Institutionalized.

Separating one’s thinking from one’s actions is no small thing.  Growing up is often a bitch.  It is natural is it not, that when we grow up we realize our thinking is not necessarily who we are?  Some perhaps never realize this.  I was learning that I could teach myself to think.  In this process I also realized that JoAnn had taught me something important in life without having meant to, without my having realized it either until it was done.  She taught me to be conniving.  That's what she was.  It was something she had to do because she was female.  It’s how she survived.  That was the only true power she had in this sexist world.  The issue was though, that with all my being I didn't want to be like her.  Unfortunately there are some things that cannot easily be undone.

Sitting out on the yard with some other guys, talking about what they would be doing if they were out, I realized I did not know.  I had no idea what I would do.  My dream was surviving.  I didn't care about the petty things those other guys thought about.   I sat out on the yard many evenings after that wondering what I would do if I were out, and I just didn't know.  My past was trash.  I had no choice but to throw it all out.  I couldn't use it for reference regarding making good decisions.  All my past was, was memories of what not to do.  I had no choice, but to begin using my intuition differently.  I had to develop a new way to think.  In a certain way it was all I had.

On upper hill you could see the roof tops of houses.  Along the perimeter fence on one side of the prison was a cemetery.  There was a road that went all the way around the prison right next to the fence.  There was always a guard in the car with a loaded shotgun.  Along the side where the main and upper hill yard connected, was a steep embankment with the cemetery on top.  To the west of the tombstones began a residential neighborhood.  Every day you could see houses and just a touch of the outside world.  Just the shingles, and a few strips of siding here and there. 

The spiritual life was being crammed down my throat.  There was freedom, and I had forgotten what it was.  I felt free being in prison.  All I knew was prison.  It consumed me in there.  The future I was looking forward to was unknown to me, so I focused almost entirely on the moment.  I couldn't imagine what that future would be. 

All of the self-analyzing made me realize the different versions of myself.  The inmate, the boyfriend, the son, the grandson.  There were all these different views.  I realized no one had any idea who I was.  In prison I had countless selves because one’s whole world could change just by moving three bunks down the wall.   It was an eerie feeling in a way.

Unfortunately no one was teaching me to learn how to just be myself. I saw myself kind of like a chameleon.  I just blended with whatever environment I happened to be in.  How could I possibly have known what I was going to do with my life when I had just begun undoing what had been done to me?  How could I know what I would do when I got out?  I was still in prison.  Everyone was telling me to be this or that, do this or that, think this or that.  It made me feel institutionalized.  Isn't that a mouthful?  Institutionalized.  But it was true.  How was I supposed to know what I was to do in life if I didn’t even know who I was?  There was a startling contrast between what I was born to be and what I was raised to be.  There is no book that knows what one is born to do.  I've looked.

By seeing all these different roles being played out I became aware of my own mental world.  It was another self all on its own.  My Self.  The bigger self probably.  It's hard to know with all the lines blurred.  I became acutely aware that I knew a whole bunch of things no one else knew, and even more importantly that I was always paying attention to a whole bunch of things no one else was paying attention to.  Still to this day I will be the guy paying attention to everyone else from the side of the room measuring and calculating. Conniving. There really couldn’t have been a better way to teach me to always be aware of my surroundings than prison.  It ingrained it in me.  It was a double stack for me.  Not only did my childhood force it on me, but prison did too. 

I day dreamed of simple things like riding down the road in a car with the windows down and the radio blaring.  I day dreamed of being with Rachel.  I really had no idea what it was going to be like getting out because all I knew was crazy town USA.  I wasn’t going to live like that again. 

It's sad, and I didn't like to think about it, but being institutionalized for me had to do with fear.  Fear of being free.  Fear of not feeling safe anymore.  I don’t like being afraid of things.  How could I be a man and fear something such as freedom at the same time?  It wasn't that I didn't know what petty thing I wanted to do because I hadn’t gotten to do it in for so long.  It’s a no brainer; first thing out I’m having sex. It wasn't even a question. I was struggling with a much deeper fear.  It was the fear of life. What was I going to do when I got out?  What was I going to do with my life?  It was scary.  In prison I knew exactly what I was going to do.  I was really good at it too.

Prison was all about power, with defined systematic rules.  I thrived in it socially speaking.  It was after all a thriving social organism, violent or not, and anyone with an ability to pay attention to social detail will do well in such a place.  Institutionalized.  One is not supposed to like prison.  When one fears the thing being taken it's like Stockholm syndrome in reverse.  I didn't love my captor, but my captor's ways.  When one fears the reward it is no longer a reward.  It really was Rachel that saved me.  Had she not stayed by my side like she did I would never have made it out of there.  I love power, and power comes easy in there. 

I always made sure I was one of the top five strongest white boys in general population.  I always made sure my prison greys were pressed and sharp.  I never gave anyone a reason to criticize me ever again after that escapade with the locker.  I always made sure I was one of the best hand ball players.  I read the most books.  I knew the most white boys.  I had the most gangster respect.  I had the best job in the prison.  I knew the most civilian employees.  I took every class they offered and read every book suggested to me.  Ha!   I even knew my parole officer.  My boss Stan was engaged to my in prison parole officer. I was not fucking around.

That was the difference between me and pretty much an entire prison; I could see the difference.  I was attempting to be as conscious as possible as to what was going on and then using it to my advantage.  I took the conniving JoAnn gave me and lifted myself out of the hole with it.  If I am going to be conniving I might as well use it to my benefit.  I wasn't hurting anyone else bettering myself.  Most people don’t even call it conniving anymore if you use it to do well.  They call it strategy, or planning.  I didn't hold anyone else back, or push them down, when I climbed to the top, but I didn’t call it anything other than what it was; conniving. 

One minute I was practically a lone white boy in the ghetto, a spot, the next I'm the most powerful white boy in the prison, a star; same day, same five minutes.  Go up the hill to my job and I suddenly become one of the best behaved inmates in the prison.  Everyone saw me differently, and more importantly I could see it myself when they could not.  Go out on the yard and I was one of the more powerful white boys in camp.  Go to my job and I was an eighteen year old punk who didn't know anything desperately trying to learn.  Go ask a guard and I was a pawn piece to keep gangsters in check.  Go to the visiting room and I was in love.  I could see all the different me's going about their day.  Go to my bunk with me and I would have just been another primate with an identification number waiting his turn in line.  Go into my head and I was a nobody desperately trying to be somebody. 

It's weird now, looking back.  It's like the doctor whose social life fails.  She has all this information regarding physical health, yet cannot maintain her intimate relationships.  Does she not know they require the same amount of effort and study as medical school?  Does she not know that to be good at anything one must put in their time?  I had all this know how regarding one thing, but hardly any in this other.  I was still stifling my emotions.  I had too.  I couldn't let all that out at once.  It would have torn me apart, so I took on bits and pieces, slowly plodding along, even though compared to everyone else I was practically sprinting. 

I was climbing out of the hole slowly, but surely.  Suffering was the teacher, and the learning was unlearning.  Being institutionalized helped me to forget and unlearn what I had been taught.  When I tell friends this story I often say prison was the best I ever had it up until that point in my life.  It gave me somewhere else to work from other than just abuse.  It gave me an identity. It gave me rules and structure.  I used it to reign myself in.  Just like I used conniving to climb to the top of the social hierarchy, I used prison to reign myself in.  It was better to live by prison rules than the ones I knew from my past.