Step-by-step, SWITCH participant finding the light

“Growing up, I created the mask,” he said. “Be the tough guy to exist in society.”

Two years ago, when Gary entered Memphis Allies’ SWITCH program—for adults at high risk of gun violence—the mask was still in place. It was the first thing SWITCH Vocational Coordinator Cody Brown noticed about him.

“He was very standoffish,” Brown said.

Over time, however, the mask started to come down. Gary, now 34, worked the four stages of SWITCH—Support with Intention to Create Hope—and he is now an example of someone thinking differently, living differently and attaining previously unimaginable goals.

“I’m learning how to run a kitchen,” said Gary, who has been taking culinary classes. “My biggest dream is to run a restaurant. I can feel it. I’m closer than I’ve ever been.”

Take a minute

Just because a man finds trouble in the streets and then gets free of that trouble, does not guarantee the rest of life will be pain-free.

Several years ago, Gary lost a young son to an illness. The grief overwhelmed him.

“I didn’t know how to cope with it,” he said. “I felt like I was dreaming and couldn’t wake up. Cut myself off from society, quit my job, didn’t want to do anything.”

Even years later when he was part of the SWITCH program, the anniversary of his son’s death would bring stress and leave him on edge. But again, over time, Gary applied coping mechanisms, such as Brown’s mantra to “hit the pause button” before reacting to something out of raw emotion.

Recently, he had to live out that lesson again when he learned his son’s gravestone had been moved.

“I’m sitting there balling my hand up, and I’m just breathing,” Gary recalled. “I was proud of myself; I didn’t act out.”

An ‘aha’ moment

Another example of change: crossing paths with a long-time enemy and not reaching for a gun or raising his fist.

“He said he froze when he first saw him,” said Terricka Griffin, a SWITCH clinical specialist with Memphis Allies. “They had ongoing beef. Gary went up to him and they shook hands. He was excited about that, not responding the way he would have when he was the person he used to be.”

Gary was gang-affiliated at a young age. That, in large part, helped create the mask. Yet when Brown had Gary take a standardized personality test, the results identified him as a “nurturer.”

“It kind of blew his mind,” Brown said. “It was kind of an ‘aha!’ moment for him.”

Gary has three other children and wants to be the best father he can be.

“He’s thinking forward,” Detrick Green, his case manager, said. “He sees himself more family-oriented, rather than identifying with the gang.”

The completion of the culinary course will set the table for a new career working as a chef and, who knows, perhaps one day owning a share of a restaurant. Although Gary often returns to an apartment complex where a family member still lives and where he first found trouble, Green says the people from his past who remain know what he’s about now and leave him be.

“The devil flees when the light comes,” Green said.

‘Letting go’

Gary’s old world and his new one will always overlap. He understands it’s up to him to navigate this.

“I can manage more now,” he said, noting the two years in SWITCH programming has helped effect radical change in his life. “Certain things weren’t meant for me; I’m letting those go. When I started doing that, stuff started getting light. I can control my attitude now.

“I have a big heart (the nurturer that used to be in disguise), but at the same time I have to manage who I’m helping and how I’m helping… create some boundaries. So, I tell people: ‘Look, it don’t mean I don’t love you. And we can still be friends. But I can’t be over there doing what you’re doing. I gotta love you from a distance.’”