The One You Feed - Donna Hylton on Healing and Hope

Episode Date: June 12, 2019

Donna Hylton is a women’s rights activist and criminal justice reform advocate. Donna speaks publicly about the issues facing incarcerated women and girls and the significant impact the significant increase in the female prison population is having on families, children and our communities.  Her book,  “A Little Piece of Light: A Memoir of Hope, Prison, and a Life Unbound” tells the story of the childhood abuse she endured, the spiral of events that lead to her incarceration and how she learned to live, love and trust all over again. In this episode, Donna shares some deeply personal stories of her traumatic past and how she found her voice to help other victims of violence and abuse.   Need help with completing your goals in 2019? The One You Feed Transformation Program can help you accomplish your goals this year.But wait – there’s more! The episode is not quite over!! We continue the conversation and you can access this exclusive content right in your podcast player feed. Head over to our Patreon page and pledge to donate just $10 a month. It’s that simple and we’ll give you good stuff as a thank you!In This Interview, Donna Hylton and I Discuss…Her book, “A Little Piece of Light: A Memoir of Hope, Prison, and a Life Unbound”Navigating the good times and bad times of her early childhood.Finding the courage to ask for help.How she ran track in high school as a way to “run away”How we must talk about these painful stories to get to the root causes.How dealing with trauma does something to our psyche. Believing we don’t have value can be reinforced by those around you.Dealing with the difficult relationship with her daughter, who was the result of rape Years of therapy and healing helped find that place of light inside herself. How talking about the trauma releases the pain instead of holding on to it.  How we need to face the trauma, try to understand it and then try to stop it.When you’re young, you believe that what happens around you is your fault and therefore often make the same mistakes because you don’t know how to rationalize what is happening.   How she became a wounded healer.How she started healing and forgiving herself when she went to prison.  How she became an advocate for the sick women in prison after losing a close friend.Realizing she could no longer stand by or stay silent when something bad happened to others.How she helped bring counseling, educational and other care programs into the prison system.Saying goodbye to the little girl inside who was silentEmbracing the little girl inside who found her voiceWe are not the worst moment in our lives, we’re not our mistakesWe are human beings who have been through somethingBeing part of the newly passed Domestic Violence Survivors Justice Act (DVSJA) which considers alternative sentencing or intervention for those convicted who have been victims of severe abuse.When a body is put under pressure, it’s going to react and do whatever it takes to surviveHer source of unconditional love and truth, Sister Mary, who helped her to become the activist she is today.How “we can connect deeply with humanity if we look through the eyes of love and compassion”We were created in love and beauty is all around us if we can just recognize it.  Peloton – Looking for a new way to get in your cardio? The Peloton bike will make you rethink the way you look at cycling classes!  Visit onepeloton.com and enter Promo code “WOLF” to get $100 off of accessories with purchase of a bike!The Upper Room – a global ministry where you can join a worldwide community of Christian believers in daily prayer and devotional practice. Go to www.upperroom.org/welcome to get a free 30-day trial.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

I had to start forgiving myself before I could even go to anything else. And it happened when I went to prison. Welcome to The One You Feed. Throughout time, great thinkers have recognized the importance of the thoughts we have. Quotes like, garbage in, garbage out, or you are what you think ring true. And yet, for many of us, our thoughts don't strengthen or empower us. We tend toward negativity, self-pity, jealousy, or fear. We see what we don't have instead of what we do. We think things that hold us back and dampen our spirit. But it's not just about thinking. Our actions matter. It takes conscious,

consistent, and creative effort to make a life worth living. This podcast is about how other people keep themselves moving in the right direction, how they feed their good wolf. I'm Jason Alexander. And I'm Peter Tilden. And together, our mission on the Really Know Really podcast is to get the true answers to life's baffling questions like why the bathroom door doesn't go all the way to the floor, what's in the museum of failure, And does your dog truly love you? We have the answer.

Go to reallynoreally.com and register to win $500, a guest spot on our podcast, or a limited edition signed Jason bobblehead. The Really No Really podcast. Follow us on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Thanks for joining us. Our guest on this episode is Donna Hilton, a women's rights activist and criminal justice reform advocate. Donna is a sought-after speaker who speaks publicly about the trauma of sexual violence and abuse. She emphasizes how the root causes often result in victimization and that 90% of women who have been abused are being incarcerated, especially women of color.

Her book is A Little Piece of Light, A Memoir of Hope, Prison, and a Life Unbound. Hi Donna, welcome to the show. Hi, thank you for having me. It is a real honor to have you on. You have an incredible story and an incredible journey and a wonderful book called A Little Piece of Light, A memoir of hope, prison, and a life unbound. And we're going to get into all of that in a moment, but let's start like we always do with the parable. There is a grandmother who's talking with her granddaughter and she says, in life, there are two wolves inside of us that are always at battle. One is a good wolf, which represents

things like kindness, bravery, and love. And the other is a bad wolf, which represents things like kindness, bravery, and love. And the other is a bad wolf, which represents things like greed and hatred and fear. And the granddaughter stops and thinks about it for a second and looks up at her grandmother and says, well, grandmother, which one wins? And the grandmother says, the one you feed. So I'd like to start off by asking you what that parable means to you in your life and in the work that you do. So that parable actually resonates with me a lot. And I say that because I, looking at my entire life, my childhood, you know, all the things that I went through, the abuse, the trauma, the violence, I could have become a product of all those things at any time.

And I didn't because I knew there was something more that that wasn't me, wasn't who I should be. And I didn't, I don't know what was keeping me so I would say grounded or knowing for a little girl, but I kind of knew, but I just didn't know how to navigate. I didn't know how to articulate it. I just didn't know what to do because I was a child. But I continued to hold on to the light,

which is the good wolf, right? Because I knew that that other stuff that was happening around me wasn't me but I just didn't know how to get out of it yeah and it's just something that I knew it's just innate I think you know I try to like figure that out and I just knew I really did and because it felt right it felt right as a little girl it just felt right to know, knowing the things that were going on around these little points of light. So maybe let's start with just having you walk us through some of the darkness that got you to where you ended up. I don't want to say too much. It would be nice if people get the book. I was born on the island of Jamaica. And I was born to a mother that looking back now in my adulthood and understanding I know she had

some mental illness my diagnosis right now I would say she was um bipolar manic oppressive I could be wrong but I think I'm kind of close to being on point, especially understanding human behavior and human condition. And so she was my mother. She was abusive, but then she'd be loving and then she'd be abusive right after she's loving. It was really difficult for me as a child to, you know, understand what was wrong with my mother and understand why she wasn't around as much and when she was around why would she always you know go from one way to another way good to bad be loving and then not loving be really cruel um but she was my mother and I still loved her and so by the time I was around um six six and a half, six, a couple was introduced to me.

And I eventually was brought to America when I found out later, much later, actually, when I was writing the book and putting the pieces together, that I was sold. And I was brought up to America with the couple. And I was told that they were now my mother and my father. And that was hard for me to really understand because I knew my mother. I knew other people in my family in Jamaica. I was seven and a half when I got here. And so by the time I was nine and a half, so that's about two years, by the time I was nine and a half, so that's about two years, the man who was now my father started taking me to a closet and raping me almost every day. And I was like nine and a half. So

I went from one series of, um, or horrific conditions to another. I actually would have preferred being home with my mother because she was my mother and I knew her, you know, and she gave birth to me. So, I mean, I grew up in a country that I know, I remember it well and being here in this country and not, and always asking for my mother, when will I see her again? You know, it was just on top of the abuse, the trauma, the rapes and the molestations and stuff, you know, it was just really difficult, really difficult. It was very traumatic. You know, and your adoptive mother was not a stroll in the park either. here, she was a psychiatric social worker, but she was working towards her other degrees. So at some point, and I'm not sure when, she was in a dual or some kind of master's program where she got her master's and PhD and all these things. And she went on to becoming one of New York State's

mental health directors. And she used to take me with her to some of her places where she had her patients. They called them patients then. And I knew that they were different. I knew, I understood. I understood clearly that they were mentally challenged or some things were wrong. Didn't really get it, but I understood some, they were different. But I watched how she treated them. And she treated them very nicely, caringly. And all I wanted her to do was just give me a key so I could lock my bedroom door so I wouldn't be heard anymore. You know, and I didn't understand how she didn't didn't understand why she couldn't help me.

But then I also was told that, or I believed everything that was happening was my fault. As a child, you believe everything bad that happens is your fault. And so you start owning other people's stuff. You don't know how to, you know, rationalize and analyze what's going on around you. It was just very painful. One of the themes of the book to me is all the different systems that failed you. And one of the early ones was you finally got up the courage to tell a school counselor what your adoptive father was doing to you. I was about 12, 12 and a half. And I was on the track team by then. I was the captain of the track team. And so I was finding a sense of freedom in running track. I think that's probably

why I became good at it because I was running away right in my mind as I ran. But one day I just, I was tired. I just tired. I just was so tired. And so I went to tell the counselor that I needed some help. And I tried to tell her. I told her. Basically, my father was hurting me and I couldn't take it anymore. And she asked me, does my mother know? And I said, no. As a child, I said, no.

Looking back, though, I now know she knew. But so she said she would call her. I said, okay. All I really wanted out of that to happen was for her to give me a key, so she would give me a key for my bedroom door. And so that was my childish way of saying that would be my help. But that didn't happen. I don't really know the conversation on the phone, but I just know that the counselor passed me the phone and said, your mother wants to speak with you. Next thing I know, she was yelling at me and called me a liar and threatened me. There was a show that I used to watch that scared me half to death as a kid. And she told me that I would become just like the people that I would see, the women that were on that show. And I would be locked up and I would never be able to come out.

I wouldn't be home. I mean, all kinds of things. And it just shut me down. But she told, basically told them that I was lying, told the counselor I was lying. And so I shut up from there. And so then not too long after that, you are in a position where there is an older male that comes into your life who pretends to want to help you the story is just it's just reading it is just i i know people tell me like people say i have to comments like oh that couldn't possibly have happened everybody couldn't have done that sort yes it does have i'm not the only story you're you're not unfortunately you're not no i'm not i'm just speaking about it and bringing it making you uncomfortable with it by bringing it to the surface. Because we have to talk about it.

Yep. We have to do that so we can stop this and get to the root causes and stuff. But you're right. So an older person did come into my life. Why? Because I found out, well, looking, understanding it now, my father was involved with immigrant. I don't even know what you call that. Getting people to get citizenships by marrying them to people that were American citizens. Well, he was doing that. And so there was one older gentleman who's definitely older than me. I was 14 at that time. He was like 23, 24. And he just started talking to me, asking me, how are you? You know, just being nice. And I would talk to him. And one day he said, you know, you can talk to me. You can tell me anything that you want. I care. You know, I care about you, basically. So this is two years later.

And he felt, he sounded sincere to me, you know, so I said, okay, I would tell him. And I started telling him what was going on. I think over a course of like two days or so, two, three days, I didn't tell him all at one time. And by the end of the conversation, he told me that he would help me. He would take me away, get me away from there. No one would hurt me again. He would make sure that I was okay. That's all I wanted to hear. That's all I needed. I couldn't get the key. I still hadn't gotten a key to the house to get inside, get out or in or to my bedroom. So I was like, okay, maybe this will work you know I just needed help I mean was it adult so I figured okay I would get help became my worst nightmare and it just you know one thing I like to tell people is that people especially girls who are

facing or dealing with trauma trauma such as that in that capacity, it does something different to us, our psyche. We're already made to believe that we are second before men, before boys, right? And so we're less valued. You kind of know that in your own way as a kid, you kind of know that. And so, and people, the adults reinforce that around you. Right. And especially for me. And so I believe he's a man. I believe you'd help, you know, that kind of thing. But I also had an older man that was abusing me already raping me. You know what I mean? So it kind of made sense that,

well, a man can help me in this situation. Two weeks after, um, um, I ran away with him cause he talked me into running away. He started abusing me and raping me even worse than I could imagine. Yeah.

And became the father of your child. So, I mean, I say clearly that Adrian is a product of rape. I was 15 years old. I didn't want to have sex with him. That's not what I ran away for. I ran away to be safe, to be protected.

But that's not what that turned into. And, yeah, I got pregnant with Adrian. And she's a product of that, but I love her. You know, I know what it's like not to be loved and to be hurt, so I could never do that to her or any other human being, but it's difficult sometimes. It's difficult. How is she? Are you comfortable talking about that? I'm okay. I wrote it in a book too. Adrienne, you know, was hurt herself. Family member hurt her. She ran away, same age as I did, and ran to me in prison. And I helped her as much as I could.

I eventually signed her into the army. That's what she wanted to do. But she was still kind of messed up. Why? Because her mother wasn't there. And it does have an effect on your children. When the mother isn't there, our family, you know, isn't there, definitely the mother. And she carries that to this day. So our relationship is a work in progress. She started doing drugs, heroin, and really badly. And I've been trying to deal with that, doing the best that I can with that. She's an adult now, so there's not much that I can do. She says she's off. I would like to believe her, you know.

I would like to believe her. I would like to believe her I'm here but I have to keep a healthy distance also because Adrian likes to continue to throw in my face that I wasn't there and blame me not being there when she was younger to the things that happened to her

and after a while you gotta have to like grow up and you know and I've tried to do everything that I can but I'm still there as best as I can. I'll always be there for her. Always love her. But it's a work in progress. Well, I sincerely hope and wish for the best for her. I'm Jason Alexander.

And I'm Peter Tilden. And together on the Really No Really podcast, our mission is to get the true answers to life's baffling questions like why they refuse to make the bathroom door go all the way to the floor. We got the answer. Will space junk block your cell signal? The astronaut who almost drowned during a spacewalk gives us the answer. We talk with the scientist who figured out if your dog truly loves you.

And the one bringing back the woolly mammoth. Plus, does Tom Cruise really do his own stunts? His stuntman reveals the answer. And you never know who's going to drop by. Mr. Brian Cranston is with us today. How are you, too? Hello, my friend. Wayne Knight about Jurassic Park.

Wayne Knight, welcome to Really, No Really, sir. Bless you all? Hello, my friend. Wayne Knight about Jurassic Park. Wayne Knight, welcome to Really No Really, sir. Bless you all. Hello, Newman. And you never know when Howie Mandel might just stop by to talk about judging. Really? That's the opening? Really No Really. Yeah, really.

No really. Go to reallynoreally.com. And register to win $500, a guest spot on our podcast, or a limited edition signed Jason Bobblehead. It's called Really No Really, and you can find it on the iHe it on the I heart radio app on Apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. So without belaboring too much of it, I want to get on with with parts of the story. But the abuse doesn't stop there. By the time that you, you know, you referenced it prison, we'll talk about that in a minute. By the time you've gone into prison, you have been abused and raped by your math teacher, a police officer, a clergyman.

I mean, you have been damaged over and over again. You know, I get these questions like, how can you talk about it and just talk about it? And I said, it comes with practice. It comes with practice. It comes with many, many years of therapy, healing. But it also comes from that place of light. So it comes from that good wolf that I feed. Because I know that to talk about it, I release it as well instead of holding on.

And as much as you talk about and you think you release all the pain and the stuff that you go through, there are echoes, right? And so your body and your mind and you have echoes of trauma. You have echoes of things that happen to you. And so, you know, I tell people that I talk about it because I know I need to tell people what happens and what we do to people so we can face it and understand it and try to stop it. Mind you, everything that happened in the book up until I went to prison happened to me by the time I was 19, 20. It's not like I lived and this was like my life. This is something that is my childhood. this was like my life. This is something that is my childhood. You know, the one with the police officer, an older man was trying to make me be his girl, girlfriend or something like that. And I

just kept my distance. And this he found where I was staying in the Bronx, and was waiting outside in the night and I had just happened to go outside with a friend to go to the store. And he was waiting. He knew where I was. He knew he was waiting. And he snatched me up by gunpoint. Took me into a cab. Took me to his home.

And he raped me. Kept me there for three days. And he raped me, kept me there for three days. And a friend of a neighbor, a family neighborhood friend who just happened to be a person of the church or a local pastor invited him. Oh, I don't know how that happened. I just know he was there. I knew who he was. And he raped me as well.

So those things do happen. It was from that incident where I was able to get away after three days. And I went back. And she I told her what happened. And she told me she knew he had snatched me because she was there when he took me by gunpoint. And she said need to go to the police and say something. I was afraid to but I did it. You know, I did it. I went had burns on my body because he had burnt me. It beat me really bad. The detective who took the case took me to Jacoby Hospital. It was a burn unit there.

I was treated and he was taking me back. He pulled me over on the street, a dark street court street in the Bronx. And he raped me. So it does happen. And yes, so, you know, I was saying, referencing before that, you know, when you're young, you, and especially for young girls, you really start owning and really believing that everything that happens around you is your fault. And so you continue to make those series of same mistakes mistakes because you don't know how to navigate. You don't know how to rationalize what's going on. And there's no positive or the good

wolves around you just like, hey, I need help. And they really help you. Predators know prey. And when predators recognize prey, they victimize, they hurt, they do these things. And there are, I mean, there are a lot of broken people in this world. There are a lot of broken people in this world. And I said, there's a lot of walking wounded people. And I've turned my life into becoming a wounded healer as opposed to hurting people. So you go to prison. Maybe we spend a minute or two on what brought you there, although I think that's less important to the overall story, but maybe walk us through that. And then I'd like to talk about your time in prison, because that's really when things started to really change for you. Being young and not going back to the Hiltons

after I ran away and I got away from Adrian's father. I was trying to figure out life and try to figure out what I was going to do as a young mother. I was a child with a child. So I would get odd jobs and try to become a model because I thought if I was a model that that would help me. I don't know why. It was my childish dream. I was like, oh, they can be, they're pretty and no one hurts them. I really believe that. But people always talk about how pretty I am. So I equated that with like, they're pretty. No one hurts them. I want to do that. I want to be like them. Anyway, it was me working and trying to do that build a modern modeling career at 16, 17, 18, 19.

I started working at this hotel gift shop. And I met my soon-to-be co-defendant. And I was gullible and just nice. And I just, everybody, I wanted to be my friend. I'm the walking wounded. I needed family. I needed friendship. I needed, I'm very needy.

Because I was so broken. And she just seemed very nice. And not like everybody else. She was that, you know, when people shy away from people because they don't look like everyone else and she looks frumpy and, you know, whatever. And I was like, well, she's my friend, you know?

Like I was going to protect her like I couldn't protect me. And I felt I was becoming her friend. And it was after a series of conversations of me telling her everything. I just told her everything. Let you do that. And tell her what I wanted to do, be a model. And about my daughter.

And I just, you know, I don't know what to do. I have her staying with the people that hurt me. Right. My mother and my father. But I don't know. I don't have a place. I was 18, 19. And so she told me one day that, oh, I can get my godfather to help you. He knows people. He knows everyone. And she started talking about being in the mafia and I said, I didn't pay okay it didn't matter I was

like her hurt help no problem fine that didn't go he said I'm gonna kind of speed it up so he won't spend so much time on it but it's important it's very important because of mr. V that he would help Oh, he just wants me to do something for him. I was like, sure. So the bottom line was, would I, you know, say I witnessed a sexual encounter between his business partner and Maria, who became my co-defendant. They both became my co-defendant. And so I said, okay, that's where I went wrong. I should never have said, okay, because there's nothing okay with that. But I didn't see it that way. Because sex at this time, that kind be, you know, walking on a sexual, you know, intimate scene with Mr. V, who I didn't know. I know later on was Mr. V and Maria. And I walked into a kidnapping. A kidnapping was already in place and I couldn't walk out of it. kidnapping. A kidnapping was already in place and I couldn't walk out of it. And because of that, I became a co-defendant and an accessory that was not my crime or anything that I put together,

but you would not know that based on media, you know, and what other people have to say. But it was actually known in the court that, you know, I and a couple of other girls were accessories to this thing. We didn't have any clue. We didn't even know who Mr. V was. We had no, we weren't into these things. We were young and I was the youngest. So I received 25 to life and I went to Bedford for the crimes of kidnapping and murder, because that's what the convictions were for. I didn't kidnap Mr. V and I didn't murder Mr. V. Actually, Mr. V wasn't murdered in the sense where we see someone killing someone. But he was murdered because it was in an act of a felony where he had he was kidnapped.

And so he had a gag over his eyes and his mouth and he suffocated because I think he was trying to move it. No one suffocated him. And they said that the autopsy shows that so it was like a slow kind of progression um which is horrible and how could a person die you know and I'm around like how could I not do anything like how could this happen but i i blamed myself for a very long time a very long time and so that's where i had to start with the healing i had to start forgiving myself before i could even go to anything else and it happened when i went to prison you say in the book the people that involved you in this crime you know had threatened your family if you did not help and participate? I didn't want anybody dead. I didn't, I didn't like, what does that mean?

And they were saying they were mafia related and they're, I believed them. Yep. Adults, they doing all these things around me. I don't know what that means. I don't know. Um, but I couldn't, that's why I said, when I walked into a kid and I couldn't walk out, everything just turned upside down. It was just, I had no, I did not know what to do. So let's move on to prison because in prison, ironically, you know, it's a, it's kind of a sad testament to a lot of things that prison became, uh, the safest place for you in some awful ways. ways, although not entirely. But that you started to really heal there.

And there seemed to be a real turning point in the book when you got involved with helping a woman named Helen. So why don't you tell us about that? So some years later, I was living on a unit with this woman named Helen and we used to you know in units women are very maternal and nurturing and so we cook and you know eat together or do things together wash you know wash our clothes together stuff like that and I started doing that with her just gravitated towards her she was very quiet to herself but I like she other people don't gravitate to I grav gravitate to. That's just who I am. So one day I didn't see her like,

where is Helen? And so I went to the office and I was like, cause I didn't, her door seemed to be closed. I didn't look into her little tiny window in her door. And so I went to the, um, the officer and the officer said he didn't know where she was. He thinks she's in her room. I was like, but it's so late in the day. Like she's usually out. It just, you know, behavior wasn't right. So I was walking to her door and an older woman on the unit said, don't go in there. I already knew she had the virus. And by the virus, you mean early days of the AIDS crisis. I was like, what? Why wouldn't I go to her, you know, check on her at her door?

I went, she was in there, but she was in there. She looked like she was dying. And I just freaked out. I was like, wait a minute, you know, because I got to care for like a sister. And when I went in, I went in, I felt her. She felt very, very hot. She was like, she looked, her mouth was very was very dry she just her skin was ashy she just not didn't look right and I got scared like oh my god is she dying I can't have another person die I mean not Helen like you know it just couldn't

happen again so I got the rag I put it on her head I was trying to put water on her mouth to like just give her something so you know she wouldn't be dry. And then I was screaming for the officer and getting, and people were yelling at me, Oh, you need to get out. She's sick. She's you're going to die. You know, the stigma that happened then when I didn't hear the officer wasn't moving fast enough for me, I picked her up. I picked her up and I took her out and I was taking her to the hospital, which just happened to not be far, but I just could not see another person dying. And I didn't like how people were treating because we were, you know, people were afraid stigma, you know, you thought that just breathing the same air as a person that had the virus, he would get sick and that it didn't matter to me.

You know, it just didn't matter to me. And I just needed her to get some help. And it just started from there. It was my that moment where I was like, I cannot see another person be hurt. And I don't do something if I'm able to do something about it. Yeah. And then, you know, unfortunately, Helen died. But you said in the book, you know, when Helen died, I said farewell, not only to her, but also to who I was before I knew her. I no longer need to stand by to stay silent when something bad happens to me or another woman. From this point, I'm my own person, focusing wholly on my goodness and my growth. You go ahead.

Yeah, no, it's clearly a poignant moment for you. And I did. I said goodbye to the little girl, that little girl who was silent. But I embraced the little girl who found her voice. And I started telling her I love her, started holding her, and just letting her know that she didn't have to be silent, that it's going to be okay. We're going to figure it out together. I always had to talk to the little girl in me because nobody else did.

And then I just started just doing that more. And I just started just not so much changing because I don't believe we change. I believe we become who we truly are given the circumstances and opportunity. And as abnormal and as dismal and as crazy as prison is, because there's no such thing as a humane, healthy prison, there isn't. But it was the need in me, the want in me was so strong that I fed that. I fed Jason Alexander. And I'm Jason Alexander. And I'm Peter Tilden.

And together on the Really No Really podcast, our mission is to get the true answers to life's baffling questions like why they refuse to make the bathroom door go all the way to the floor. We got the answer. Will space junk block your cell signal? The astronaut who almost drowned during a spacewalk gives us the answer. We talk with the scientist who figured out if your dog truly loves you. And the one bringing back the woolly mammoth.

Plus, does Tom Cruise really do his own stunts? His stuntman reveals the answer. And you never know who's going to drop by. Mr. Bryan Cranston is with us today. How are you, too? Hello, my friend. Wayne Knight about Jurassic Park. Wayne Knight, welcome to Really, No Really, sir.

Bless you all. Hello, Newman. And you never know when Howie Mandel might just stop by to talk about judging. Really? That's the opening? Really, No Really. Yeah, really. No Really.

Go to reallynoreally.com. And register to win $500, a guest spot on our podcast, or a limited edition signed Jason Bobblehead. It's called Really, No Really, and you can find it on the I heart radio app on Apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. So you and, and some of these women go on to start the AIDS counseling and education program, which was the, the first of its kind, right?

In anywhere in the world in a prison. And you begin to response to HIV and AIDS. We figured it out and said, we need to do something. We can't turn our backs to this. You began to take care of women in prison, and your healing continues to grow. Yes. And I was adamant that we needed a hospice kind of unit because too many women were dying and they needed a place to convalesce or we needed that space. And finally, the warden, the superintendent, was able to make that happen.

And it wasn't just me, it was the women. But I was really adamant about that. We had this small little space that the women were in and it just wasn't right. We needed a unit like a hospice unit. And we were able to get that and we just build it out. I helped build it out from there and was taking care of the women from that moment on. I was always a part of the medical program and all these other programs. And one of the things that I think what happened in my time and to people I write about our time there, we were fortunate enough to have a warden, a superintendent, what we call here in New York, that understood. You have to ask the woman what they need so they can tell you what they need. We can't tell you what they need.

They can tell you. They know what they need. can't tell you what they need. They can tell you. They know what they need. She helped build our voices and allowed us to have some kind of autonomy over our surroundings. And that's how we were able to create the first HIV AIDS program in the prison. It's modeled all across the world. We brought college back. We created a children's program that's the first of its kind in prison. A family violence program that came out of the governor's office after there were a series of hearings that happened. It's why most women do go for being battered and abused and hurt. And some do kill their batterers. And it does happen because after a while sometimes you

just snap or whatever you just are the opportunity and it's not like you know these women are happy about what they did or like you know what i mean they've blacked out they like me the trauma is amazing like for me i can't even some things as healed as i, is also still as broken as I am. I can't even put certain times together. Like, what time was this? What year? It's kind of confusing, especially as a child. The blackout things, having pictures of things.

What was that? A remembrance of something? Because your mind goes into that place where it protects us. We were created with these mechanisms where our bodies would protect that's why like horrible crimes and people have car crashes after a while the endorphins in your body are released so you don't feel the pain as much you know i mean there's things that happen that we it's just innate and and i try to get people to understand we're not the worst moment in our lives. We're not our mistakes.

We're not our crimes. We're not those. We're human beings that have been through something. And even for people that do really do bad things, why do they do it? Most people just don't wake up and say, oh, I'm going to go out here and I'm going to murder or I'm just going to whatever. People's not. We just had a shooting here. I mean, not here,

but in the country yesterday. It was yesterday, before yesterday. Guy just shot up his coworkers. They're like, what happened? Right? Something off. And no, we're not going to catch everything, but there are signs of things

and people need to pay attention and at least acknowledge it when they see it. Because it's there. It happens. Don't act like it doesn't exist. When we see something, after 9-11, this country's like, if you see something, say something. If you're seeing a child getting hurt, say something. If you see anyone getting hurt, say something.

You know what I mean? Like, we need to get back our humanity. And we were able to do that in Bedford at that time. Yeah. Hurt people hurt people. It's the reality. And so you were part of what you guys did there was you worked on, I think, tell me if I get this right, that you worked on at least allowing women's backgrounds, what had happened to them, be part of what was admissible in court and considered in their sentencing yeah so that was the bill you're talking about the dbsja yes we got it into law

congratulations he wrote it he signed it last are we last month oh wow yeah yep so he signed it last month and we were celebrating now a little bit. So, yes, the Domestic Violence Survivors Justice Act. Well, it's not just women. It's also we didn't leave men out because it happens to men too. Men are abused where they can at least if they can show that they have significant amount of trauma and abuse in their lives that led them you know that led them to either participate in the crime or the crime happened because of such abuse then they're able to get their sentences at either an alternative program depending on the severity or intervention right definitely not as much time because people need help like abuse to that extent does have an effect on people and people react.

People snap. People, we're human beings. And again, no one's saying that it's okay. No one's saying it's right. We absolutely know. At least those that I know that I did time with and continue to be friends with, we know. And we're not okay with it. But that's why I do the work that I do, because I need the world to understand. We cannot keep doing this. And

people don't, we shouldn't have people coming. I mean, even getting to a place where they just snap, they don't even know what they're doing. They just know they have to survive. Yeah. And I tell people, if you're hungry, if you are hungry, I mean, starving, your body's saying eat, and it doesn't care how you feed it. You have to eat. And so when you see people stealing because they need to eat because they are hungry, if you're hungry, you're going to do the same thing. If you see something, you're going to take it. Whether you are supposed to take it, if it's allowed or is legal to take it or not, you don't care. You have to satisfy those things

in us. We have no control over it. We have to sleep. We have to eat. We have to drink. We have to do things that we have no control over. And so when your body's put under so much pressure, it's going to react to it. Tell me about Sister Mary. Mother of my heart. Oh my God, what can I not say about Sister? Her birthday is two days from now. My mother, Sister Mary, was and continues to be an amazing, amazing human being. I have never met anyone that exemplified unconditional love as she did. She was unconditional love. She is unconditional love. She taught me a lot. She fought for the women. She's the reason why we have this domestic violence conversation going on. She started it way

back when. She's always been fighting. She's always been fighting for people, especially women. She's like, when it's not right, she'd face anyone and just tell them. And you had to listen to her because she comes from a place, you came from a place that you felt this love, you felt this truth, you felt her. And you knew that she was in line, you knew what you're saying is true. And you're just like, how could you tell this? None know. Right. So she helped me get out of prison. She helped me become the Donna that I am right now, the activist, the person that speaks out even more and just tells the story and tells the story of women and just tells about the

conditions and stuff because it's important. And she really reinforced how important it is for us as people to stop hurting people, for us as people to love people, at least respect people. No matter your color, no matter religion, no matter your sex, sexual preference, it doesn't matter. That's who Sister Mary continues to be. Yeah. She sounds like just a beautiful woman and obviously was a hugely influential figure to you.

And a lot of others. As you were leaving jail, which you eventually did, you shared a message with with the women and I'll just I'll just read it here because I think it's it's beautiful. You say that I share with them the most important understanding I've developed during my time here, that we can connect deeply with humanity. If we look through the eyes of love and compassion, we have to treat each other with constant love, eyes of love and compassion. We have to treat each other with constant love, both here and out in the world.

We understood it. We kind of knew, I think, that the more... I won't say the more. I just know that a lot of the women there understood that. They might not have known how to do it, you know, what it would look like, but knew that that was it. And we just wanted the world to know that. And so some of us are doing that. We're telling the world, I stand up and tell the world, I get death threats because of it. I get a lot of things

because of it. I've got all these, I've got a Wikipedia page that was created by somebody. I don't even know who. I mean, all these things, but I continue to stand in my truth and stand in that truth that we have to come to this place where we love each other. We get our humanity back

because if we don't, we're going to definitely feed that bad, that's getting bigger and bigger every second of every day. And we can't do that. We cannot do that. That's not who. That's not how we were. We created in love. How could we not?

Look at the beauty that's around us, this world. Who could imagine doing this? I haven't got a clue how to do anything like this. I mean, this comes, but this is love. This is beauty all around us if we just recognize it and really understand it. Well, I think that is a beautiful place to end it. I think so too. Thank you so much, Donna, for spending the time with us,

sharing your story for the work that you do in the world. And it's just so inspiring. And like I said, it's a real honor to have you on. Thank you so much. It was my pleasure. Thank you. I really appreciate it. And make sure to get a little piece of light. That's right. We'll have links to your book in the show notes for sure, as well as your website. And on your website, you have a foundation that people can support. And we'll have we'll have links to that for all our listeners. Thank you so much again. Thank you, Donna. I really appreciate it.

So you have a great one. You too. Okay. If what you just heard was helpful to you, please consider making a donation to the One You Feed podcast. Head over to oneyoufeed.net slash support. The One You Feed podcast would like to sincerely thank our sponsors for supporting the show. I'm Jason Alexander. And I'm Peter Tilden.

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