I got to chatting with a young Jewish guy, “New York”, in my unit. He’s out in about 41 days and I asked about his plans. He wants to go into cybersecurity, where he’d had a business before, or something similar. But overall he felt stuck, no friends, lost a child, rough relationship — there are themes that seem to repeat a lot in prison. I found this interesting because he clearly had friends here, and people cared about him. He was one of the first people to come up and help me, having seen the Tzizit and Teffilin. A part of him, we called it “Mr. Right”, saw a new guy “looking like a deer in headlights” and came to give me tips and ensure I’d be OK. There is a part of everyone that cares about doing the right thing, no matter how deeply buried (before I knew of IFS, I’d always sensed this because even serial killers leave clues begging to be caught and stopped).
I asked him to draw a cube, which he did, and then I showed him 2-point perspective, and then 1 point. I helped him try it. He became excited like a kid and asked to take the sheet and ran with it back to his place, with excitement.
He came back a few minutes later. We chatted about things he could be grateful for and things he looks forward too.
He had a rough childhood, but got along with his mom. In 15 mintues he went from not trusting her to knowing that she cared for him and that he did trust her. She passed, drugs… but she loved him and he knew it. Little cracks in the story he was “stuck” in started to appear. Not all can be done in 15 minutes, and he’s got a lot of tough times to process… but sometimes all you need to find a new outlook on life and to change your energy from depressed and suicidal to excited and thinking about the future is a different perspective.
🙂
Ari
