Many times, I left the prison thinking, 'I'm smart. I can make it. I won't get caught up again.' But you get off downtown Skid Row, and you're a target for all of the environmental harms in that area. The pain and trauma in that area is so thick, you can almost reach your hand out and touch it.
Interpretation
The quote reflects the challenges of recovery and the impact of environment on personal growth.
Susan Burton's quote illustrates the struggle of overcoming past hardships while highlighting how one's environment can influence their ability to break free from cycles of trauma and despair. She emphasizes that even with the ambition to succeed, the surrounding influences of pain and trauma can become overwhelming and hinder progress.
In practice
This quote could be used in a discussion about the importance of community support in recovery programs.
People are released from prison so unprepared. They give you $200. We call it gate money. And you have to pay for a bus ticket back to L.A. You get off the Greyhound bus, downtown Skid Row, and you're supposed to make a life from that.
We're willing to spend countless dollars putting people who need help in cages, and then when they get out we say you can't have a job, and you can't have housing, and because you don't have either, we're going to take your kids, too.
I knew hundreds and hundreds of women like me, who had traveled in and out of prison in a revolving door. They needed support and help just like I had received. And it could make a difference, just like it had made a difference in my life. I wanted to see them come back to the community and have a chance at a different life, too.
Growing up in New Orleans as Archie Manning's son, I felt like a target, and I've always known that whatever I'd do, people would hear about it. So I've had my guard up, and maybe that's molded my personality.
In the stormy current of life characters are weights or floats which at one time make us glide along the bottom, and at another maintain us on the surface.
A glamorous life is quite different to a life of luxury. I don’t need luxury. For years, I was practically broke but I was still very vain and glamorous. And I still am.
Growing up is something that you do your whole life. I want to always feel that I can be a kid if I want. Growing up has some negative connotations. Like, you're not supposed to roll around on the ground anymore. You're not supposed to make fun of yourself. You're not supposed to ride a bicycle. But I'm a Toys-R-Us kid.
I had been riding horses before my memory kicked in, so my life with horses had no beginning. It simply appeared from the fog of infancy. I survived a difficult childhood by traveling on the backs of horses, and in adulthood the pattern didn't change.
Life’s greatest tragedy consists of men and women who earnestly try, and fail!
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