Sketchy Days...

"Life is suffering"  --Buddha

Calloway County Jail…1993…all bulletproof glass, steel, and cement, all clangs, clicks and buzzes, with green jumpsuits, steel tables bolted to the floor, nasty food and even nastier people. My mother had come to see me for a visit; she was dressed in her Correctional Officers uniform. She had recently worked at the jail I was being held in but now was a guard at a local penitentiary, a promotion you could say. This is often the type of work people do when they never graduate high school. I can't remember if it was the first time she had come to visit me or not, but she had not been to see me more than one other time if this time I speak of was not the first. She of course knew all of the other jailers so they were relatively nice to me considering my angst and attitude at the time. I was young, not even seventeen and half yet. I was being held in a cell block with the most dangerous criminals in the jail, several murderers, two rapists, and hand full of other violent offenders as they liked to call us. I was happy to be able to see someone even though I was not so happy it was my biological mother, but at that time I would take what I could get. I have never liked the woman.

It was only natural that she had a troubled look in her eyes, she was obviously stressed that her oldest son was in jail, and it was a very serious crime too. But as you will soon see, the worry in her eyes was not for me, but for her own self, her worry was about what others would think of her because now they knew she had raised an animal instead of young man. The visitation area was as secure as could be, all glass and telephones, just like on TV, some real life Law and Order. We picked up the phones and began an awkward conversation. Too much time has passed from then to now, so I cannot honestly say I remember how it started, or the exact words, but I remember how it ended. We were discussing the charges being brought against me, lawyer stuff, and bond, what kind of time I was looking at, that kind of thing. Then she informed me that she thought I deserved to be in prison, almost as if she were happy I was going to prison. She basically told me that I deserved to be locked up and that she was not upset that I was ‘going away’ for awhile, she was only embarrassed. I already knew at that time the sentence I would receive would be no less than 10 years because that is the minimum sentence for a class A felony. At that time they were considering giving me a 25 year sentence, or at least that the scare tactic they were using. And according to those in the know at the time, even with the minimum 10 year sentence, most do no less than four to five years. I already knew I was not going to be outside of a fence topped with razor wire for a long time.

I was only 17; I had no real awareness of what was going on at all, not about my inner self or others, not about life at all. I was as ignorant as they come, but applying what I know now, my unconscious mind did very much know what was going on. You see, I had only done what I was raised to do, the fact that I was incarcerated so young was my destiny; I was born to it. Looking back I am surprised that it was not a murder charge instead of an armed robbery charge, I was extremely angry because of the way I was raised. I had no awareness of what was going on inside me; I was only aware that my hands immediately began shaking. There I was in jail, barely 17, fully aware that in a best case scenario I was not going to get out for at least four years, quite possibly six to eight. While all my peers were going away to college I was on my way to prison listening to the one who had raised me to be a criminal, to be an animal really, tell me that I deserved to be there. This was more than my psyche could handle. She had made me into a monster and at the same time condemned me for being so. Our visit ended shortly after this, my emotions were running so wild that my body could not contain them properly. On my way back to my cell block the shaking of my hands continued to get worse. By the time I was in my cell I had lost all control of myself. I do not know how to explain the experience in writing or how to explain it verbally either really; at the time I was simply in shock, a literal shock. You have to understand that my mind has always tried to suppress such things, to not feel those feelings, to rid them from my memory. But in actuality this is not possible. These experiences are extremely painful; I am a human being after all.

How do you explain being abandoned by your biological mother, how do you put words to the helplessness and loneliness of such an experience? Especially after everything that had happened to me leading up to this event; the first 17 years of my life were no less of a nightmare. The guards could tell I was terribly upset and allowed me to go into my cell which is not normally permitted at that time of day. Usually inmates are made to stay out in the cell block during the day and only allowed in their cells at night, but they could tell I was not well, and let me go to my cell. I think one of the jailers tried talking to me for a bit, but they are not equipped to deal with such things, they are typically uneducated working people like my biological mother. But I could not stop crying, and it was not normal crying either, I could not stop my hands from violently shaking. Most of my body was shaking, but in my hands it was crazy. I had lost control of my body and mind, and what remained of my consciousness was only the ability to watch as if from outside myself. Even then I did not know what was happening to me, it was only later when I was sent to a treatment facility within the department of corrections that a psychologist diagnosed me with an anxiety disorder and this only after she personally witnessed me having an anxiety attack while I was there. I can now say I disagree with this diagnosis; I had simply been through too much shit in my life. I had never gotten a break, not until I met Stan anyways.

They say, be careful what you pray for a good reason. I say this, because I pray every day for whatever is best in order for me to be what I am meant to be, I am a spiritual person, and this often means I have to somehow undo what was done to me long ago, so that I can be whole and healed, so that I can be free.

Recent experiences in my life have caused this past trauma to resurface. Recent events have put me in a similar situation. I am obviously no longer the same person I was then. The way I live my life now is completely different; I have put in many years of dedicated hard work to get over the mountain that is my past. My mind is sound now and it is able to realize the truth unlike the 17 year old me. But certain aspects of my emotions never matured along with my mind, certain emotional parts of myself have always been stuck in that day, unable to surface, unable to be healed. Talking doesn't work, thinking about it doesn’t work, and going to a therapist doesn't work either, not for me anyways. I have found though, by experiencing a similar situation, a real life experience, it does allow one to get it out. I have several friends with similar pasts and they confirm this type of growth experience too. They too wish to expand their awareness and grow as a human being; they too wish to be healed of their emotionally traumatic pasts. They, like me, have found the universe bringing to them events so similar to the ones that stunted their emotions that it allows them to get it out so to speak, and like me, having a much more mature mind in the present has enabled them to heal that part of themselves, to get out those negative emotional experiences that they were not mature enough in the past to handle properly. This type of work requires fearlessness because it is not any less painful now than it was then. Without this recent experience, where a mother figure has abandoned me in the face incarceration, I would be forever been locked up emotionally, forever stuck in that certain way, unable to mature my emotions regarding a mother figure. Trapped in my unconscious was this terrible event and only by a similar one in the present am I able to release it from within. It does not seem like a good thing to outsiders, but to be healed, to have a more healthy reaction, often requires a similar negative experience, which is no less painful.

I actively seek out self improvement, I pray for it every day and sometimes that means suffering what would seem negative consequences. In my current situation, I harmed no one, but have found myself subject to the whim of another, but who can know what the universe will bring our way. Weighing this out on the scales though, I will take it. I will take the healing of my past in the face of incarceration, even if it means being incarcerated. When I pray, I pray for whatever it takes, at any cost, in order to be healed, in order to be free. Looking back I can see it obviously, but looking forward, one can never know what will happen. Imagine the chain of events that was required to get me to this point, acquiring a mother figure, and then getting into a situation where a felony charge is being brought against me even though I have harmed no one; I have not even broken the law. I could not have planned such a thing, I could not even have imagined such a thing was possible; with so many minute details and multiple chains of events, the complexity of all the individuals involved and the timing of it all. This makes it extremely difficult to discredit some type of higher power and even more difficult to remove the idea from one’s mind that there is no such thing as good or evil.  It is terribly difficult for me to not see what is happening as negative, but in my heart I know it is not. 

 True freedom requires fearlessness and often a great deal of suffering. One also finds themselves quite alone during these trials. Maybe because no one wants this part of life to be true, but I assure you it is.

No one said life would be easy.

"Out of suffering have emerged the strongest souls; the most massive characters are seared with scars." --Kahlil Gibran