Written by: Andi Fetzner PsyD
You may have heard the phrase “hurt people hurt people” and thought that it’s just some fluffy way for people to avoid accountability for their actions. But what if this is the foundation for doing just that? When I know I have an injury, I can work to heal it and healed people, heal people.
This is the concept behind the first step in any self-help work. When we know there’s an injury we’ve experienced, we can do something about it.
In June 2024, I visited an anger management class at Folsom Prison through the invitation by Kara Hunter, a longtime volunteer who has shared her experience and knowledge about conflict resolution through her previous role as Exective Director of Yolo County Resolution Center and continues her work today. We had been invited in December to meet with a group of Veterans but this was going to be different as the men had been going through a curriculum to learn more about anger and how to manage it and many were on the trajectory of thinking about life outside these four walls.
My role in meeting with the group was to share information about stress, its impact, and what we can do about it. After walking through the facility, I felt the stress that these men deal with every day. While there were huge trees, sounds of crickets, and deer and turkeys strolling around outside of the prison campus, the sensory experience on the inside consisted of slamming doors, stone walls, and concrete floors. Not to forget the quintessential rooms with bars as doors. The learning center was a different environment. The walls were white and the room was set up like a classroom with desks and chairs.
One thing was clear once we started talking though. The men in this room were living the consequence of how their hurt had impacted others. Some men were in for life, others had decades, and a few could see the light at the end of the literal and proverbial tunnel and were going to be out in society within a matter of months. What they all seemed to have in common was a curiosity of self and a desire to understand why they did what they did and how they could do life differently.
We talked about the ACE study. One gentleman asked if there was any hope for people who experienced trauma 0-7 years old. He asked for himself and for his daughter. He was looking for hope. ACEs are not destiny. We shared Dan Siegel’s brain model to describe lid flipping, what happens when we experience toxic levels of stress and we get outside of our connection zone. Another participant made the link between his own behavior and his lid being flipped. He also mentioned that it wasn’t until he started serving time and was offered the stability of food, shelter, and the vocabulary to describe his emotional experience that he started to really be able to take accountability for his actions. We talked about resilience, aka what we can do about it. Mindfulness (noticing the present moment, non-judgmentally), doing the next right thing (controlling what we can and letting go of what we can’t), and sprinkling in this trauma-informed language of resilience-building as a foundation for other programs like 12-step, anger management, parenting classes, and others. When we name it, we can tame it. It’s simple, not easy. We don’t have to do it alone.
Candidly, I felt honored to enter the sacred space of healing in a place that was established to instill a sense of fear as punishment. The leader of the group, Steve, introduced the workshop and provided a capstone at the end to make the link to how anger, one of the many emotions that trauma can create, is part of the flipped lid response system and how building out the connection zone can provide a different pathway for how we interact with one another and with ourselves. The men were insightful, vulnerable, and willing to share and reflect in a unique way. They asked challenging questions, applied the concepts to themselves, and didn’t hesitate to offer gratitude and thanks.
At Origins, we work with people across sectors who are at different places in their journey of healing. We never know what to expect when we enter a room, virtual or in-person. One truth rings loudly for us as we chime the bell in other spaces- we are different leaders when we lead from a healed place than when we lead from a hurt place. Thank you for allowing us to be a part of your journey and for sharing in our journey.
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Getting Started: A Guide from Trauma to Resilience