Trauma can makes us feel like we don’t fit in, like we don’t belong, like we’re less than others. For a few years of my junior high school experience, I was a loner. It wasn’t until decades later, in prison, when I became trauma-informed, that I came to realize my isolation was self-imposed. No one knew my domestic secrets, no one knew of my low self-concept. And I didn’t know, I didn’t realize then that we’ve all been through adversity. We all have a history with trauma in some form or fashion. And trauma has changed us in some way or another. I became deceptive, violent, manipulative in my home and neighborhood as a trauma response. Though warped in my thinking, it was my way to survive. I was destructive. In prison, I embraced self-development and support groups. What I came to see is that we all have flaws, and most of those flaws stem from trauma, including isolating. So while it might be tempting to isolate, isolation is characterized by behaviorists as the absolute worst thing to do. Healing is in the community.

Being in community helped me learn through other people’s mistakes. Being in community helped me gain skills from others who had successfully navigated similar experiences that had hunted me. What was most remarkable is that the trials I had suffered weren’t limited to me. Totally to the contrary. Being bullied, humiliated by peers, taken advantage of my older women, harassed by law enforcement and being called derogatory names was expressed often in our groups. I also learned that my childhood could have been so much worse. I gained a deep respect for people who had been sexually assaulted, shot, tortured, and yet were in the group shining, wearing their stories as badges of survival.

Indeed, healing is in community.