‘I was given a second chance, now it’s my turn to help others use theirs’

From the age of seven, James was in trouble. “I’d be going to Children’s Panels to face 20 or 30 charges at a time. I never felt anyone understood me or cared.”

Aged 15, things got really serious when James received a custodial sentence for violent behaviour. He was locked up alongside other unruly kids, some serving life sentences for serious crimes including murder. For James, it only compounded his anger and anxieties.

Released from the secure unit, he returned to the nightmare of family life.

“It was just chaos. My dad was away with another woman and my mum was dying with alcoholism. I’d find her having alcoholic seizures or covered in blood because she’d fallen and split her head open. I can’t remember the number of times I had to take her to hospital”.

Angry and confused, James ran with the local gang. Violence was a daily feature.

This is not a unusual story. What is unusual is that, with support, relationships, the care of strangers, recognition of the trauma his young brain had experienced and the willingness from James to help himself, James has used his second chance and is now in a position to help others and is living a good life. His three children have a completely different world view compared to his own young life, due to healing and repair.

James was painkiller addicted, he self medicated to deal with the mental trauma and emotional injuries he had sustained as a child, unknowingly. “I never knew anything else, I had no frame of reference that my life as a kid wasn’t good, violence had always happened around me, to me, by me.”

Much has been researched and written about the developing brain and effects of adverse childhood experiences (ACE). When you look at the list of what ACE covers, James ticks almost all of them – abuse, neglect, parental separation, his mother’s alcohol addiction, depression...

“I went through EMDR therapy (eye movement 0 James says relationships helped him survive desensitisation and reprocessing – therapy involves the identification of unprocessed traumatic or other distressing experiences continuing to drive psychological disturbance) and it was explained to me how the central nervous systems reacts to perceived danger – fight, flight, freeze or flop. My only response was fight. That was my auto response to trauma.

“The therapist created a safe space for me, and I dug deep into the trauma I had experienced and try to heal. It was really tough. I was lucky to have built some relationships – including my mentor. People that cared about me. I was surprised – having people care about me was confusing. I thought ‘why do these people want anything to do with me?’ but they did, and I started to trust and care too. Relationships are everything when you’re trying to get better.”

“I’ve never been the same since. The grief process I went through was like nothing else I’ve experienced in my whole life. I cried for weeks and they supported me throughout.”

James has a deep understanding of why his life started the way it did. He’s immersed himself in the research and the data and is passionate that, whilst this is his story, he is only one person – he wants people to listen to the vast body of evidence and results that demonstrates that society needs to rethink, to give people a second chance and support them to fulfil their potential. There’s a key quote from Buddhist monk and peace activist Thich Nhat Hanh that he believes should shape our approach to those who have had a tough upbringing.

“It’s where our collective power lies as a society – ‘creating the environments and providing the relationships that support people to recover and heal’.

“Blaming and punishing kids isn’t right. They’ve been punished and excluded all their lives. You cannot punish trauma or the symptoms of trauma – such as addiction – into a better way of being, its already a punishing enough experience. Writing them off, marginalising them – what good is that going to do?

“It isn’t easy walking away from a life that is all you’ve ever known. I was given a second chance, and now it’s my turn to help others use theirs. It works, but it only works in the context of relationships.”

“You need support. You do it for yourself, but it’s almost impossible to do it by yourself. Being vulnerable is the very thing that saves you, if you ask for help, people show up. People gave me a second chance and if it wasn’t for them, I wouldn’t be here today.”