On May 20th of 2004, I was kidnapped and held hostage by gang members. One of the “captains” was angry with me because I was working to help his girlfriend find a safe haven from his extreme abuse. For years my mother worked as a gang violence interventionist, mediating closely with the Latin Kings, the Bloods, and the Crips. She provided safe havens to people looking to escape violence. I grew up listening at the dinner table to my mom’s tales, accumulated from the 20 years of conflict management and violence prevention work. Before her, my grandparents went toe-to-toe with both the mafia and the government in their quest to create better conditions in factories for hard working Americans like themselves, during the 40s, 50s and early 60s. They were no strangers to dangerous situations and their bravery inspires me to this day.
In a way, I was born to be a crisis worker. My life was the training ground. I knew there were risks, but some things you just don’t see coming. After being chased across an open field for sport, forced into a car at gunpoint, and questioned for hours, I was left in the pitch black to wonder how many more minutes I had left to live. Much to my surprise, I survived. After being threatened with death, castration, and exposed to violent force, the time I spent with those men influenced the past 12 years of my life. Training from the Alternatives to Violence Project (originally developed in prisons by inmates serving life sentences) that I received at the age of 13 helped me to be set free. I convinced the people holding me that I was no threat, and to let me go. I would walk away from that experience as a different man, and in some ways, a much better person. From then on, I wanted to help others survive life-threatening situations, and to rebound from extreme stress. When I was 22, I helped found a company for that purpose.
Traumatic Stress, PTSD, and professional trauma exposure are said to often leave its survivors with what is known as the 4 F’s (fight, flight, freeze, and fold.) These four F’s describe the common automatic responses that people fall into when they are triggered or feel threatened. The brain releases these survival chemicals that are designed to keep us alive when we are overwhelmed.