around this time my life turned to hell.
“Does a rose know that its thorns cause pain?” That was a question Jon Benet Ramsey asker her gardener in the book, “A Perfect Town”. The answer was complex to a child’s understanding. The answer was that to a rose the thorn is part of its defense system, a way for the rose to protect itself from predators. It isn’t meant to cause everyone pain, just those who intend to harm it, but some do suffer the harm not intended for them.
The Family Life Skills class has helped me to identify my “thorns”. The thorns I used to protect me from my family had become painful thorns that hurt everyone I came in contact with. I spent so many years hating my mother for what she did, my father for what he didn't do (protect me) that I forgot how to love.
“I have learned that you have to be careful with hatred. Hatred is a passion that requires one hundred times the energy that love requires. Use it for intolerance, injustice, stupidity, for it is the strength of the sensitive. Its power and greatness depends on the selfishness of its use.” (Olive Moore, 19th century writer). I saw that I didn't hate what was done to me, only those who did it.
I have spent almost seventeen years in this states most vile, repulsive prisons. I have met some of the most deranged criminals, and it is through them that I found solace and comfort. Why? I felt better than them because I had never abused or hurt anyone who did not “deserve” it, or so I honestly thought. Everyone that I hit, beat, forced sex on or tortured had deserved it because they knew me. I was given no sympathy so I gave none. Thorns!
The Assistant Warden, Jordan-Luster brought me to a program that has totally changed my life. This program finally gave me something I never had, HOPE. I understand and now know why I think the thoughts that I think and act as I once acted. I stopped pointing fingers at others for hurting and not helping me and decided to help myself. This program has done the impossible. It has shown me WHY I became addicted to Meth and violence and identified my thorns.
I thank this program, the facilitators and most of all, Dr. Paul Hegstrom, founder of Life Skills International.
~ Chuck |
