THE AGONY AND LONELINESS OF PRISON

 The hardest part of being in prison for thirty years is the loneliness I feel every second of every day. Nothing screams at your spiritual and emotional self like loneliness. The crippling affects of it makes me regret every bad decision I have ever made in my life. Being alone without the benefit of running into the arms of compassion and love made everyday unbearable to live through. When I needed a physical hug from my mother or sister when I first came to prison in 1992, they weren't able to give it to me. Prison had literally killed off that emotional connection and replaced it with a letter or phone call because I was to far for my mother to travel because she didn't own a car. The hugs she wanted to give to her second born son became a suspension of desire which did not manifest into fruition until years later.

I was lonely in those moments and I actually craved death many times because the agony of prison coupled with the deprivation of my freedom was psychologically debilitating. I lost clarity of thought many times during the course of my confinement, and even though I outwardly maintained strength and defiance for my circumstances, internally I was screaming at the tops of my lungs for help and relief. But in those days and even now, it wasn't popular to express those feelings to anyone, especially the Michigan Department of Corrections (MDOC). I've seen how they respond to those kind of thoughts and feelings, they pump you full of drugs until it's impossible for you to remember your own name and I couldn't let that happen. So instead, I carried and concealed my trauma underneath the umbrella of my strength for a great number of years.

But that only produced a deeper level of pain inside of me as time continued to move. I had no healthy outlet to release my trauma, so there was no freedom for my pain. My life was one dimensional, prison, prison, and more prison. On every level of my existence I was locked up emotionally, physically, spiritually and mentally. I didn't even posses the autonomy of mind because it too was full of failures, disbelief and depression. I didn't know a person such as myself could be depressed or even lonely for that matter. But as I searched through my life retrospectively, I came to realize that I was depressed long before prison.

Prison only amplified what I was experiencing as it related to trauma and pain, and it also excavated the deepness of my suffering by forcing me to live that trauma day in and day out. Coming from an already violent and abusive upbringing, prison was no different for me. I remember being at this prison called Michigan Reformatory (gladiator school) at 19, and it was extremely violent. The first day there, I was walking to the mess hall for dinner when a guy behind me tapped on my shoulder. When I turned around, he had his finger in front of his lips shushing me to be quiet as he was trying to get in front of me. I moved and let him pass and he pulled out this long shank and started stabbing the guy in front of me. Blood squirted everywhere as this grown man screamed for his life. He left the guy on the ground bleeding and went to eat. I never forgot that moment because as I sat in the mess hall, I couldn't eat. Instead of being afraid of what happened, I was plotting on how to get myself a shank because I wasn't about to let that happen to me. To this day, I have never been stabbed in prison.

A normal person would be asking, how could those be the thoughts of a 19 year old male in prison for the first time of his life? How could violence be so normalized when I should be repulsed and disturbed by it? I believe it had to do with the atmosphere I was raised in where violence, abuse and crime were all star qualities. I adapted because I had no other choice, I dropped out of school in the seventh grade and only the streets were willing to accept me because my propensity for doing wrong was up to par. I was surrounded by people that repeatedly said "only the strong" survive the ghetto, so a person had to do whatever he had to in order to fit that criteria. I realize now that I gravitated towards the weakness of myself because at that time in my life, I didn't possess the individual strength or know how to deal with my trauma and pain so that I could transform those weaknesses into opportunities.

Prison was no different than the neighborhoods I lived in as a kid. The neighborhoods was a physical pain, torture and deprivation, while prison was a mental and emotional one. The barbed wire fences were visible in prison, invisible where I lived so certain places you couldn't go and certain things you couldn't do.. I knew right off the bat that I was in the kind of hell that didn't wait for you to be physically dead to inflict it's torment, this hell was among the living and it played on your emotional and mental strings until there were no strings left to play.

The agony and loneliness of my incarceration was not just the result of my crime and my subsequent prison sentence, it was the result of nefarious people who took it upon themselves to destroy me because they were filled with the kind of evil that is designed to break and kill the spirit of man/woman. This evil works towards my demise every single day. I use to think that I deserved prison based on the choices I made to get here, but after experiencing the actions of these people, I changed my mind real quick. These people are malicious in every aspect when it comes to the treatment of prisoners. If you cannot mentally defend yourself against their attacks, you will be reduced to a shell of a person who's incapable of intelligently comprehending what's happening to them.

I witnessed this wickedness first hand every time I went to segregation. Segregation is a twenty-four hour a day lockdown when you are on detention. You do not come out of your cell except to take a shower for five minutes three times a week. Administrative segregation is a twenty-three hour a day lockdown with one hour available for yard. A person could be on administrative segregation for months or even years before they saw general population again. I have spent my fair share of time on this twenty-three hour lockdown cycle that pulled at my wits. I almost didn't make it out of there with my sanity in tow.

The kind of thoughts and feelings I had during those times were indescribable. I use to pace around this tiny cell and have whole conversations with myself, and I even responded as though I was talking to somebody else. It seemed as if I ran through every scenario of my life during those lonely and painful times. And when I was mad enough, I punched the brick wall repeatedly to release the anger I felt for allowing myself to not only be in segregation, but prison altogether. I had to do something because I was starting to lose my mind in this very tight space with nothing but my thoughts to keep me company. I needed an outlet and fast because I was on the verge of a complete meltdown!

The screams of prisoners being gas with a chemical agent, slammed on the ground by six or seven correctional officers was ringing loudly in my ear. Everyday I saw and heard some of the toughest guys throwing feces, flooding their cells, being strapped down to their beds and going on hunger strikes because again, everyone is not strong enough to withstand the mental attacks inflicted upon them as the result of their imprisonment. Administrative segregation brought out the worst in a person, and oftentimes, the longer you stayed, the harder it became to maintain your sense of self within such darkness. I was almost at the point of no return as I suffered and battled the demons inside and outside of my cell.

If not for the tears that regularly fell from my eyes in those lonely and dark moments, I would of never known that I was even a human being. I was so encapsulated in sorrow that I fell below the radar for humanity because I had no human interactions in segregation. I became a zombie and started waiting for the moment when they would open my cell door and chop off my head because my life force was depleting. But somehow, crying brought life back inside of me, the tears allowed me to have the necessary breakdown so that I could have the eventual breakthrough that would restore me.

As I emerged from that breakdown, the memories of my childhood imaginations were playing in heavy rotation on my mind. I was remembering how healthy my imagination was and thought that I could use the escape to balance myself so that I could see past the pain of my immediate circumstances. It worked because all the suffering that had plagued me since being in prison started to subside as I imagined a life where I was pain free. In this life, I got to do everything different, so I shaped it beyond the existence of prison. None of the roads I travelled led to this place, and after every imaginative encounter, I saw myself in a greater light.

Although my loneliness was still present, my thoughts shifted from what they were doing or trying to do to me, to what I needed to do for myself. Once I internalized the fact that their nefarious actions would always persist as long as I was in prison, I realized that I had the power how I let those actions affect me. I started to see the correctional officers as they were and not what I thought they should be. Meaning, instead of thinking they are suppose to be humane and professional, I saw them as the necessary evil I could utilize to be better in every possible way.

At that moment, I stop being a victim! I literally ceased in allowing the conditions of prison to victimize my thoughts by reducing my creative energy to a bubble of dissatisfaction. I stood up and let the storm wash me clean of all the filth I had accumulated throughout the years of being in prison, and I became a victor that knew despite all they've tried to do to crush me, I am still standing strong because I am more than the worst things I've ever done.

The agony of prison can be overcame with realization, belief, imagination, purpose, and self love. When I realized that this experience was only temporary, I fought that much harder to bring forth the kind of reality through mental imagination which led to mental peace. That peace was necessary in order for me to be genuinely productive in my remorse, compassion and quest for freedom. My mind is no longer filled with pain, but as long as I am in prison, I will always be lonely from the deprivation of physical touch which is an essential human need/quality that is designed to bring comfort and joy to ones life. I will always crave it with a great deal of force until I am depleted of the very air that sustains my life.

Prison has controlled every aspect of my physical being for thirty years, and on many occasions, my mind to. The simplest things I took for granted, like using the bathroom, taking a shower, eating at a dinner table, sleeping, and talking to my family is regulated by prison. The guards attitudes determine if and when I can do any of those things. But now, my mind belongs to me and I choose to never allow them to exist inside of it again. I know that prison doesn't define me and regardless of how hard it is, within my mind, I have the ability to make my circumstances whatever I desire despite condition.

I have been mentally free for a great number of years, and with that freedom I have accomplished so much. I am not just educated and certified in many areas, I am humane and altruistic! My life isn't just about what I have accomplished through the course of my confinement, but how I have used my confinement to become a better human being so that I would never harm anyone again. I am greater because of the agony of prison, and I am stronger due to the deprivation of loneliness. I can finally say, I have indeed found my way!

Sincerely,

Carlos