Coming to Terms with a Lifetime of Trauma While in Prison

“The hyper-masculine environment of a prison creates additional impediments. Inmates fear that any sign of weakness might lead another inmate to take advantage, another reason not to speak openly with others. Sexual abuse is at the top of the list of things prisoners will not talk about.”

I am a Black man in prison, and I want to talk about trauma. I want us all to be able to talk about trauma.

I’m here because when I was a teenager and young man, I made many bad life choices involving drugs and violence. Living with the consequences of my actions is not always easy, but I keep moving forward toward redemption. As I have struggled to understand those choices, I also have realized I must go further back in my life, long before I committed a crime, if I want to heal myself.

When I was a child, I was sexually abused by a man.

Facing that fact has been even harder than confronting the ways I have hurt others, but I know there is no redemption without working to understand how that has affected me.