Hello, I’m writing on behalf of my husband who has incarcerated for two years. He is serving a 15-year sentence for drugs and robbery. I want to appeal his sentence or get it reduced because if his mental illness. I feel that he was railroaded and misrepresented. I think he got too much time for a non-violent crime. Need help please. Thanks.
I was the master of faking it to make it. I wore so many masks and was determined to hide who I really was to the rest of the world. I had no clue as to who I really was or who I wanted to be. I only knew I didn’t like myself and I didn’t like telling anyone the pain I felt inside. I reinvented myself, or changed relationships or friends or moved, to try and rid myself of the pain, the loneliness and feelings of abandonment I felt.
I then began to drink to mask the pain and this led me down an even more dangerous path. I made so many mistakes by pretending I was “0K”. I was never OK. I was in a dark and lonely world. I didn’t trust myself, let alone trust anyone else. My insecurities often severed many good and happy relationships. Yet, I blamed everyone but myself.
Eventually, this down hill spiral had to end and I hit rock bottom and ended up in Federal Prison. Although I thought my world was over, although I lost everything material, I gained ME. For me, this is what I needed. I learned I could survive on very little, I learned that I’m not better than anyone else, I learned that the world does not revolve around me. I learned I had mental depression and anxiety and abandonment issues that were never dealt with since I was a child and the fact my mother died when I was 8-years-old. Yet, all of the masks I wore, hid these facts from the rest of the world. I cannot begin to tell you the transformation I began to make once
I removed the layers. Life is what you make it. You can make it…seek help. Do not turn others away. Reach out and know that you can do anything you put your mind to.
When I think back on my mental illness, I can remember symptoms from a very early age. I grew up in a very different environment than most – a log cabin in Alaska. I realize now that my mother suffered from deep, debilitating depressions and my father had no tolerance for her suffering. My father, on the other hand, probably lived with borderline personality. Both of them suffered with PTSD for different reasons: My mother had a father who molested her when she was young. My father had multiple issues that were catalysts for PTSD but the most prevalent that I remember is that mother had to wake him with the tip of a broom handle or he would jump up in a panic and knock her across the room before he realized what was happening. He often would cry out in panic in his sleep – something I never witnessed him do in his waking hours no matter the danger.
Recovery is possible. I am living proof that people can change and live an amazing life. I am now a good mother, daughter and a grandmother. But my addiction almost destroyed those relationships. Not only did I battle drugs and alcohol, but I was also was diagnosed with Bipolar Disorder. This was another challenge I was going to have to cope with. I was determined to fight this battle, not only for me, but for my daughters, my mother and my grandkids. I had the willingness and I was ready to fight for my life.
For a long time I thought I was just a hell raiser going back and forth to jail. I was told as a child that I was no good and I would never amount to much. I went to school with marks from being beaten by an extension cord, I was locked in a closet for days and when I finally got out I was knocked beside the head and spit on and at by caregivers. I was always angry as I grew into adulthood, nothing pleased me and when I found out that I had something men wanted I used that to try and ease the inner anger and pain. I didn’t have many friends, because I was always running away from one thing or another. I never understood the whys of my moods. One minute I was okay with myself then I hated the world around me the next. My mind stayed cloudy and I cried a lot when nobody was around. I felt empty like I was a hallow log with limbs. Useless with no direction.
I’m not sure my story will inspire anyone but I hope it will at least inspire my city’s officials to reach out to the the children with mental illness and their families.
I am a single mother with four boys, three of whom have mental illness and/or other disabilities, and my family and especially my children have been nothing but neglected, abused, ignored, accused, shunned, and treated as is invisible in my city.
For what ever it is worth, my name is Suzanne. I recently spent 40 plus days in Marion Country Jail, -Indianapolis. Before I went to jail it seems that every door closed to me in this city. No one anywhere would help me with anything whatsoever. I had money…no where…no one. I tried churches, shelters, hospitals. Depression absolutely led me to alcohol.
I totally blacked out and when I came to myself, I was handcuffed to a bed no knowing anything of what might have happened at all. While in jail, I was overwhelmed with torment and extremely traumatized by both inmates and guards. I went to the suicide cell at least once to escape the horror of my situation. While I was in the suicide cell, the thought came…KILL YOURSELF. It just seemed too easy to do there. Minutes before I was about to die, well, LOVE happened! Can I explain this? No, I can’t.
What I can say is that what the world meant for EVIL, Love turned around for not only my good, but good for others.
I wear a new ankle bracelet…a GPS. I am facing a class D felony for battery. At no time in my life has either of these ever happened to me. I am absolutely STUCK here. I have not ever been stuck before.
Since I got out of jail, quite amazing things have happened to me, for me. It is my firm belief that the only cure for all of mankind, is LOVE. Love changes attitudes and behaviors. Love changes how we react with each other. It is love that conquers everything. There is an old saying, you keep doing what you always do, you will get what you have always got. Well, that nearly killed me dead. Try LOVE.