Stories from My Professional Work: Opening the Door to My Work with Incarcerated Youth
It started with two kids and a bold request.
After the Day of Thanks luncheon and the Christmas Around the World contest, two of the residents came to me with wide eyes and an idea that stopped me in my tracks.
“Can we have a prom? None of us have ever gone to a prom and probably never will.”
My head started spinning immediately. Music. Decorations. A meal in the gym. I could already hear my coworkers’ voices. That would be amazing, but so much work. I told the kids if I could find a volunteer willing to help, we’d see what we could do.
Sure enough, one of our unit volunteers had once run a catering business. She jumped in with enthusiasm and a stockpile of supplies. Administration gave permission. And suddenly the vision started to grow.
These kids wanted the full prom experience. A DJ. Full decorations. A sit-down meal. A printed program. Dresses and tuxedos. Flowers and boutonnieres. Professional photos. Their excitement was contagious. I blinked back tears just listening.
The effort from these kids was unlike anything I had seen before.
The volunteer brought donated dresses for the girls. But when I looked around, one girl was missing. I’ll call her Jessie. I found her in her room, under her blankets.
“I’m not going,” she said quietly.
I told her she didn’t have to. It was okay.
“Good,” she said.
A few days later I noticed Jessie standing at the staff office window, gazing at the dresses hanging nearby. I went and stood beside her.
“They’re beautiful, aren’t they?”
“Yeah,” she whispered. “But everyone would laugh at me in one of those. I’m too fat. My mom tells me that all the time. No way am I letting those boys make fun of me.”
Her words broke my heart.
I told her it made sense. That a part of her was trying to protect her from being hurt again. Then I asked her: if there was a dress made for her body, one that made her look beautiful, would she think about it?
Jessie shrugged. But there was a flicker in her eyes that told me something.
A few days later she found me. “Do you really think there’s a dress for me?”
I told her I did. And I meant it. She hadn’t yet learned that certain styles, cuts, and undergarments can honor a body instead of fighting it. I knew we could find something that would work for her.
We found a time when no one else was around. During exercise hour, I brought her upstairs. She slipped into the gown. And when she turned to the mirror, she froze.
I was standing just behind her and off to the side, watching her face in the reflection. Her eyes went wide. Then, slowly, something else registered. A veiled happiness. Like she wanted to believe what she was seeing but didn’t quite trust it yet.
She didn’t say a word at first. She just stared.
“You look beautiful,” I told her. And she did.
She nodded slowly, still gazing at her reflection. And then, quietly, she said: “I’ve been hiding since elementary school.”
In Internal Family Systems, this is a protective part. Jessie’s Vanish part had been doing its job for years: keeping her under blankets, away
from mirrors, out of rooms where she might be seen and mocked. It wasn’t wrong to do that. It was loyal. It was tired. And it had kept her safe the only way it knew how.
Jessie walked into that room not as the girl who hid but as someone who had decided, just for one evening, to let herself be seen.
I watched her walk in. The pride I felt was quiet and full.
As you read this series, you may start to recognize some of these protective parts. They also live in the pages of The Hallway of Doorknobs: A Journey to the Feelings Inside.
This is the last story from my years working with incarcerated youth. These kids, and the parts they carried, helped shape everything I came to understand about healing. I am grateful for every one of them.
Next time I’ll be sharing a story from a different chapter of my work — my years as a therapist, and the young people I met there.
Reflection Questions
- Do you have a part that keeps you invisible or hidden? What has that part been protecting you from?
- Think of a moment when you let yourself be seen despite the fear. What made that possible?
- What would it mean to meet your invisible part with kindness instead of frustration?
This post is part of my series, Stories from My Professional Work, exploring protector parts through the lens of Internal Family Systems (IFS). IFS was developed by Dr. Richard Schwartz, whose work continues to shape how I teach, write, and understand the protective parts we all carry.
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