Illustration: Anthony Freda
My life changed in 2004 in ways I did not fully understand at the time. The years that followed were difficult but formative. I was sustained by family, psychiatric care and people who offered compassion. That experience left me with a deeper sense of humility and a clearer understanding of how fragile stability can be.
It also left me with a question that has stayed with me ever since: How do people rebuild their lives after a crisis?
Years later, while studying in seminary, I began volunteering to help men returning home after long periods of incarceration. One moment from that time has never left me.
We were encouraging a man to call a GED program. The phone sat on the table. The number was written down. Everything he needed was right in front of him.
But he could not pick up the phone.
He froze.
At first, I assumed it was reluctance. But it soon became clear that something deeper was happening. After years of incarceration, nearly every aspect of his life had been directed by someone else: when to wake up, when to move, when to eat, when to speak. The initiative had slowly disappeared from the rhythm of his life.
The simple act of deciding to make a call, to take the next step, felt overwhelming.
That moment changed how I began to think about recovery and human behavior. Over time, I saw similar struggles among others I met: combat veterans carrying the invisible wounds of PTSD, men and women battling addiction, and people emerging from jail or prison trying to find their footing again.
Jim McGreevey is the executive director of the New Jersey Reentry Corporation. Photo: Courtesy of New Jersey Reentry Corporation
Trauma reshapes how people think. The brain adapts to survive stress, violence, instability or fear, and those adaptations can become habits of thought. The unconscious mind reacts quickly, to protect, to withdraw, sometimes to numb pain through alcohol or drugs.
Psychologists describe the resulting tension as cognitive dissonance: the conflict between the life someone hopes to live and the patterns shaped by past trauma. When that tension goes unresolved, the unconscious may respond in ways that feel protective in the moment, but prove harmful over time.
One man told me something I will never forget: “Everyone tells me to make better decisions. But no one ever taught me how to make decisions again.”
Change rarely begins with punishment alone. It begins when people regain a sense of agency, when they rediscover that their actions can shape their future.
My own life taught me that rebuilding is never a solitary process. It requires responsibility and honesty, but also patience, compassion, and the quiet belief that people are more than the worst moment of their lives.
When people begin to change how they think, and when someone walks beside them as they do, healthy decisions, healthy lives can begin again.
Jim McGreevey is the executive director of the New Jersey Reentry Corporation. He resigned as governor of New Jersey in 2004 and has since dedicated his work to helping individuals rebuild their lives after incarceration, addiction and trauma.
