The hole again.

Still no cell mate.  The view out of my thin window was pointless.  I was on the first floor this time, but even if I somehow could break the glass I still wouldn’t have been able to fit through the hole.  I doubt the air would have even been fresh.  Nothing in view but flat grass covered ground with a double strand of fifteen foot high chain link fence, triple roll snag wire atop each, and nothing but bare ground in between.  You can see the sensor line running through the fence.  In the center of the prison is a tower like what you would see at an airport.  It's out of view to the right of my window.  I was told that there is an armed .30-06 in there hoping someone makes it over the fence.  It's all kind of silly really because there is absolutely no way out of that cell, much less out of the building.  Getting through three rolls of snag wire alone would use up all of one’s luck in life, but six?  There is no way out without outside help, and you would need lots of it. 

I was depressed.  I slept for days at a time.  Got to where I could wake up from dreams, eat, then go right back into them.  I would wake up when the food would come through the slot in the door.  Three times a day, every day, without fail, the clank and slamming of the door slots could be heard going down the line.  Thirty minutes later slamming closed all the way down the line.  It's never quiet, yet I could control things in my dreams I slept so much.  There was nothing else to do.  I could only pace so much.  My choice of books was absolutely terrible.  I could only talk to myself so much.  I was just going to try to sleep through it all.  I decided that I was just going to be lost in dreams until it was over.  If I could control my dreams I could turn a living nightmare into anything I wanted. 

I felt certain I was going to Booneville.  It was just a waiting game.  For security reasons they don't tell you where you are going until a week or so ahead of time, if you’re lucky.  They never say when they are moving you, they just show up at your cell and off you go.  That’s exactly how it happened, one day my door clicked, and started sliding open.  A guard appeared at the door and told me to pack up my stuff.  Crowding issues, they needed the cell.  I was told I was going to have a cell mate.  He took me to a different cell block in the same housing unit, and just like that I had a cell mate. 

It's an interesting phenomenon in prison.  Every time I would change locations it was like going to a completely different world even though the physical surroundings were always practically identical.  Even though it was always those same cinder blocks, that same plain beige color everywhere, always concrete floors, everything dirty, everything locked down and secure, the environments were never the same.  In an instant I was in a totally different world.

My cell mate was the guy who got to be out of his cell the most, to clean, and run errands.  He got certain privileges.  He was a calm dude.  I’m sure that because he was getting out so soon it made it much less likely that he would mess with me.  He was smaller than me.  He reminded me of a Smokey and the Bandit kinda guy with that kind of 70’s haircut.  The way he smoked and told stories.  Dukes of Hazard kinda guy.  He too was raised in a small Midwestern town like me.  Those towns are all the same no matter where you go.  He was in there for drinking and driving or petty theft, or something like that.  He was the kind of guy blacks would pick on.  That's probably why he was in the hole.  I don't know for sure because he would never have admitted to something like that.  I sure the hell didn't admit I was in there because the woman who gave birth to me was a cop. 

I was just glad to be a little less alone.  I now had someone to talk to besides myself.  He got to where he hated his job because one of the dudes in a different cell was nasty.  Straight up disgusting.  Sometimes he would be belligerent for hours on end.  Screaming, not making any sense.  It echoes through the whole cell block.  He would shit and piss in his cell.  Shit on food trays and kick them out the slot.  It was whack, and he was the one the guards had clean it up. Sometimes he would be quiet for days at a time, and we felt lucky.  No one knew what was going on in that guys cell. I don't think anyone wanted to know.  The guards were safe and sound up in their control room.  They didn’t care at all if we were up all night because of a madman. 

All and all those big cell blocks were kind of eerie.  Before having a cell mate I was always the only one out in the bay.  The shower was super sketchy; it was a long corridor kind of room with a single shower head at the end.  Even being out in the bay with over fifty other dudes caged in, not knowing who was watching you, it was strange.  Sometimes they would open your door and you would have to walk over to the mic to find out what they wanted because they didn’t want to walk to your cell.  The first time they did that to me I thought I was hallucinating.  Thought I was hearing shit.  My door just slid open and some strange voice was mumbling.  Thought for sure I was dreaming.

Because my celly got to be out of the cell all the time he knew some of the people in a lot of the other cells.  Technically he wasn’t supposed to talk to any of them, or pass things, but they did it anyways.  He had to be sneaky.  He was always talking to others by yelling out the door at the right times.  This really helped me feel some kind of connection with others.  Helped me learn how it works in prison.  He was always bartering and trading different stuff with others.  It was something he loved to do. 

In there the smallest things can make your day. Once we both got violations for making a homemade stinger so we could warm up water.  Hot water is a big luxury in there.  A guard was outside the window and saw us.  We knew we had been busted when we heard the door sliding open later in the evening.  They had the violations written up and ready to go.  They tossed the room down and got all the contraband.  Oh well.  What were they going to do?  Throw us in the hole?

While I was waiting to go to prison for an indeterminate amount of time he was about ready to get out.  His prison experience really helped me out.  Those guards had really freaked me out in Farmington, but my cell mate wasn't a dick, so I trusted his word over theirs.  He affirmed that as long as I didn’t mess with anyone else, minded my business, and stood my ground that I would be just fine.  I knew I had that in me. 

I can't say me and that guy were really ever friends or anything.  We were just forced to spend time together in a cell.  We were nice to each other because we were just decent people.  We invented ways to pass the time, told stories, shared our dreams, talked about our families and girlfriends.  We talked a lot about what we would do when we were out.  It may sound corny but there really isn't anything else to do.  It's like having a brother in a weird kind of way.  I don't even remember the dude’s name.  He ended up being the guy who kept me from being all alone for what would have been long months. He helped me out big in life and didn’t even know it.  Life is crazy.  

I got what I needed most; a cell mate that had firsthand experience of being in prison.  Thanks to this I half way knew what was coming next.  I'd already been working out in my cell.  I'm not afraid to fight. Soon something else good came my way, and I was ready.  I didn’t have to wait six months before I got the news.  It only took a little over four.  I was indeed going to Booneville.  They called Booneville the Thunder Dome; Gladiator School.  In Booneville you don’t have to worry about being stabbed or killed; you just have to be willing to fight.  That had my name written all over it.  It was like I was going home, but this time I was prepared to stick up for myself. I wasn’t a little boy that could just be picked on anymore.  If someone gave me reason I was going to let them have it all.

120 Day Shock

My public defender, in an effort to keep me from going to prison, requested that I be sent to a 120 day drug treatment program within the Dept. of Corrections.  The judge granted this for some reason.  Maybe he just realized on some level that I needed help beyond merely being sent to prison.  I doubt very much he ever had any intention of letting me out after only being gone for four months. 

This program was commonly called "120 Day Shock" and I still believe that to be an accurate term for the program; it was a shock.  It was tremendously stressful in so many ways that from day to day I never knew if I was going to make it or not.  Not physically, but mentally.  I could sleep relatively safe at night, but after about two weeks I was always on the verge of snapping emotionally/mentally.  The only thing that got me through was the constant tease of possibly being able to go home. 

Prison experiences are quite surreal in retrospect.  I find myself saying in my head, "damn, that really happened,"  because it seems so dream like.  Writing about all that time spent in the hole, a part of me cringes inside.  After being out, life being completely different for so long now, it's like a dream.  Have you not had that dream that affects your whole day?  It's like a dream that affects your whole life though.  Even I can't believe now, that I went through this shit.  120 days is only four months, but in that situation it was a very long four months.  The constant stress, the constant emotional turmoil from being forced to deal with my feelings.  My anxiety was pushed to an all-time high.  The stress was on another level.

They do an assessment report on every inmate during the program, and it gets sent to the judge, recommending whether or not a person should get out or not.  This idea forces everyone to follow the rules.  It is a very effective way to control a large number of people.  That is why there really isn't any threat of physical danger.  Getting to go home is held over everyone's head constantly.  There were over one hundred inmates in there, give or take, pretty much at all times.  The facility that I was sent to was inside the Potosi state prison fence.  It was a large metal building painted blue.  The building itself wasn’t as secure as the actual prison.  It didn't need to be.  No one in there wanted to escape.  They will shoot you if you attempt to escape.  One warning shot, then you had better be able to dodge bullets.  The guards are so bored they practically pray someone tries to escape. 

Showing up there was a complete shock to me in all ways.  I had just spent months solitarily confined.  Now I found myself in an open room with over one hundred people in it.  All the bunks were divided up by cubicle walls that were about four and a half feet tall.  Every inmate had a wooden box for his stuff which slid under the bed.  Plywood painted grey.  That was it.  It was literally a rule that it had to be kept locked and there were only certain times it could be open.  There were so many rules.  Any little thing could get you written up.  Inmates that don't follow the rules don't get to go home.  The guards played the game well. 

I shared a cubicle with two other guys most of my stay there.  We all three happened to arrive in the same week.  I was always being treated differently because of my age, so my cubicle was up front and off to the side.  The one guys face was mostly melted.  Almost his whole face was scarred permanently.  It looked like melted wax.  He had been melting copper in his back yard in a kettle.  He was showing off or something and threw some gas in the kettle, which blew out and caught his face on fire.  It was quite a story to hear him tell it.  That guy was a tough mofo.  He said he never screamed or nothing.  Even without him trying to it was an amazing story. 

The other guy was some South Side St. Louis cat with the typical city thug wanna-be attitude.  He was in a total state of denial about his situation, so him and I never got along.  I can’t stand fake people.  He thought he was hot shit, but he had the heart of a house mouse.  All talk. It's easy to be tough when you know no one will fight.  Had freedom not been being held over my head he would not have talked to me like he did.  His tone of voice would have been improved if you know what I mean. 

Every day was the same.  You have to stand a certain way to be counted numerous times every day.  Form lines a certain way to go to chow.  Everything is structured.  Everything is done a certain way.  It was just like public school in a way.  Except in there snitching was practically encouraged.  Forcing all these dudes to be up in their feelings generates tons of drama.  There is always cats trying to get away with shit and always those willing to snitch to get ahead.  It was a really bizarre experience.  Like military/girl scout/therapy/high school drama all crammed into one.   It didn't seem much different than juvy, so many four year olds trapped in grown up bodies. 

I learned a lot about males in there, that they really aren’t any different than females, they just pretend to be.  It’s better to say we are just humans.  That whole idea of acting a certain way because of gender really goes away if you actually pay attention to what people do.  All cooped up like that, a lot of those dudes acted just like a bunch of stereo typical girls.  They acted just like you would expect females to act, speaking the sexist language of this culture; they acted like bitches.  It was fucked up to me.  The stereo typical ego driven male would ridicule me for dealing with my feelings, when to me he is the weak one for being unable to do so. 

My favorite time was rec.  If the weather was nice we would actually get to go outside for an hour.  After months alone in a cell, being outside is glorious.  I craved it.  Being outside with no shackles, or cuffs, with no guard standing directly at my back is beyond glorious.  It was dreamlike.  I would just stare at the sky, and fly free in my mind. 

Back inside though there was no such freedom.  There was no sunlight ever.  Everyone was divided up into groups.  No room had a window.  Each group had a state employee who was kindly dubbed counselor, and that was the only window to the outside world.   These groups were a major source of stress.  Because of the inaccuracy of memory I really can't say if this person was a legit counselor or not.  Most people don’t dream of having her job in life.  It doesn't pay well.  I don’t honestly know if she was a good counselor or not.  She did show me compassion though, and she did give me a chance to talk about myself without judging me.  I think she could tell that I was one that actually wanted to change, but was just really fucked up.  She was also the one who was going to be writing my evaluation and sending it to the judge.

She had to of been in her late forties at least.  Short plump woman.  Blondish old hair styled with big curls.  She always looked tired.  There were always dark circles under her eyes.  It probably made her look much older than she was.  They were trained to not give out personal information at work, so I never really knew anything about her.  They are not supposed to let inmates get to know them.  This is for good reason too.  They are only supposed to get to know us.  Our group had all sorts.  People were always coming and going. 

I will never forget this forty eight year old black guy that would tell stories from the projects.  Those stories let me know not ever to fuck with him.  It wasn't stories you make up to be cool.  This cat was for reals.  You could sense it about him.  I could feel it.  He was like me and always on edge.  His calm is not the same as everyone else's calm.  Whenever she thought it was his turn to talk he would often just look at her and tell her that he was not going to change.  He was a heroin addict.  He did not fuck around. 

That whole being called a pussy thing really made it hard for me to realize that I am straight up sensitive.  I associated it with being weak.  Having associated being sensitive with my sense of masculinity made it difficult to realize what a strength it can be. On one hand is was saving me, but on the other it was wrecking me.  There is no on/off switch.  If I am sitting in proximity to people up in their feelings, no matter how healthy my state of mind, I can feel it too.  I can sense things they don't even know.  I don't know how to turn off the intuition.  Those group sessions were raw.  Matter of fact, it was always raw in there.  That whole place had the vibe of permanent tension.  Most of the people in there were withdrawing in some way shape or form, and everyone of them was stressed about not being home.  We could all sense our freedom.  

Most dudes do not sit around in an open room with a bunch of other dudes and express their feelings so that they can stop using drugs.  The whole focus in there was all about why we do drugs, and not doing them anymore.  Makes me laugh even saying it that way, but that is what they expected.  We were expected to deal with our issues out in the open.  With the person in the room who writes the reports right there in the room, dudes had no choice but to be up in their feelings.  I am too sensitive for all of that.  Way too fucking sensitive, and not only that, I had my own trauma to deal with. Shit was intense. 

I would literally pull the hair out of my legs while sitting in group therapy sessions listening to others deal with their shit.  Dealing with my own.  Just like county jail, there were heroin, meth, cocaine addicts, drunks, whatever drug addiction you could name.  There were even guys who liked to huff gas fumes.  If you could name it, there was a guy in there suffering from it.  When you collect that many people from practically random situations you get a real sense of how much crazy shit happens in the world.  It isn’t like TV in this regard.  The TV doesn't deal with this part.  Sitting in those rooms with those guys, with a counselor assessing us constantly, was in and of itself a cause of high energy.  Essentially she was constantly trying to get us to see our own egos. 

No one is happy when they are not wishing to see their ego.  The person who identifies solely with their ego never likes it pointed out to them.  The ego is always harsh, when it first realizes itself.  She doesn’t have to worry about fighting a guy for calling out his ego though.  Stressed to the max from my environment, trying to assess my own emotions, and dealing with everyone else’s crazy shit; it was overwhelming.  Dudes on edge were everywhere.  How fucked is that?  I missed being alone in a cell. 

There is scientific proof that the feelings one experiences before the memory part of the brain forms has a lasting effect on the nature of a person.  To give an example, a baby that is separated from its mother typically has a negative emotional response when that happens, and for the rest of its life that person will have a greater sense of rejection in social experiences even though that person will have no memory whatsoever of that experience.  The part of the brain that remembers wasn’t developed yet when the separation occurred, but the human still knows it happened.  Every human being is the exact result of the experiences in which it has been through, but this too is only one of the layers to the total person.  I didn't know it then that I was one of those children.  I couldn’t formulate the thought fully yet, but I was in the beginnings of dealing with this knowledge psychologically.

Despite all the stress I was learning very valuable information.  Not only was I learning but I was applying it too.  Analyzing what the counselor was doing in group taught me some psychology.  I had access to psychology books as well.  Instead of Comp I, or Calc, I was taking Hard Knocks 101.  If you want a real education go to a prison and sit in on some forced group therapy sessions for a few months. It’s not a small number, the people in the world who have been shit on in life.  For the first time in my life I was getting to see a big part of the world that I never knew existed.  I've come to learn there are a lot of people who don’t know it exists.  Like Steinbeck in the Grape of Wrath, I was watching it all unfold right in front of me.  All of these people had been thrown under the bus. 

One day while going through the routine a guard came and got me out of nowhere.  He said they needed to talk to me in the office.  That is very weird.  Maybe someone died or something.  During the walk I was worrying about my grandmother.  I was taken to my counselor’s office.  The guards and counselors offices are up on a platform along one side of the big open room where all the cubicles are.  They sit up higher so that the whole room of bunks can be seen more easily through the glass.  There is no privacy.  When I got to her office the two guards didn't turn to leave.  That’s strange too.  I'm nervous now.  Something is wrong.  The hair on the back of my neck is standing.  There was an older guard that worked days who was actually a decent guy.  He was always nice to everyone, but still did his job kinda thing.  He showed respect, and always got it back in return.  He had a way of talking to people.  He was giving me a talk about being calm.

It always makes me laugh when people think I can be calm.  My calm just isn’t what most people think of as calm, that’s all. It always makes people nervous.  Some people just can't accept it.  They always think something is wrong with you if you can't be as calm as they think you should be.  The crazy eyes don't have an off switch. 

Turns out my girlfriend was pregnant, and they were getting to be the bearers of the bad news.  Obviously it wasn't going to be my baby.  Knowing me for my antics she decided to contact them ahead of me, so there my counselor sat with the letter in her hands.  She didn't want me flipping out and fucking up my chance of getting out, but had to tell me.  She didn't need to worry.  I didn't flip out.  I always knew it was only a matter of time.  I wasn’t even mad.  I was just hurt.  They didn't get it.  Didn't you know a man is supposed to be upset if "his" girl has sex with someone else? 

I wasn't upset because she was sleeping with other people.  I wasn't a complete idiot.  I knew my eighteen year old girl friend was not going to be monogamous with me being in prison.  I was an idiot but I wasn’t completely stupid.  I was upset because she was all I had on the outside.  If I lost her there was nothing; no one else.  Her and I wrote letters constantly.  She came to visit me whenever I could have visits.  She took my phone calls whenever I could call.  Lover or not she was my best friend.  She was the only friend I had.   She was much more to me than just sex.  My heart was broken.  I thought this meant she was gone from me forever.  It's not difficult to just leave behind a guy who is in prison. 

I had another anxiety attack a few days later.  The severity of my situation was really bearing down on me.  In line waiting for lunch my hands just started shaking again.  Before I got to my seat with my tray my hands were out of control.  I couldn’t hide what was happening.  I was trapped.  I wasn’t going to get out.  I’d lost all contact with the outside world.  A guard noticed me.  He said I had gone pale, and then saw my hands.  I couldn’t really tell what was going on.  I just complied.  He pulled me out of the chow hall and took me to my cubicle.  He was going to get someone else.  I couldn't say that I needed to be alone.  That I needed to be in a cell.  I wasn’t going to be able to keep myself from crying.  Of all the places to be an emotional person; prison is not the place.

I was taken to see my counselor.  She informed me that I had an anxiety disorder, but I told her I wouldn’t be taking any medication.  I refused to be labeled in such a way.  I wasn’t going to sign myself up to see a psychiatrist.  I didn’t want it on record in my file, that kind of information.  I was just going to deal with it.  It helped me just giving it a name, but in my mind she wasn't qualified to hand that label out.  I did however give me a place to start. It was perfectly natural that I was filled with anxiety. 

I was not recommended to be released on probation.  All in all I knew this was a good call.  In my heart I always knew I was not going to get probation.  I robbed a freaking bank.  You don’t get probation for robbing a bank.  I also knew that the progress I had made in that shock program just wasn’t enough.  I was not bitter about the decision because I knew if they let me out I would have been right back in, or worse, I would have ended up being that guy who just repeats the cycle.  With all my being I did not want to be that guy. 

After that it was a bad dream for a while.  The stress got even worse.  I wasn’t in physical danger yet, but it was constantly being thrown in my face that soon I would be.  My age was being pointed out to me, verbally, in front of others.  Somehow I ended up in the Farmington treatment center while waiting to go back to FRDC.  It was a nightmare.  The average age there was much higher. The guards at Farmington fucked with me a lot.  They were constantly shoving it in my face how much I was going to love prison since I had been denied getting out.  Always rubbing it in my face that I failed.  It was every man for himself now, and they made sure I knew it.  The rules of the game changed once again. 

It's like a dream now.  All those super stressful days; day after day.  It's in my head, but it's just like waking up after a dream and it immediately fades away.  All those little details simply fade away before I can write them down.  I know what happened, but I don't really want to remember it anymore.  It's all just stress.  Tons and tons of stress.  I needed a break from the stress. 

Waiting to go back to FRDC meant going back into the hole.  They were saying it could be up to six months before there would be a bed open at Booneville.  Everyone kept telling me that because of my age I would go to Booneville.  Booneville Correctional Center is mostly for cats twenty five and under with less than fifteen year sentences.  I fit that description, but six more months in the hole waiting?  Six months was going to be too much.  Even I knew six more months all alone was going to have a negative effect on me. I was learning the hard way that some things just can’t be undone. 

Hatred saved my life.

If I had not turned all the energy of my hate directly towards the people who brought me into the world I never would have made it.  That's a very sharp double edged sword, because learning to hate has to be undone too, which in and of itself bears considerable consequences.  The fact that they deserved my hatred did not negate the affects of holding it for so long.  People would tell me all the time that I needed to let go of the hatred I had for the people who brought me into this world. They just didn’t understand.

It's true I was shedding my temper while sitting in the hole, but at the same time I was gathering something else.  Pure animosity for those who caused my situation in life was in full effect, and growing every day.  Every single second of my day was a reminder of what they did to my life.  Sitting in the hole was the first time I had ever looked back on my life from outside of it.  Sitting in the hole gave me a vantage point of my past that I had never had before.  As a kid I always thought everyone was raised like me, that everyone else was like I was.  For the first time I truly realized what had happened to me, and it filled me with rage.  Had I been free when that realization came to me they would not have survived the week. 

I have always been tremendously stubborn about not letting go of that hate; I was right to hate them.  To say I love those people would be to have Stockholm syndrome.  Loving my abusers just isn’t an option.  No way, no how.  My personality can practically be defined for my ability to stick up for myself.  Those people are worthy of hate.   When people decide to treat a child the way I was treated, they deserve to be hated.  The way to raise children appropriately has been known for thousands of years.  It's not a secret.  By not hating them, I would be condoning their behavior, even if it was in degrees.  That’s not an option.  Some things in life are black and white.  Child abuse is one of those things.  Tolerance is not an option to someone who needs to be able to look themselves in the eyes and at the same time love who they see.  No one who truly has love for their self accepts abuse suffered.

If I were to beat, choke, humiliate, neglect, and abuse your child, to the point that it permanently affected the rest of your child's life, would you want me around after the fact?  What would you do to me?  What do you do when you are that child?   I've known many people in life who justify their own abuse as being acceptable simply because they want to maintain an ideal of having a mom or dad.  Somehow because one shares genetics with their abuser that abuse is suddenly acceptable?  For myself I cannot accept that.  The seventeen year old me was not able to forgive them.  Hatred of them filled my mind. 

To me now, it is not a matter of forgiveness; I have forgiven them.  I can totally understand how in complete ignorance they did what they did.  I too did a great many ignorant things, and looking back cannot see how I could have done any different.  It was all I knew.  I can look at their parents too, and how they were raised, and see clearly why they did what they did.  I can see in myself, that no matter how hard I tried, I still ended up being like my parents in what to me are horrible ways.  But does this level of empathy somehow absolve them of what they did?  Does it absolve me of my wrongs if you were to have empathy for my situation?  It does not.  I can forgive them and at the same time still hold them accountable.  Forgiveness does not wipe the slate clean. 

I've spent most of my life constantly seeking an answer to the biological parent situation.  I spent a whole decade asking those I looked up to about what I should do about them.  I'd ask strangers, anyone, I didn't care.  I just wanted to resolve the issue.  How was I to view the situation, so that I could come to terms with it?  No one ever gave me an answer.  It was something I had to do for myself.  I do not speak to them anymore.  Every time I would be around them, or have to deal with them, it would only bring the hatred back.  Every time I was suffering in life due to their actions, my mind would be consumed with bitterness.  Not only did I have to let it go, but I had to let them go as well. 

Unfortunately there were many times throughout my life where the hatred almost did consume me to my own detriment.  I spent most of my life wishing for their death.  Why couldn't they just die?  Would my bitterness die with them?  I will be greatly relieved when they finally pass, because then when people ask me about my parents I can simply respond that they are dead and the conversation will be over.  As it is now, I have to explain how and why I do not have a relationship with my biological parents if I am ever questioned intently, or else lie.  This scenario is just more fuel for the fire.

I have spent almost all of my life undoing what they did to me.  Hatred was the only thing that got me through most of it.  It kept me going when nothing else did.  If I had not hated them so much I would have settled and been like them.  It didn’t allow me to slide, or settle, or accept any aspects of myself that were like them.  Still to this day whenever I catch myself doing something as a result of what they did to me, it fuels my fire.  It always makes me try harder.  Hatred was my outlet for the frustration, the suffering, it's an outlet for the negative impact of those people on my life.  My hatred of them kept me from hating myself.  It was an energy that had to be dealt with.  I turned it towards them instead of in on myself.  I wanted to destroy them, not me.  I wanted what they put in me out.

I choose to be the exact opposite of them; I take responsibility for my actions.  My ignorance was no excuse for harming others.  To those that I have wronged in life due to my ignorance, all I can say is, I put more energy into improving myself than anyone I know, and I do this in order to say I am sorry.  I show that I am sorry not by saying it, but by stopping doing those things to anyone anywhere anymore.  I show it with my actions.  Just like them, I can say, I didn't know any better, and that I did my best, but unlike them, I do not use it as an excuse.  Sometimes our best is not good enough, and so we must compensate for our actions.  It is not enough to completely screw someone over and then say "well, I did my best." It is not enough to say "well, sorry that happened," and then continue doing the same old shit.  When I am wrong, when I have harmed others, I immediately go to righting it; this is how I say I am sorry. 

They have never done this.  They have never even tried.  As I sat in the hole for months, dwelling on my situation, I vowed to myself to never be like them.  I was going to put my whole being into it.  I'd have to undo the hatred another day, because back then it was all I had.  Hatred and I shook hands.  We made a deal.  Hatred and I became one in the same.  I focused it on people whom I couldn't get to, which meant everyone else was safe.  No more lashing out at the world.  No more uncontrollable outbreaks.  Now my rage finally had an appropriate target.  Now it was all about not being like them.  Nothing else really mattered. 

The day finally came.

The day finally came.  We had about a week and a half notice that our position in line was coming any day.  I had been sentenced to ten years in the Dept. of Corrections for 1st Degree Assault, 1st Degree Armed Robbery, and Armed Criminal Action.  Because of my age I got the minimum sentence.  Somehow my public defender finagled a way for me to go into a 120 day treatment facility within the prison system.  It gave me some hope that I could get out, but I wasn’t really buying it.  They weren't going to let me out after less than a year for robbing a bank.  That kind of thing only happens for rich people.  Please realize I am not bitter now, like I was then, but that really is how it works in this broken culture.  Judges are as crooked and ignorant as the rest they simply have acquired power.

Showing fear while incarcerated simply is not an option.  It's like immediate spiritual karma; fear gets one harmed.  Showing fear is the worst possible thing one can do.  It didn't matter that I was only seventeen.  It didn't matter that my parents were cops.  It didn't matter that I was in way over my head.  I simply could not show fear.  I pumped myself up so much so that I didn't feel the fear.  The truth is I had no idea what to expect.

There were at least twenty other inmates being received that day.  The place was just like the jail with the cinder blocks, glass, and steel bolted down everywhere.  We were all put into a big holding room and made to strip down.  After being stripped searched we were all left naked in that room while waiting to be processed.  We didn't even get to keep towels on while we waited.  Privacy does not exist in prison.  One at a time they would call out a name.  They were handing out rule books, prison ID cards, clothes, doing physical examinations, that kind of stuff. 

Everyone sizing everyone up, which never ever stops in prison; ever.   Prison is much like being with a woman; if you relax at all you are going to get fucked over.  It had to be obvious as could be that I was just a kid.  People were already talking about how young I looked.  My partner was sitting next to me.  He just told me to keep quiet. 

There were several different rooms where these various things were happening.  One room for the ID, one for the physical, one for checking in possessions, etc.  While sitting in one of the rooms talking to a guard about my possessions another inmate grabbed my bag and took the carton of cigarettes out of it.  Even the guard didn't notice it happen.  As soon as I realized it had happened I started running my mouth.  Naturally it was the biggest dude in the whole group who took them, and he too was in there for some serious shit.  I found out later that he had been down several times already so he didn’t really give a shit.  In prison one's ID number is equated with a certain degree of respect.  The older the number the more respect.  This cat had an old number.  All I was thinking was that I wasn't going to let my shit get stolen right off the get, whether I was a kid or not, I was going to stick up for myself.

Holy shit I was in way over my head.  My first two hours in prison was fucking scary.  I might as well have been floating all alone out in the middle of the ocean with the sharks circling my feet.  Might as well have dropped me off in the middle of a jungle somewhere.  Cats were going to be after me for no other reason that my age.  Survival seems to be mostly luck in these kinds of situations. 

The guards were immediately in my business because I was openly running my mouth.  Somehow they got my smokes back from the dude.  Writing this I still feel sketched inside.  Even now, as I am with several years training to cage fight that guy would be a hand full.  I had no idea how badly my life was in danger.  It was all happening so fast.  Then my name got called for the next step in the receiving process.  They were checking me in.  In prison there are certain status' that no one wants and being checked in is one of those.  Being checked in means that one is being segregated from the main population for one's own protection.  Being checked in is completely viewed as weakness. 

Even locked away in prison this bitch was still fucking up my life, but looking back it wasn’t the worst thing that could have happened to me.  I just really hated the bitch. 

My name was flagged; my file had red tape on it because JoAnn was a correctional officer.  It is their policy to not allow those with family as prison employees into general population.  If someone wanted to bribe her, or control her, or pay her back, or whatever, they could get at me to do so.  I was only pissed that they did it right in front of everyone.  I got checked in publicly.  I might as well have just acted afraid.  I was cussing at the cops for doing it that way.  They didn’t care.

Back into the hole I go.  It would be months before being sent to that treatment program.  Everything in prison has a waiting line.  Prison is different than the county jail though.  In jail they force you to come out of your cell all day.  In prison they force you to stay in it.  I was allowed out of my cell for thirty minutes every day for a shower and to walk around the cell block.  It’s inhumane to keep someone locked up 24/7.  The other difference was the number of cells per cell block.  Each cell block had nearly fifty inmates.  In prison it is never quiet.  Never.  Being in the hole in prison was much more dramatic than in jail.  Not even the people who bring around the food talk to you.  The guards never talk to you when they do their counts. 

Their job is to make sure no one dies, which happens more than you would think.  An old man died in my cell block in those first months.  He was in the hole for similar reasons as me.  His age prevented him from being able to protect himself.  I couldn’t help but wonder though, if I would be like him and never leave my cell either.  The inmate who was allowed out of his cell complained bitterly about having to clean out the dead guy’s cell.  The guards told him they would take away his freedom if he didn’t.  He cleaned that cell. 

Each cell block had an inmate that was allowed out more than the half an hour a day everyone else got.  He was responsible for cleaning and running errands for the guards.  This was the only person that really ever talked to me.  He wanted my Kool cigarettes.  I really didn’t care what I smoked as long as I had something to smoke, so he and I traded cigs until I ran out.  I quickly figured out I could get twice as many cheap cigarettes for my name brand ones.  He would always try to run game on me, but it is pretty safe business bartering through a door that does not ever open.  He couldn't do shit to me for telling him no if I didn’t like his offers. 

This is also when I found The Grapes of Wrath.  It was just sitting on the book shelf in the cell block.  It was just a small book shelf.  Three shelves maybe three feet long.  It's kind of like being hungry; the hungrier one is the better things taste.  The more bored one is the better a book will seem.  It always has seemed to me that the books I need somehow are always there.  Forever after books have had a way of finding themselves in my hand.  The right book at just the right time.  It happens to me so much I almost expect it.  Locked down as I was I really had no choice but to face my own self.  Besides reading there was nothing else to do.  I wasn’t allowed to have a cell mate, so there wasn’t anyone else to face.  Those were long months.  Lonely business that was, even though it saved me. 

There were a few times that I would be allowed out of my cell for more than the daily thirty minutes.  These were exciting times.  It always seemed random too.  Part of what happens at FRDC is that one is accessed to see which prison they should go to, and even though I was going into this treatment program they still had to do their evaluations.  They do several different kinds of these in the months spent waiting in line.  Education, mental health, personality type, that kind of stuff.  They have you take all kinds of tests.

It didn’t take them long to figure out what they were dealing with because I was never one to hide the fact that I had been raised violently.  I was so bitter and angry about it that I would speak harsh words regarding that situation to anyone, any chance I got.  Upon them hearing this information I was required to meet with a councilor every so often. 

One of the initial people who evaluated me was an older woman.  She didn't seem to have the same shit attitude towards inmates that most in the prison system have.  She saved my life and I doubt she had any clue that she had done so.  She was questioning me about my experiences so far being incarcerated, the charges, about my past, that kind of thing.  She could obviously tell that I had a fierce temper.  I learned it from those who raised me.  It was a deep part of me.  She just calmly looked me in the eyes and told me point blank that if I did not reign in my temper that prison was going to be a long haul.  She explained that my life would be in danger with such a temper.  The rules of life had changed.  She informed me that if I did not do something about my temper that I would have no chance of ever getting out.  I had no choice but to heed her words. 

That was my first experience of shedding a part of my self.  I did it all alone too.  When I came out of that stretch of solitary confinement I had reduced my temper to something I could control.  I'm not saying that I never got angry and lashed out, but that it was now controlled when I did so.  You see, it was safe for me to cry in there.  No one thinks you’re weak for crying if no one sees you cry.  There wasn't anyone in there to call me a pussy for having feelings.   I had to mourn a part of myself, not my true self, but a part of myself that I had created to survive.  I was mourning it because I was getting rid of it.  For the first time in my life I changed myself.  My temper had been something I identified with deeply.  It was a sense of self preservation, something I used to keep me safe, it was the chest plate of my façade.  That suit of armor though was as outdated as the real thing.  I had to let it go or I wasn't going to make it.

This experience was much like figuring out that I am someone who needs to be alone.  How in the outside world would I ever have reigned in my temper?  The dude who got JoAnn pregnant never reigned in his.  He still has it to this day.  The step dad who abused me never reigned in his.  How would I have learned to reign in mine on the outside?  In the free world I would have been another runaway train doomed to a white trash life.  In prison it was get my shit together or potentially not make it.  For the first time in my life I did the right thing. 

I hadn't formulated it entirely in my consciousness yet, but my energy was no longer about destroying myself.  I turned that energy into not being like them.  No other decision I have ever made was as important as that one.  I just had no idea how difficult that path was going to be.  It's not like I really had much choice.  If I didn't take action I was going to be just like the people I hated more than anything in life.  That just wasn't an option for me.  

My first anxiety attack

I have her bright blue eyes.  It was surreal that day, like looking into my own eyes.  This would be a pivotal moment in my life. In this way we were the same; she had succeeded in making me as ignorant as she was.  She had completed the circle of abuse by fully passing it on to me.  This moment marked the passing of the torch. She was relieving herself of her first victim in life.

The visiting room is the same as the rest of the jail, all bulletproof glass, steel, and cinder blocks painted pale beige.  No moveable furniture. Nothing comfortable. A row of booths, small bolted down metal stools with a short wall between them.  No privacy. A phone on both sides of the glass.  No physical contact is allowed.  I could see her through the glass as I waited for the door to click, clang, and buzz loudly so I could get through.   The woman who gave birth to me had come to see me for a visit; she was dressed in her newly acquired Correctional Officers uniform.  She was proud of her new job.

This bitch didn’t care about my safety at all.  Surprised? The real question is why was I surprised? It's never good to be seen conversing with a cop.  Never. How could she have been involved with the justice system for so long and not even have enough sense regarding my personal safety to take that uniform off before visiting me.  She wanted the other guards to see her new attire. There were at least ten other inmates in that visiting room, and there I was, the only one talking to a cop.   

Considering how she raised me it wouldn’t be crazy to say on a deep level she simply wished I didn’t exist.  On a deep level she probably wanted me to die.  It made her feel better to make sure I knew what a problem in her life I was.  It kept her from taking responsibility for her own actions.

You see, she had recently worked at the jail I was being held in, but now was a guard at a real deal penitentiary.  It was a promotion for her.  She liked to brag about the benefits that the state government provides for state employees.  She was super proud. She didn't even have a high school diploma, but she got herself good health insurance.

This was her first visit to see me.  We had talked on the phone, so she knew 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.  She had probably been talking to one of her fuck buddies at the jail still.  Maybe that is why she kept her uniform on. 

Maybe her unconscious just wanted to be rid of me for good.  It's dangerous business being labeled a snitch, which is exactly what happens if one converses openly with cops.  It was weird to me because I was happy to be able to see someone I knew even though I was not so happy it was the person who put me there, but at that time I would take what I could get.  Isn't the monkey suit a funny thing? You know it is bad when you are happy to see someone has ruined your life. They call this Stockholm Syndrome.

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 serious crime too. I knew though that the worry in her eyes was not for me, but for her own self.  She never worried about me.  She only ever worried about herself.  This woman was, and still is, the text book definition of a narcissist. Her worry was about what others would think of her because now they knew she had raised an animal instead of young man.  She was scared that word would get out what a horrible person she was.  It is the reason to this day she is still the same ignorant person; she cannot face her own self in the mirror so she just continues to lie to herself and blame others.

Staring into her bright blue eyes we picked up the phones and began an awkward conversation. Too much time has passed from then to now, so I cannot remember the small talk, but I remember how it ended. We were discussing the charges being brought against me, lawyer stuff, bond that no one was going to post, what kind of time I was looking at, that kind of thing. As we talked 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. 

Even though she didn't say it to my face she was only actually 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 35 year sentence, or at least that was their scare tactic. 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 knew I was not going to be outside of a fence topped with razor wire for a long time.

This was only a thought though. The reality of it was no where near settling into my mind. 

As she explained to me that I deserved to be caged like an animal my mind was spinning out of control.  I felt the snap inside. Something broke. It was all crashing down around me.  The reality that was my life could no longer be shoved aside by my conscious mind.  Deep down I was terrified.  I was lost.  My life as I knew it was completely over, and the one person in the world who was supposed to love me no matter what just condemned me to prison right to my face.  

 I so desperately needed someone to help me in life.  I'm forty two now, and I still feel this way. As I looked into my own blue eyes I lost it all.  My hands began shaking.  They wouldn't stop.  I couldn’t cry right then.  I couldn’t give her the satisfaction..  I couldn't show fear.  The visit came to an end and the jailer escorted me back to the cell block.

By the time I got to the cell block my hands were visibly shaking.  I simply couldn't make it stop.  I couldn't think.  It was like a lucid dream.  I was watching from outside myself.  My will over my body was gone. My facade was cracking.  Correction.  My facade was broken.  The sobbing was coming and there wasn't anything I could have done to stop it.  I've never seen my hands shake like that.  I didn't know my hands even could shake like that.  I had lost control of my body.  I learned months later that this is called an anxiety attack in the psychological world. 

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 it would be 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, tell me that I deserved to be there. This was more than my psyche could handle. How could I not hate her with all my being?  How could I not be bitter?  She had made me into a monster and at the same time condemned me for being so.

My emotions were running so wild that my body could not contain them properly.  I do not know how to explain the experience; at the time I was simply in shock, a literal shock. My mind had always tried to suppress such things, to not feel those feelings, to rid them from my memory. Only pussies have feelings don't you know? These experiences are extremely painful; I am a human being after all.

How do you explain being abandoned by your 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.  I needed someone to save me desperately, but in reality it was only going to get worse; no one was going to rescue me. 

I must have really been shaken up because even the guards could tell something was wrong with me.   Maybe they listened in on the visit.  They 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, so let me go to my cell.

Those walky talky speakers are imbedded into the wall of each cell in case of emergency.  I think they were listening to me while I was in my cell alone.  I could not contain the sobbing.  I think one of the jailers tried talking to me for a bit, but they are not equipped to deal with such things. I refused to talk to anyone else.  It was bad enough I had just been seen talking to a cop in the visiting room.  

My life depended on not appearing weak.  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.  I was alive, yet it was a dream.  I did not know what was happening to me.  Perhaps temporarily a part of me died that day.  If that is true it would be a long time before I got it back. 

Experiences in my life seventeen years later caused this past trauma to resurface. Perhaps it was always there below my consciousness waiting to get out.  These more recent events put me in a miraculously similar situation. I obviously changed, no longer that same person I was then. The way I lived my life was completely different.  I had put in many years of dedicated hard work to get over the mountain that is my past, leading up to this dramatically similar situation. My mind was much sounder and it was able to realize the truth unlike the seventeen year old me. I should say, it was capable of handling a little more of the truth.

Obviously, 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. It hurt me too much.  A weak mind cannot handle such pain.  How could I have been any weaker? I couldn't even control my own hands. In the face of such pain I broke.  I believe that is why I spent my entire twenties trying to fill that hole; I simply couldn't face it. My own mother doesn't even give a shit about me.

Talking doesn't work, thinking about it doesn’t work, and going to a therapist doesn't work either, not for me anyways. I tried everything and nothing worked.  Even writing out my story in this way does not really release the trauma.  It's on another level. 

Finding myself in a similar experience, an almost identical real life experience, does however allow one to rub salt on the wound. Keeps it from getting more infected. It practically forces it on you.  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.  If it is faced courageously it brings about healing.  Like me, having a much more matured mind in the present enabled them to heal that part of themselves that had become stuck due to trauma.  It allows us to get out those negative emotional experiences that we were not mature enough in the past to handle properly.

Like I said, I'm forty two now sitting in a public library editing this again. Matter of fact, I'm in the same spot now as then, waiting for someone to come help me out.  Wishing I could call my mother.

Back then I simply could not wrap my conscious mind around what was going on, but my unconscious mind and body knew exactly what was going on, and my body/mind simply could not contain the energy.  I was not only trapped in jail, I was also trapped in my own body, my own mind, with nowhere to go.   It was suppress it or die.  I had to temporarily leave my body behind or perish psychically. 

Later in life though it became a matter of undoing the suppression or fail at my goals in life.  That simply was not, and is not, an option.  Trapped in my unconscious was this terrible event and only by a similar one in the present was I able to release it from within.  At least I thought I had released it. Here now, editing this again, at forty two, I feel like I am in the same exact spot, just no surrogate mother figure this time.

It does not seem like a good thing to outsiders to intentionally own up to such pain. Most people will tell you to avoid pain, but to be healed, to have a more healthy reaction, required a similar experience which was no less painful than the original. Almost everyone always advises to avoid painful experiences, but how else can one grow?  A lot of people always acts like I am doing something wrong because I run head long into painful experiences.  No one grows while in comfort.  No one grows believing lies.  Having never healed that moment in myself I would only be lying if I said I was a healthy person. 

As I am now I perpetually seek out self-improvement. I pray for it every day and sometimes that means suffering what would seem negative consequences.  My new mother figure was actively criticizing me for my actions.  Don't do this, don't do that, they would say.  Telling me to avoid the suffering.  I found myself at the whim of another woman, exactly as I was back then.  Who can know what the universe will bring our way?  I was praying to be healed and whole, and that is exactly what I got, which meant shedding a mother figure and coming to terms with the fact that I will never have a mother. 

I probably still yearn for a mother. I've always wanted a mother. Why can't I stop wishing for a mother? This happened so long ago.

Those criticizing me were not praying for themselves in such a way, which is precisely why they did not understand.  Weighing this out on the scales though, I will take it, the suffering and the criticism. If taking all that pain and releasing it means I get to live the life I dream of I will suffer it gladly.  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 next.  At the very best it is a guess. It's so easy to come up with a story for why things happened. Can you imagine the chain of events that was required to get me back to this point seventeen years later?  Acquiring a mother figure, being in love with a girl, and then getting into a situation where a felony charge was being brought against me, only to be abandoned by said love and mother figure.  I hadn’t even really broken the law.  I really hadn't harmed anyone at all.  I simply stood up for myself, which was exactly what I was supposed to do.  That was what the seventeen year old me should have done.  It was all for the cause.  I went through those experiences only to be betrayed and abandoned all over again, but this time I stood up for myself. I could not have planned such a thing consciously even if I wanted to.  I could not even of imagined such a thing with so many minute details and multiple chains of events. 

The synchronicity of those events is mind boggling.  The complexity of all the individuals involved and the timing of it all is a miracle in its own right. 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. With all of that pain how can it not be seen negatively in some way?  Spiritual life is not easy.   Perhaps I will tell the story of that wanna-be mother figure later.  Now that it is all over she doesn't seem that significant any longer.  I was merely attempting to fill a hole that is not fillable by anyone but myself. If only I knew how to fill it.

True freedom requires fearlessness and a great deal of suffering. One also often finds themselves quite alone during these trials, which is exactly how it should be. Maybe it's because no one wants this to be true that they avoid it like the plague, but I assure you it is true.

I see no end in sight.