Today for my journal, I’m going to share some of my responses to the questions in the first module of the Preparing for Success after Prison intermediate course. They focus on how I got here, and what I’m doing about it now. Rather than post them as the question and answers in the book, I will attempt to combine all of them into one continuous story, as best I can.
My name is Vince Taffe, and I am a 32 year old man who is trying to overcome the mistakes and scars of my past. I am the only child of incredibly loving parents, as well as a member of a large, tightly knit extended family. My family rose from lower to upper middle class during my childhood due to the hard work of both of my parents. I was naturally incredibly smart as a kid and didn’t have to put forth much of any effort to succeed in school, which I allowed to become an overarching habit throughout my life, leading me to squander so many opportunities. I was also the victim of sexual abuse from a very young age, and I allowed those wounds and resentments to control me and dictate my thoughts, feelings and actions for a very long time. I struggle with several mental health disorders including PTSD, bipolar disorder, social anxiety, dysthymic disorder, and severe ADHD (I fall in the 96th percentile for symptom severity). I’ve learned to see these as challenges that, when overcome, become assets that allow me to see the world in new and different ways rather than allowing myself to continue to use them as excuses. To me, the way that my past has lead me to where I sit now is fairly easy to see, at least in retrospect. Because of my natural intelligence, I developed a kind of invincibility and superiority complex. I also developed a pornography addiction at a very young age – I believe that I was trying to find a way to normalize or contextualize what I went through in my own abuse. Together, they made me feel like not only could I get away with my porn use, normal legal limits didn’t apply to me – after all, I was a victim myself. My mental health issues – when not addressed – can very easily allow and even encourage that diseased kind of thinking, which can lead to all manner of destructive and immoral behaviors. I’ve come to realize that every time that sort of material is viewed, it creates and expands the ‘market’ for more of that material, leading more innocent kids to go through the hell that I experienced and that has caused me so much pain. For a long time I lived in vehement denial of that truth – which allowed the behaviors that got me in trouble on probation and put myself in prison, and encouraged others to abuse children. This eats at me every single day, and I will never stop attempting to bring good into the world any way I can; I don’t believe that one can make up for harm caused – the wounds are already there and can’t be unmade – but one can atone by living a life of service. I also know that I’ve deeply hurt my family by my actions and by betraying their trust. So now my number one priority is addressing that which allowed me to go down such a path in the first place – my mental health. I’m participating in the MAT program, continually deepening my relationship with my loved ones and support network as well as my God, learning more about my brain and how it works, and actively working to not just alter my behaviors, but the very thought processes that lead to them. I’m working hard on my writing skills with the intention and goal of supporting my family as an author. I’m rebuilding my positive relationships with calls, letters visits, and emails and asking them to help hold me accountable – though in the end, self-honesty and my accountability to myself are the bedrock of my new life. I believe that my story is extraordinary and compelling because, while we all have wounds and scars to overcome, I’m harnessing that which others claim to be my weakness and making them my strengths.
When I first came here with a fifteen year sentence I DID give up, completely and totally. I was depressed, hostile, and – honestly – passively suicidal for the first few years, allowing myself to become an opiate addict while in prison. In the last year and a half, however, I’ve made a massive discovery.
I’m worth life.
Since the moment I realized that – while in SHU for drug use – I’ve turned my life around 180 degrees, against steep obstacles, primarily staff and other inmates who not only don’t believe I can change, many of them don’t want me to change, don’t want to see my happy and successful. That’s okay. I am solely in charge of my life and my treatment. Now, I’m a multiple time college dropout who puts in several hours each day into learning – how to be a better writer, about Irish history and language, and about my Catholic faith. I’m mentoring others on their path to sobriety, and I’m actively taking the reins of my own future. Two years ago, I was absolutely content to let ‘the system’ have it’s way with me and spit me out an empty husk; now, I’ve retaken control of my life, my future, my success and my happiness. Each and every day I fight to be a better son, husband, relative, friend, mentor, writer, Catholic, man. I will no longer accept complacency or taking the easy way out. I’m not just going to survive.
I’m going to thrive.
