Therapists have been attacked, like unprovoked, teeth knocked out, nose broken, jaws broken.

And that's just therapists. And we're the least likely people to get hurt there.

Like the officers get attacked, they get slashed, faces cut. I didn't know this was a thing before I started working there, that there's a culture of trying to disfigure other people. How do you feel about solitary? Inmates are constantly fearful for their lives in their housing areas and will use mental health to get sent to mental observation where it's a little safer. When you sit with those individuals like the murderers you were describing earlier, the people you see on TV, does it match the person that you see in the news? I think every day was a shock. There was an adrenaline rush to it also, like just working in that kind of environment. It's like you're on high alert.

Officers are very hypervigilant all the time. Actually think their lifespan after they retire is like five years.

In this episode, you're going to hear what life inside Rikers Island is really like from someone who worked there for seven years as a therapist. Matt Fry breaks down day-to-day life in general

population and mental observation housing,

the violence and suicides most people never see,

and the psychological games inmates play to survive,

along with how the job changed him long after he walked out.

Matt, welcome to Lockton.

Thanks so much for coming out here today. Thank you for having me. I appreciate it. Yeah, we just got it over a brutal snowstorm. Yeah, what did they get, 18 inches around here? Yeah, almost two feet. I haven't seen this much snow, and we were out of commission for the last, like, couple days. I didn't leave the house to like yesterday afternoon. Yeah, I wasn't

trying to be able to, uh, I was coming from Long Island to shovel out in time, but I broke a sweat

and ended up, uh, making it. My dad got one of those like electric shovels. I was using that

to help them shovel out their, uh, their house yesterday. I actually took, um, a leaf blower

and started my driveway with that when it was still

light and then it got too heavy. I see people with leaf blowers all the time and because sometimes

the snow is really soft so you could just blow it. Yeah, it was cleaning off the cars that way. It was

actually, it was actually pretty good. Yeah. So thank you for the merch if you want to tell everyone

about your company and what you got going on. Yeah, uhe Mental Fitness. We have a private practice inside Outlift Athletics. So we really focus on people who are really locked into their physical health. It's like the first like mental health private practice within a gym. and it's like an amazing 24,000 square

foot gym in east of talk it in long island it's one of the best gyms in long island and so people

will come you know based on their schedule get like a 45 minute session of therapy do their

workout so it's like killing two birds

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