Locked In with Ian Bick - Horror Stories From Working In Psychiatric Hospitals | Terasa Tanelli

Episode Date: December 3, 2023

Licensed Clinical Social Worker Terasa Tanelli gives us the inside scoop and horror stories of working in juvenile detention facilities & psychiatric wards. Follow Ian Bick on Instagram: @ian_bick & Snapchat: ianbick Connect with Terasa Tanelli: Instagram: https://instagram.com/terasafaye Buy Merch: https://lockedinbrand.com Use code lockedin at checkout to get 20% off your order Connect with Ian Bick: https://www.ianbick.com Powered by Creative Evolution Studios https://creativeevolutionstudios.com Produced by: https://www.instagram.com/shanedanahy https://www.shanedanahy.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

And I'm sitting at the window. I'm sitting at the window doing, like, paperwork. And he's knocking on the window because they're allowed to roam. And so he's knocking on the window, knocking on the window. And I'm like, and I turn back. Last time he starts banging on the window. I turn. This guy, this is completely, like, irrelevant.

This guy literally showed me the inside of his asshole. Legitimately. It was the inside of his asshole. I was like, what the fuck? On today's episode, we have Teresa Tinelli, a licensed clinical. social worker to give us insight on her work with those who have suffered through severe traumatic experiences, incarcerated juveniles, and psychiatric patients. We also dive into how she was able to

overcome her own trauma and mental health struggles and how it shaped her career in the mental health field. Listen up, everyone. We now have new merch in stock. Go to Ian Bick.com to check out our selection of hoodies, t-shirts, and beanies just in time for the holiday season. Use code locked in at checkout to receive 10% off your order. That's code locked in at checkout. Remember by hitting the subscribe button on YouTube or giving us a follow and review on whichever site you listen to this podcast. It helps us tremendously in being able to produce high quality content on a consistent basis. Sit back, relax, and get ready to lock in with Teresa Tenelli. Teresa, welcome to Locked in coming to us from New Jersey today. Yes. How was a ride in?

It was very good. It was good. It was nice. You got the New Jersey accent or the Long Island accent or whatever you want to call it the New Yorker accent. Do I? A little bit, right? I can't hear it. I'm going to be honest. I can't hear it. Does anyone ever tell you that before? A million billion people. So you are a very interesting guest today because you're our first clinical social worker.

And we're going to get a really good in-death insight into the mind of some of the guests that we've had on the show. that and you listen to the show, right? Absolutely. I love it. What was your favorite one, your favorite guest? I don't remember his name, I'm going to be honest. But it was actually one of the ones that you were just recorded. I watched it on the way here, but it was different from, I think, because it is in Newark.

The guy was talking about he was from, you know, well, he was living out of, he was a homeless addict. He was living out of Penn Station. William. Or not, I'm sorry. airport, William, the airport, Newark Airport. And it's harder for me to connect sometimes with people that are so, with stories so far away. And I have to hear, and it goes even with clients sometimes,

that I have to hear something that just catches my attention. But something about him, I don't know if it's because it was Newark Airport or what, but his story just, and I guess it kind of ties into, the person that I was speaking about and just opening my eyes to a different type of world that I thought I was not so sheltered from, but that I'm very sheltered from, meaning that the homelessness, the poverty, just the addiction aspects and how that kind of just plays in with what you're going to do for the rest of your life, unfortunately, or what a person's life is going to pan out to be.

And that one in particular, I don't know why. I don't know why. I just saw something in him that was just, I don't know, I don't know. It's almost going to bring me to tears because like I think about a lot of people that came from nothing and they just built themselves up and it's just amazing. It's just amazing. And that's like a big reason that like I love watching your podcast is that like I love seeing those people that like every audience.

is stacked against them every single odd from some of them from day one and to like see them sitting in like your chair like is just and that somebody's giving them that voice it just it gives me chills it just gives me chills and yeah it's just something that yeah yeah but that particular one um I was watching it this morning and it just I don't know it was the first literally the first thing that showed up on my feed first thing and I I was like, wow. And it just made me. I mean, don't get me wrong.

Don't get me wrong. You know, every other one, I love all of the stories because, no, I have not been to jail or prison. But hearing those stories that are now, you know, people can look back on because they're not there and laugh. And those are extremely entertaining, obviously. but being from an outsider's perspective, like, I don't know. I don't like to, like, it makes me think, like, fuck. Damn, I don't want to go to prison. Like, fuck me.

Like, no. Like, and it's just like, like, yeah, you got to, like, you got to be fucking, like, teflon done in there. So, yeah, no, I love them all. I think there were all, there was a gentleman that I, that you, that you had on here, a little heavy set guy he had on sunglasses like a Kangle golf hat I just found

it sounds like a lot of your yeah you didn't narrow it down too much but yeah I think he had on a plaid shirt it was like a blue plaid shirt and he he was just very like I get like enamored with like the way people talk and body language that's just how I am and just the way that he like was like telling the stories

Yeah, and then there was one, another one about, like, farting in prison, the knocking on the table, getting up. Just like, I, like, yeah, no, I just sat there and just literally watched them. And then over the past couple of days, I just, for some reason, I don't know if my mind just knew that I was, like, coming here. But, like, it, like, switched from, like, entertainment to, like, oh. Like, just, yeah, I don't know. Well, we're glad you're excited. Now, these individuals that you see on the show, are these the types of individuals that you're working with in your current job? So my current job, no. However, every other job before that, pretty much. In some, every other other environment, the juvenile detention center is what kind of was one of my first jobs. And that is what, but I was doing in-home therapy.

at the time. And that's where these homes were. These kids lived in the juvenile detention center. And so it was something that, and at that time, I was like 24, so I was, you know, 12 years younger. And just realizing and seeing the difference in kind of how, again, the clients that I've had in the pet, like, even before that and the clients that I had after that. and then seeing the people in the juvenile detention center or the individuals with like when I worked in, I worked in involuntary, like, words. And I saw a lot there. I used to have to go to court with people, actually.

And they were a lot of the people like that you do. That's where I saw the most of, you know, individuals that had some sort of history background or were being held. in the psych word before they went to jail. Now, these individuals, do they all encompass childhood trauma in their early ages? It's a very, yes. And I think to be something that I've learned throughout like, because my specialty is trauma, like trauma focused everything. I'm like a, you know, I'm like a weird old deep, dark person like that.

But people underestimate trauma. people underestimate how much trauma impacts. Sometimes your daily movement, depending on the trauma. And I think, yeah, like to answer your question, yeah, 135% everybody had childhood, or trauma, not even childhood. What was like a reoccurring traumatic experience

at all of these individuals shared if there was any? Abuse, sexual abuse. By the parent or a relative? No, it could have been. was it was a neighbor. It could have been an uncle. It was sexual abuse. And definite, well, I would say emotional abuse or mental abuse takes the cake, like 3,000 percent. And, you know, even for my mind, like right now, I almost want to kick myself because, like, people don't realize how much emotional abuse really is, how prevalent and how powerful it is, as opposed to physical

and or sexual because a lot of times the minds can block out when there's physical things that happen like physical abuse. Sometimes your mind can block certain things out similar to emotional abuse. However, when this is how you're constantly being spoken to, like you're a piece of shit and 10 times worse, meaning by your caregiver or whomever that is supposed to be caring for you, you're going to believe it. And you're going to believe it. And you're going to act like it. And people get misdiagnosed, get, you know, mismedicated because people are just so quick to treat, like, behaviors as opposed to, like, root kind of thing. Like, and trauma.

What I've, working in my current job and just the field in general, I definitely have learned more. about the impact even more so of trauma, just in general. I didn't think I could. And I did. Just not even with clients, but just working with resources, like working, finding resources to work with certain clients that were outside of the norm when it came to trauma. No, in your opinion, if these individuals didn't experience that childhood trauma or traumatic experiences, do you think they ever would have ended up in prison or committing crime?

I think that there's, I mean, not yeah or no necessarily, but it's definitely not like a downright. Like I wouldn't. There's so many factors. That's like why. It's hard for me to give like an answer because that trauma could encompass a multitude of things. And you could have walked out completely, like walked out of your home completely unscathed. but the second you walk out the door there's bullets flying there's you know whatever slashings you know people stealing like just you know think you know drugs being dealt whatever and you're again

that's one that's another odd that's just stacked up against you so even if you come from a cookie cutter house it doesn't or a cookie cutter family in life the environment all of those like like basic aspects of life that like I look at that like sometimes we take for granted really does mold you really just by like what kind of school you went to what kind of environment you grew up in inside the house and outside of the house just yeah so I can't really say now that same teenager or child that commits the crime because we have a lot of guess where they are committing a crime before they're even 18 or 19 years old. Do you think that their mind is developed to the point where it could be once they get out of prison?

Like, do they have an entirely different mindset? Are they still that same person? What do you mean after they get out of prison? Yeah. Like, is that the same person that committed the crime? You know, one of the biggest, you know, my, like, biggest gripe is, like, the poor rehabilitation aspects of things. That's, like, something that I, like, really, really, especially in the prison system. But no, I mean, the male mind fully develops, I want to say, by the age of I think 24.

It's a lot older than what we would think. And so for somebody who committed a crime at 14 and 15 years old, let's say they got locked up for 10 or 15 years, biologically, they're not in the same mind. However, what they've done with that mind, a lot of times again like what i mean i've what i see what i've read about and i'm sure you've seen is people that go to prison are so fucking i mean they're dumb but they're fucking smart they're smart and i feel like the way like with the institutionalization and shit it just it kind of their mind instead of giving them positive asper or crucial fundamental basic

factors of like saying getting a job like a basic job it kind of doesn't do that it shows you how to live your life once you get out of prison having a record and kind of using that as like your anchor in a sense like people i don't know i feel like people i don't use that as like an identity after they get out sometimes and i feel like the younger kids get put in prison the more of an identity that becomes because it's you get wrapped up in in whatever other family unit you may have found in prison that maybe you didn't have out there so that mind is going to just sponge everything up sponge everything up because I can almost guarantee you maybe eight times out of 10 that kid that committed that crime at 15 16 years old it was either an

impulsive decision and it was just wrong place, wrong time, or something that they have seen from their environment, that they've been just conditioned to do. And that's why when you add in like bullets flying, drugs, all of these other things, I just feel like it then conditions them further to think that, okay, I could, I could, could get ahead this way. I'm going to get ahead this way. And even after prison, like, I've spoken to people who, after prison, they're like, I honed in on my fucking skills in prison. Like, I learned a lot. Like, I learned. Like, and that's like, I want to smack them. And I want to be like, do you know what you could be doing with this brain? All right, everyone. Welcome to

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At participating locations, terms and conditions apply. And one of the lines that will never, like quotes whatever, that I'll never ever forget, that will forever be implanted in my head with this is you can't solve a problem with the same brain that created it. So when you think about it, a 14-year-old kid, 15-year-old kid, let's hope that's not the same mind or that you're able to at least get in there and make some sort of a constructive change for that person so that if they do go to jail and they do go to jail, for a significant amount of time, they come out and they are different in a better way.

And it just ties back into like the poor rehabilitation services. So do you think that the prison system can rehabilitate a mind? Not now. Do you think it deteriorates it? I think, I think not deteriorating it. I think it just by nature of all of the prison, the societal prison, you know, rule, the prisonization of people, all of the rules within rules

that a person that you have when you're in jail. Again, I feel like it's PTSD just comes alive and I just think everything when people are in there, they don't realize until they get out, like kind of where their mind is at,

I feel like it's something like when you were in there, did you like were you thinking like how do I survive or were you thinking like what am I going to eat when I get out of here like you know what I mean on your daily I think it's a mixture of both depending on there's so many like variables what prison you're in what room you're in who you're bunked up with like if I had a bad bunk bait then I could be in survival survival mode thinking about what I'm going to do but if I'm really relaxed and my body's relaxed and I feel comfortable like when you're at the prison camp, then you're thinking about, okay, the girl I'm going to get when I get out, the food I'm going to eat this and that. So I think it depends on that. Well, the comfort levels. And that same thing with the rehabilitation. And then it's funny that you brought up, or interesting that you brought up PTSD because a lot of people in today's world will associate PTSD with just serving in the military, say. But there's actually a lot of PTSD that comes from the criminal justice system. And I see

that kind of in myself too because like I still get nerves like if I'm next to law enforcement anyway even though I'm completely not doing anything wrong like I just feel that in my body when I get an email from like a lawyer or a letter in the mail because of you know financial documents for restitution or anything like that that's a trigger and also like I have a lot of I get nightmares and and whatnot night turns really really bad my mom would find me on the front steps Yeah, and they're like, they're like images of prison, not that I've already experienced, but just like fantasy scenarios, like as if I was back in prison. So it's not triggering something that I went through before. It's triggering the thought of that concept of what could happen in the future.

And then your mind will fill in the gaps. Yeah. So what do you think about like that whole PTSD from prison and how can individuals overcome that? So, I mean, again, PTSD. I feel like is something right that's stigmatized, that's puts in a, that people, it's put in a box, more or less. And when you think about like prison, it is like survival mode. You either survive or you don't. When you think about PTSD, that's basically in a sense what you're doing.

So when, meaning after you experience or when you have PTSD, after you experience some sort of, traumatic experience, your mind, your body, it goes into fight or flight mode. That's legit what your body and mind is doing after any sort of traumatic experience. So putting somebody who maybe like you, who didn't really wasn't exposed or somebody who just, again, wasn't exposed to that sort of life in general at all, throwing them in an environment that is 3,000% different, all I see is PTSD written all over it. And I think people really don't understand the effects that PTSD can truly have on a person and how debilitating it could be. And again, depending on the prison you're in and all of that, really depends on what kind of support you're

going to have come, you know, when you get out or come every day, just, you know, meaning if you do have a mental health issue in the prison system, specifically PTSD where things really come alive in you and you disassociate and you, and again, you can't disassociate when you're in prison. You can't have an outer, you know, mind's outer body experience in prison and not a good one meaning because you have to be your head has to be on a swivel you have to be aware at all times like so it's hard for people that have PTSD either prior to going into the present system or once they get into it it's something that I feel like is not is again it's it's used as a weapon in in a very poor way, I feel like.

Now, one of the reoccurring questions we ask our guests on the show is habits they've kept from prison, like weird habits, like, you know, the flip-flops or knocking on the table and stuff like that. And in prison, guys will make fun of other guys and call them institutionalized. That's a term you mentioned earlier in our conversation. What exactly is it, does it mean to be institutionalized? And is that a legitimate thing? Can someone be institutionalized by the prison system?

Yes. So, yes, they can. They could be institution. So in my, when I use it, in my terms, I'm using it in the fact of the, or I'm sorry, in the context of mental health. So when we say, oh, that kid's institutionalized. It means they've been in and out of group homes, hospitals. psych hospitals, foster homes,

some sort of institution that they have to learn to basically become, that it doesn't matter what institution they go to, you learn one set of rules or one set, not of rules, I'm sorry, one set of life rules, I guess you can say.

And you could bring that into every, institution you go. Now, for example, I've had when I was in, when I worked at Newbridge Medical Center, it's a Bergen Regional. It's a big psych hospital in Jersey and Bergen County. That, we, you know, there was a, because I worked on the involuntary units, a lot of times we would have people who have been in the hospital for a very long time. They'll have become like suicidal or whatever and they would come down to the unit. and they knew exactly what to say. They knew exactly what to do.

But in a bad way, meaning to not get medicated, to not get stuck, like stuck with the needles, they knew exactly what to do so you couldn't, you couldn't get, you didn't have to get restrained. So it's basically following the rules of that institution to survive. And it's the same, it's like it's, and when I was doing like research, and whatnot.

Like I saw like prisonization versus institutionalization. And then the more I went through it, I'm like, this is the same fucking shit. Like this is literally the same shit, meaning of working it or being in multiple mental institutions. Same thing as somebody who hasn't been in multiple judiciary systems. It's the same concept. It's like literally the same concept because you learn that you have to abide by certain rules in order to survive, whether the rules posted on the board or written in the air,

you know we have to do. And people would, yeah, like it's almost like robotic in a sense. What are some extreme cases of institutionalization you've witnessed? So there's one client, one patient that specifically comes to mind. And she, when I had her, she was, she was young. She was like 22, 23. And she had been institutionalized from a very young age, very young age. Like I would say, like, eight, nine, started running away.

And then again, was just became addicted. She had some, eventually she was diagnosed a borderline personality disorder, which again, that's a whole other. animal, but that is another, that's a good example of the, like the diagnoses are another good example of when you know somebody is institutionalized because it was, this person literally made the DSM, which the DSM is the diagnostic statistical manual we used to, clinicians used to like diagnose, doctors used to like diagnose, and it's basically, you open the book and it's exactly what it says in there.

So I had a patient who literally, she borrowed, I had a little tiny DSM, she borrowed my DSM, and I thought she just wanted to know. She literally wanted to make the borderline personality disorder diagnosis come alive specifically because that is something that every person, every clinician, every doctor, everybody in the field that came in contact with her would say to her Sally you're institutionalized man when are you gonna like what like when are you

going to like when are you going to like and when I say extreme I mean like extreme like I just think in my I apologize I're good I just think in my head of watching like she would literally and again it's because she wanted to she wanted to she wanted exactly what everybody was telling her she was that's what she wanted to she was like you know what motherfucker all right you want to see me you want to see me borderline personality disorder in this institution i'm going to raise fucking hell and good luck and it was something where it was like i was like one of the only people that she could kind of let that guard down and it's funny because she almost forgot that like i wasn't a patient like she forgot that like i was like a staff member and

she would trust you like at one point she's like we're really getting them aren't we like and i'm like bro i'm like i work here i'm like you know i work here right and but it was something where it's like thankfully she felt comfortable enough talking to me about it but seeing the manipulation seeing oh the manipulation the splitting just the degree of self-harm to prove a point to prove a point and that's something again when I worked in like the group home it was a specialty level group home for little kids who were severely traumatized like severely like sexual abuse physical abuse severely again institutionalized because every they knew exactly what to say like you put them in front of a psychiatrist they knew exactly what to say so picture somebody who would meow like a cat and bark like a dog, right, for four or five hours. The second the psychiatrist comes in, everything's good. I'm great.

And because they know what they have to say, they know what they have to do so their medication doesn't go up so they don't lose privileges. It's like it's just, it's sad, it's sad, it's sad. And like when I do more research and just see more things about like the prison system, That's just, I feel like people just legit, like, where we do nothing to, like, help people. I feel like the majority of the country is, it's just, I feel like we could be doing so much more, the rehabilitation aspect of it. And if you had good rehabilitation services, there wouldn't be as much institutionalization. Well, you're in prison if you ask for help, like mental health help.

You're probably a pussy. Yeah, that and guys are looking at you in a weird way. Yeah. And two, a lot of the time, the prison's just going to put you in the suicide bubble or whatever for 24 hours. And then let you literally pace and drive yourself fucking insane. And you think you're the problem. Exactly. Exactly. And that's something where, yeah, it's very similar when, like, in the psych words, I used to go into people's homes severely mentally ill with co-occurring issues.

So they would be severely mentally ill and have addiction issues or chronic medical and medical issues. I don't know if you're familiar with some of the areas of, like, Jersey, but like Passaic County is like Patterson, Passaic, some of the, some of those, you know, they're, Patterson's huge and pretty high crime rate and whatnot. And seeing these were people that literally, again, were so institutionalized, but they lived in their own home. And I would bring them, say, medication or help them with whatever. they were doing, trying to get a job, or resume, whatever. And they would talk to me, yes, ma'am, yes, ma'am. Okay, ma'am, I'll take my medication right now, ma'am.

And I would be like, you don't have to do that, but it's because they were just locked up in a psych ward for the past 30 years. So they're going to see somebody who has a lanyard around their neck and automatically assume that you got to call me, yes, ma'am, no, ma'am. And it's like just, or speak like that because, They don't want to be, yeah, put on a one-to-one meaning, like to have one-to-one supervision.

Because if you're on one-to-one, usually means you're suicidal or homicidal or something. So, yeah, like, that just infuriates me, like, in hearing that. And, again, it's something that I've already known, like, a meaning about, like, mental health. Yeah. Because what the fuck? Like, what the fuck are you doing? Like, what the fuck are you doing? Like, you're not, like, it just doesn't help anybody.

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Tax title license and dock fees extra, plus government fees and taxes. 7,500 miles per year, expire 6126. Who available at this payment? PH 71529, pH 71465. It's me very frustrated. Well, I mean, when we have conversations like this, this is what helps create change. Because the right people are listening that can help push that up.

Yeah. You know, through lived experience is what's going to create that. Now, what are some of the mental health ramifications of incarcerating juveniles? People that are, you know, a lot of these juvenile detention centers, they're not like federal prison camps where you're roaming around. You're locked in a cell, you know, 23 hours a day. What are some of those ramifications from that? So many, many times there's going to be PTSD 135% before they even get there. Because whatever led them to make the decision that they made to lead them to be in the juvenile detention center,

you already know that there's some sort of trauma, something that unfortunately kind of helped them make that decision that led them there. but outside of, you know, anxiety is just, it's present in so many different ways with these kids. And a lot of times the depression, the anxiety, all of these things are already present. And locking them up just exacerbates them. And a lot of times, whether it's depression, anxiety, substance abuse, OCD, ADHD, whatever it may be, a lot of times it'll trigger some serious, serious mental health issues where you have psychosis, you have paranoia, you have delusions, and then mixing it with whatever substances, you know, that the person may do or may have access to when they're incarcerated or

whatever. It's, I just feel like kids that are in the juvenile detention center, yeah, oftentimes leave with more wounds than they do and seeing, yeah, the anxiety, panic attacks, panic attacks, panic attacks, panic attacks. That was something, that's something that is huge, is a huge factor for people, for juveniles. And they don't even know what it is. I don't know what it is. They don't know the right terms to describe it. They don't know. They think something's wrong with them. Like, wrong with them.

And again, it's lack of education. It's lack of education. It's lack of wanting to know, meaning the individuals that are sitting there and telling them that, yeah, you're stupid. You're an idiot. You're, or ten times worse, I just don't want to say it. Yeah. Unless I can't know. I mean, I think any time.

you put someone in a cell, like I remember when I was locked in a cell, there's a lot of anxiety, even if you're not like claustrophobic, there's anxiety, there's, you get that wave, like you're trapped. Yeah, you can't do anything. You're alone in your own thoughts.

Yeah. Motherfucker, when I'm a lone in my thoughts and I'm not even in a cell, I feel trapped. So, you know, and then feeling physically, you know, or being physically trapped and then not knowing really, like I just feel like yeah a lot of times they just it's it's like these feelings of impending doom

these feelings of just everything kind of the whole world just crashing down on you and that's something that I feel like people they like it's like a determining factor when they're those juveniles when they're getting out it's like the support of okay is it really a pending doom, like, or is this person going to take my hand and kind of show me that life's not all about impending doom and they're going to help me? And I have to just be open to whatever help I'm getting when they get that help. And so I would say anxiety and panic outside of PTSD are the biggest, are the two biggest, like, I would just say generalized symptoms that are seen outside. In addition to like a major depressive disorder and whatnot,

And if you really want to go, like, specifics, there's, like, something called adjustment disorder. And it's legit. Adjusting, whatever is happening in that person's life. Parents get a divorce. You move. Go to jail. Whatever it may be. How you adjust to that, whether it's with anxiety, depression, or whatnot.

Yeah. And I just think the mixing with the stigma, especially at a young age when you're trying to be fucking tough and you're trying to prove your shit. specifically if you're going to go right back on the street, nobody has time to learn about panic and anxiety disorders in jail, in juvenile. So it doesn't matter what you're going to roll out looking like. Do you think that the individuals that get released and then go back to prison have a different mindset than the ones that get released and then stay released? Or is there something that they both share and that, you know,

they just control it differently? I think it is a matter of control, yes, but I also think that unless it's kind of like wrong place, wrong time where whatever you're doing, you really don't know that you're doing something wrong type thing. Unless it's like a situation like that, I feel like you're, you know what you're doing. And unless you're taught like a pretty strict lesson

to say the least, the likelihood for them to reoffend, especially at a young age, is very high. It's very high. And the thing is, again, I hate to keep going back to it, but like the rehabilitation services, the success rate for somebody that has rehabilitation services at, say, 16, as opposed to 66 or 46 is a big difference. And I also think if you're reoffending once, I think it's getting that taste of you have that taste of real life and you fucking hate it. And, you know, a lot of times people need to spice their lives up, unfortunately, when they're that young. And they don't realize how much fire comes with that fucking spice, even if it is the second first time or something.

second time. It's, I think, yes, it comes to self-control, but it also comes down to support and really knowing what you're doing is wrong or not. No, when they get individuals like that get locked up at that age, they're missing out on a lot of social skills. Oh, my God. That could be developed from college relationships, anything like that. I'll tell you, I'll tell you right now. If you're getting, if you're in the juvenile detention center of 14, 15 years old, you ain't haven't had like even this little bit of social skills even at four or five you just didn't because if you did you would know that the social norm was not is not for you to be in jail at 16 necessarily the social norm is to not be in prison at 16 years old so acceptable social skills obviously again depends on

your environment depends on yeah who you're around who you who's teaching you these social skills but I've seen kids, especially in the group home, very young, very young. And until this day, there's somebody, one of the girls, she's 22. I still keep in contact with her. I had her when she was 9 until 12, and I was her everything. She was able to, she couldn't use a fork. And I called her, when I got her, she was 9. she couldn't use a fork

I called her Mowgli because she walked on her hands and feet and she cut her hair and she cut her hair by herself and she cut it real short like Mowgli and she didn't know how to eat at a table didn't know how to say please and thank you

how to use utensils but she knew how to go in and steal something or knew how to manipulate her manipulate her things manipulate teachers, manipulate youth counselors. So people that would take care of her,

manipulate them. But she wouldn't, but take her in, like, the store and, like, she wouldn't know what to do. So social skills are gone, especially when there's, like, abuse or trauma, very young. Social skills are just gone out of that you don't have them. I wonder if the system does more harm than good than in those situations?

Absolutely. a fucking looting, absolutely. 110%. Especially at that age and the younger you get because, you know, the brain, male brain doesn't

completely develop, I would say, say it's like 23, 24. And so it's if they don't have any other family besides say a gang or whatever they, whatever they left going, you know, when they went to prison, whatever family that they knew or support system,

they may very well, you know, get out and go right back to where they are doing the exact, or where they were doing the exact same thing that they were doing before they went in, meaning wherever their role, whatever their role is, whether it's in jail, I mean, a gang or taking care of their younger siblings. because their parents are, you know, that is in jail themselves, in jail themselves or drunk or whatever it is. So the prison system then is reforming nothing. Something I've realized is that a lack of love, early childhood affects these individuals that end up going to prison because they end up joining gangs to get that love or whatever. A family that support.

And it's not just inmates. It's like I'm a guy that will date. a girl and if she has childhood issues, that carries over and that affects away the ability she's able to love. 110%. And it all stems from that childhood. That generational. It's generational trauma, generational cycles.

And it doesn't just have to be like cookie cutter. You know, my dad was an alcoholic and I don't want to be an alcoholic. It could be anything from like poor money habits. like, like, spend, like addiction of just spending, addiction in general, food, it could be anything, just as an example. And yeah, I think that, again, when you talk about the institutionalization, the prisonization, there's so many different pieces that, to survive what you have to do in jail, right?

And you think that that's going to carry you when you get out. Like some people don't realize that that's not, yes, that's real life, but it's not necessarily real life. So again, I think that's what also kind of brings people back to doing what they did is knowing, is knowing, okay, this is the only, these are the only things I know, like how to do. And a lot of people are just, you know, unfortunately they give up because the odds just continue to get stacked against them even when they're out. Did you have traumatic experiences in your childhood that led you to want to take on this career path?

110% I did. I coined myself as broken. Always have. I'm proud. I'm very proud. I'm proud of my crazy. I'm proud of my broken. I've always been.

Yeah, I did. I did. I did. I had a lot. I actually did my graduate thesis on. my brother my mom and my dad

and the trauma cycles the trauma cycle that I saw with them and the very first person that ever helped me

like because I was I tried to commit suicide I had depression and anxiety before any but you know very very young and again one would look at me

and look at my history and say what the fuck did you try why you had everything you had this that but again i that's just how i was i was born with certain you know with having depression or whatever and then mixing in being molested uh by a stranger by a family friend i would say underneath a table at a wedding mixing in being parentified um meaning taking care of my

mother when she was getting when my dad had a you know when they were getting divorced um yeah it yeah you know and i think the first person that i came in contact with that actually i felt helped me was a social worker and i just was i don't know she didn't judge me she didn't call me crazy she didn't try to lock me up in in like a psych word and it was just something something to be quite, to keep it 100%. I went into this field, so wanting to help other people, so I didn't have to focus on my own problems, to be completely honest with you in the beginning. That was 100. It wasn't until I had a child that I really realized, like, fuck, like, that can't be my only agenda going into this. It's not turning and looking at myself. And I just would use,

my history and I would use it to connect with people with my clients and it really yeah and I think because I've had I've done so much work self work and because I like to make light of a lot of things I think it helps people hearing my story helps to know that hey you can these things can happen and you still can come out on the other side. Okay. And not a serial cover. Now, how are you able to harness your trauma and turn it into something positive where a lot of people can't do that? They can't face it.

And I know it took you some time, as you were saying, but a lot of people can't get over that hump and use it to do something positive with it. They bury it and they keep it within it. And something that we see it with all of our guests is they're able, at one point, or another face their trauma and move forward, and that's inspirational to the world that's listening to these interviews. So how are you able to do that? So something that I've always thought,

I felt like I was even prior to meeting the social worker, getting into the field, I felt like I always was, I don't know, I was able to hear somebody's story, help them, be constructive, be empathetic, be compassionate. and leave it there. I was able to separate it. And I think what I did for a very long time

and how I help other people like within like one-on-one work is talking or going through the different events as if it's not you. So sometimes with my clients, I know, again, this is what I did with me. I looked at it as if I was Exhibit A, and I just studied certain things, certain, like,

I used a lot of cognitive behavioral therapy, a lot of fucking cognitive behavioral therapy. But I would again look at myself as like a separate case. So I didn't, so it kind of took away the emotion. It took out the emotion. and I was able to feel that emotion and disconnect in a way to say, okay, I'm going to leave that here and now be able to take this terribly, terribly negative, horrible thought that I'm having,

and turn it into something that isn't completely detrimental to me. So basically processing my trauma as if it wasn't, my trauma was the best way for or made it the easiest for me and I'm going to be completely honest with you I've lied to almost every one of my therapists I have yet to see I need I need the therapist from literally Jonah Hill's psychiatrist from the I don't know if you saw the documentary set it's it's it's it's not a movie it's a documentary yeah um but like that guy he's like 90 years old and he like calls you on your book all shit. And so, like, I knew that, like, I knew that if, if I wanted to be a good clinician,

I was going to have to process and get through my shit. And doing it the conventional way, just, I'm very unconventional in so many different ways. But processing my trauma, the conventional way just wasn't going to work for me. So I had to find another way to. To be. To be. To be, to, do it or else I probably would be dead by now. I think the important thing to take away from it is that it doesn't matter how you process it. But just as matter what matters is that, yeah, processing it, taking that step, which is the hardest step. But think about it.

If you don't have the support or you don't have somebody to, like, guide you with that after you get out of prison or to guide you or help you with, like, all of the traumatic stuff that just happened in prison, what are you going to do? you're going to just push it down and you're going to push it down. So again, it goes back, I feel like into that support and like just yeah, I don't know.

I just feel like we throw people out there and we're just like figure it to fuck out. What do you think society can do to help those reintegrating back into society? Like from prison? From prison, yeah. Or even, you know, psychiatric places, whatever, whatever they're coming out of.

How could society be there? for these individuals? It's a very hard question. It's a very hard question. Because you can't say acceptance. I mean, acceptance. That's kind of what we're living in now, I guess, is like the acceptance aspects of, you know,

everybody has to be treated with baby gloves, I feel like, and that's not it. Like that's not how I roll, never how I roll, not how I'm raising my son, no. And I feel like society, we're all fucked up. And I just feel like society as a whole, we go by certain standards of things.

And I just, I feel like the society that we live in now is not doing anybody any favors. It's just not doing anybody any favors. And so I just feel like there needs to be more resources. and not just resources that are open nine to five. I feel like there, I feel like, oh, and a big thing that I could say that does is, that does have to do with it or I would say would affect it. People getting out and their ability to reform would be the person, like it's not just like the nine to five people,

that there's people around the clock and I feel like people aren't fully appreciated to be quite like social workers they treat us like shit they pay us like shit so we're going to do a shit job

that's like a lot of people that like I know that I worked like I've worked with in the past so I feel like just as a society it's mental health and like help is just looked upon as you need help you're weak you need help you're weak and put that in with somebody who grew up in baltimore or philly and how like you know how are they going to go out and necessarily reform what they learned

they're not they're not going to reform anything i'm going to fucking reform anything and i just I think it starts, it starts legit with having that, like being able to walk into somewhere and them not telling you, oh, we're closed, like walking into, say, like, not necessarily a shelter, but walking into an unemployment building, say, for example. And I've seen people, I've seen, say it's like four, 45, like, I've taken people, like, I've taking people with me, kids to get their, like an unemployment application, whatever. And it'll be 459, 458. And like, the window fucking shuts.

And the kids like, fuck this. Why am I here? Why did we come here? Why did we waste our fucking time? And I'm like, right. I'm like, and then it's like, okay, it's like, motherfucker, you couldn't stay open for five more minutes. And I just feel like everyone just wants to do their job and go.

And I don't know. I just feel like we're all fucked. I feel like we're, sorry, Ian. Something, you know, from a former inmates' perspective is a lot of the times it's a trust thing too. Oh, 100%. If we see an individual like yourself, we're looked at in our eyes that we're just another number, another case number.

So how do we change that? How do we get that mentality out of the inmates' minds that you're actually there help. And also it's the same thing as like not all cops are bad, but not all cops are good. So I'm sure that there's people in your position going into these facilities that they're not there to actually help the person. Of course. Or they're overworked and things like that. And things fall through. And it's something, yes, 110% that it's it's 110% seen. And it's sad. It's sad. It's very, very sad with some of these people. I think, unfortunately, you have to be, you have to let your guard down.

It really comes down to like letting your guard down and knowing what part of you you want to show to determine if that person is worthy of your trust, meaning not as like a clinician. I'm not speaking as a clinician. I'm speaking as a patient. I think it's something where everyone has to have their guard up because you don't know what that person's motive is. You don't know what their agenda is. And from a clinician's perspective,

you know that going in. You know that that person, whether they're from, whether they're in prison or not, nope, they don't trust you. You're not, they don't want you calling Diphis. They don't want you calling them having their kids taken away. They don't fucking trust. you like they're not going to trust you for another year and it's something that I think one you can't be

afraid to ask for like that hand but at the same sense you can't be stupid about it like don't you like and having some sort of like faith and trust that at that they're that there is that the nine social workers may have screwed you in the past but that 10 social worker or that 10th doctor or that 10th psychiatrist, maybe that one person that's going to change your fucking life. And when you talk about the institutionalization, prisoners or people out of prison and in, out of like psych words and whatnot,

it's the same thing. It's the same thing. They know what to say to you. They know what to, they could read you like a book and they know when you're bullshitting. And so I think it's a lot of just like, generally, I don't know. I feel like people just have to not be such assholes.

I've just been through so many different situations, and I just feel like people get, like, drunk off of power. And, yeah, and I just, I feel like not, like, just having that guard up, especially whether you're an inmate out or in a psych word, whatever it may be, having your guard up, but knowing that not, every person is going to try to hurt you. It's, it's, I hate to say it's plain and simple, but I know, a lot easier stuff. I'm fucking done.

I get it. But just kind of having that thought process and the back or that like statement in the back of your head and not everybody is a piece of shit and not everybody is going to hurt is out to like hurt me in that sense. Yeah. Because in therapy, it takes people years to build that representation. poor and trust years years years so i can't expect it to be any different somebody who's been in prison literally everybody has fucked them before that what you expect what are some of the crazy

like horrific stories you've encountered you know from um psychiatric places to prisons attention centers give us like some of the crazy ones all right so i worked i also worked for graystone Greystone is in New Jersey. It's a very big psych hospital in New Jersey. I don't know if it's like the biggest one, but one of the biggest ones in Jersey. And so I had somebody, they had separate like rooms, not rooms. They had separate, like cottages.

And these people were, the people that I dealt with, again, had co-recurring. So they had, like, jail. They might have been in jail. and like schizophrenic, for example, or, like, had an addiction in schizophrenic, or, like, these were very severely psychotic people. Sorry, Ian.

You're good. They would go from Greystone. They would go to, like, where the cottages were. They were right on the same, the same, like, over the hill. You would see the cottages. You would see, like, the hospital and then the cottages. So they would walk. People, they would leave the hospital,

and you would think you're still, You were still on the ground, so at the hospital, but it was like a whole other world. So I was like maybe like my third month working in the cottages. I'm sorry because I just think of this gentleman. He kind of like, he was a patient, but he like, he was in Greystone back and forth. And when you're in Greystone, you're not there voluntarily. So it's like you're completely prisoned. but for psych hold.

And so this gentleman, he came out of the hospital, and he went to one of the call. He was in Cottage 7. And I'm sitting at the window. I'm sitting at the window doing like paperwork. And he's knocking on the window because they're allowed to roam. And so he's knocking on the window, knock it on the window. And I'm like, and I just turn, knock it on the window, knocking on the window.

And I turn back. last time he starts banging on the window i turned this fucking guy this is completely like irrelevant and so this fucking guy literally showed me his inside of his asshole legitimately legitimately legitimately it was the inside of his asshole i was like what the fuck i got stabbed with a spork oh man i got i had oh when i was in the when i was in the group home yeah so he and the shit that shit not even pun intended he had like fucking a cd in his ass i don't even know how he stuck some of the shit in there and he it was literally because he wanted to get my attention so i could get him a cigarette perfect example no social skills no social

skills just come and ask me say hey can you grab me a cigarette you don't got to show me your asshole you know i don't need to see that i don't need to do that but going back to like institutionalization know the people you can see like you can see the people that are coming to have a problem like at a young age that they're going to have a problem for a very as they get older like for example when i worked in the group home another girl she literally thought it was like i guess like a furry what we call furries yeah yeah but before that that was like coined a fucking term yeah and she literally was like attached to my leg and she would just purr and she and she would purr and claw at me and I would walk and I would

get off of me and she and then the and then like the youth counselors would come and like restrain her and I'm like bro she's not hurting me she's just fucking like on my leg like and then she would get out of the restraints and she would cry my aunt's God she would crawl up on top of a tree

and she would say she would miss Teresa watch this they want me to be a cat I'm really going to be a cat. Motherfucker would take tubs of ice cream and run, take a tub of ice cream and run up to the top of the tree, not even eat the ice cream. She would take it and throw it at them as they're trying to get her. And after she just hump my leg for 20 minutes. You know, I mean, I've seen everything from people like fully having conversations with themselves, fully thinking when I was pregnant

that I was pregnant with a devil, fully wanting to like come at my stomach and like kill me, like kill that baby thinking it was a devil because of their delusions and paranoia. Just the, I mean, when I worked in the juvenile detention center, I had a kid actively go AWOL with me in the room, literally we were in the middle of a conversation and the window it was like the only room with the window and i mean i didn't work there i came in as a like visiting clinician as like an independent contractor

so i didn't have keys to the building or anything like that i would just meet with like five or six five or six people and and this kid i don't know how the fuck he got through this window i just don't understand. I just don't understand. I just don't understand. I don't get it. I don't, I don't get it. And like, he goes, he goes, he goes, I'll be right back. He literally gets up and he just goes out the window. I was like, and I was just like, he's gone. I was like, he left.

It's just, it's, it's. Have there been, uh, I've gotten bitten any end. It's bad. I've had to get multiple tetanus shots because I didn't trust the one from like two years ago. So I got bit again. I had to get another one. Like just, oh. Have there been things that you've seen that keep you up at night or you never forget about? See, like this goes into the whole like me being made for this job that I don't take shit home. Because there might like once or twice, I would say, the group home, the group home.

And the levels of abuse that the kids, the sexual abuse, that was the one kid, one girl that, that just, just her story is something that doesn't keep me up at night, didn't keep me up at night, but I'm not going to lie. It did make me consider fostering, becoming a foster parent. But I quickly shook out of that shit because I said I don't want to,

it was something where I was like, I don't want to mix the two kind of thing. I like being the clinician on this end, not the parent. That her level and knowing that her eight brothers and sisters that she was the oldest and that she at eight years old, and she had a sister, seven, six, five, four, three. And then the last kid was like, I think, like 11 months old. And hearing her stories. And I'll never forget it.

Never forget it. I was taking her braids out. taking her braids out we were talking about like school she turns to me and she's like miss teresa you know my dad used to do

now mind you I already knew majority of these I knew all these things but this is where like I really learned about trauma like really really learned how to treat it and how to be creative in treating it and she looked at me just like I'm talking to you now and she goes you know my dad used to do with a hanger

and again I knew in the back of my head and you can't flinch, you can't waver nothing. Because the second they see that, they think you're judging them. So I would say, what? I was like, no, what happened? He used to stick that, try to stick that up me. Stick that up my girl hole. And I'm, oh, all right.

And, you know, we would talk about it and all these things and whatever. And again, it was just so frank the way that it's, disgust and the way she discussed it to just tell me oh yeah I had to wear I used to put a five six seven layers of clothes so I didn't feel the wire on the hanger or the belt or the broom and again just as calmly and frankly as I'm talking to you now as how she was talking to me about it and that's something that that's something I'll never forget that exchange like the second something clicked in her head to say, I can trust her. I could, meaning me, I could trust mysteries, I could trust her.

Because this kid didn't trust anybody, didn't trust anybody. And as crazy as it sounds, like, when I get the trust of, like, a client or even somebody that would be working in the criminal justice system, that's like a, that's like a success for me. Like when I get that trust, that's something that, like, I like, that means the worst. world to me when I know that they can truly trust me because I know how quickly that trust could be gone and how hard it is for them to be trusting me. That's like a fucking win.

That is a win to know when somebody could really be themselves around you and not have to filter what they say because they're afraid that, yeah, you're going to judge them or call the police or do something. That to me is like the biggest success, like as a clinician and as like a person. and as like a person knowing that like yeah like yeah it's just

it's something that's so special to me that I I love that what do you think about the use of solitary and the shoe and and that and the mental effects from from those situations I just it's I don't what benefits have they

do they say that they have I'm just curious like what it like even in like conversations of like Like, what good is that? I'm just curious. No, I don't know if they've, the prison says there's benefits. I guess they're removing, you know, an inmate from an area, which I understand maybe for a little bit, but months at a time, like I did almost six months in the shoe.

How was it for you? I mean, it was, it screws you up. You have to be mentally tough. Yeah. Like, because you're just in your thoughts. I would read a lot. Like, I dove into reading like a book a day because that's all you could do. You're literally, you're waking up.

You're there. It's just like. And how big. What's the space you were in? It's pretty small. It was like maybe half of this room that we're in right now, you know, long with a toilet and a bunk bed. And sometimes you've got a cell made in there. Sometimes you don't.

And you get wreck time like an hour a day or a half hour a day, only five days a week. And they're just bringing you to another cage outside. Shower is only three times a week. It's literally, it's terrible. You can't move around. You feel like a zoo animal. Well, what I was just going to say is that, you know, a lot of times. they say like, yeah, oh, they're acting like animals,

motherfucker, you're treating them like animals. Not for anything. Like, if you need to seclude someone, put them in a little bit of bigger pod, they can make these rooms bigger if you have to seclude someone. I understand the concept of seclusion. 100%. But not in a small space like that for that long. There needs to be more.

Especially when, I mean, again, when you're being put in prison or you're being put in jail, Yes, you did something wrong. Whatever. Okay. Yes, you did something wrong. But I feel like when those situations happen with like solitary and shit, I feel like they're still looking. It's just like, it's just, everything's just wrong. It's just your, like, just a mistake.

Like, let me just put you in this hole and forget about you for six months. Like I just, it continues to validate these terrible, terrible things that people have in their head that or that they have in their minds with them being their own worst fucking enemy. Like it's, it does, I personally think, yeah, outside and outside of a small amount of time, I think it's bullshit. I think it does 110, 110% solitary. 110% does more harm than good.

110%. There's no, I mean, unless you're learning another language and you have something to really do in there to keep, you know what I mean? or you've done it multiple times and you know what to expect. I couldn't imagine. I personally, me, I couldn't imagine. I couldn't imagine. I couldn't imagine.

What would be your message to someone that's currently struggling with mental health issues right now? Call somebody. Call somebody. Call somebody. Something that I would say is that, Time continues to move. Life continues. Needs to continue to be lived.

At the end of the day, tomorrow is a brand new fucking day for you to make a different decision. Even if it is just to call somebody and say, hey, you know what? I'm struggling. I'm struggling. I need, I need, hey, can you go for a walk with me?

Can you just talk to me for a minute? You have to know, you have to find that. light that one tiny minuscule thing that's going to make give you your purpose and help to know that somebody on this earth like want you here and that everybody is here for a purpose right out of the gate call somebody that's struggling pick up that phone and fucking call somebody they have so many different depending on your state and whatnot they have different avenues that you can call and pick up the phone and just talk to somebody that you're struggling with and the other person doesn't have to know your name they don't know

anything 988 is like one in new york um and 2-1-1 is new jersey um bergen county i know where you can just pick up the phone and talk to somebody because typically it takes 11 minutes for a person to make the decision if they want to live or not. 11 minutes. And it's the same time frame, same concept with when a person that has an addiction relapses or considering relapsing. It's an 11 minute time frame of wanting to relapse and actually relapses. same thing when it comes to or similar things when it comes to suicide and hanging in hanging on

for those 11 minutes before your next thought full thought kind of comes to intuition well thank you so much for coming on the show today it's been an absolute pleasure different conversation when we're used to and i think it's really going to you know resonate with the audience and it's a different perspective, of course, and safe travels back and best of luck with everything you got going on. Thank you. And I'm sure we'll have you back again at a later time, you know, to keep diving into it. Now you're my go-to therapist. Oh my God, call me whatever. You got it, awesome. Awesome.