BRANDON
CLF Member, incarcerated in ID
In October of 2020, I suffered a week of torment within which I was repeatedly beaten, extorted of property and medication, and sexually abused by a cellmate. What’s worse is that the correctional officer who put me in that cell had prior knowledge that the scenario might occur. The inmate I was housed with had not only been incarcerated for that sort of behavior focused toward women in his life, but also had prior instances of doing such to his previous gay cellmates. I tried to get staff’s attention without just telling, because I was already being beaten and had been threatened worse if I told.
I have spent twelve years in here (ten at that time), and in situations like this, I know that could have been in bad enough shape to be hospitalized by the time an officer would respond. Staff ignored me. After being moved I did not make an official report right away because I had attempted to poison my abuser by drugging him with atropine, the deadly poison found in atropa belladonna, a plant like deadly nightshade (I am prescribed medication that contains atropine).
Later, when I did make the “official” report, the C.O. I unofficially reported the situation to did not step up and say anything about my confessions to him. The investigation staff did not interview any of the witnesses who knew it was happening when it was happening. They found the report unsubstantiated the same day that it was opened, without notifying the police. They confiscated much of the paperwork that I had been filing, and warned me that if I continued with the paperwork, they would further separate me and another inmate to whom I was handfasted (married). They said they were giving me and him more freedoms than they’d typically give two inmates in romantic relationships. They went so far as to tell me that I was unable to use the grievance system on an issue that occurred over 30 days prior, but when I kept up the fight, they said they’d try to get an exception, though that was after I submitted forms to retrieve the confiscated documents for “legal reasons,” that prove neglectful behavior on their part.
PHOTO BY EROL AHMED ON UNSPLASH
Before that October, I would have seen compassion and healing in the achieving of a sound mind and heart from a past of broken and failed relationships. I would have seen it as smiling and my ability to be happy at last with the man I had chosen to marry. But after that October, even the happiness he had brought to my life was not enough to heal the nightmares and anxiety attacks that, like COVID, had become the new normal. I sought out the help of clinicians to help with talking about the rape and the relationship issues with my husband, but they only tole me to do the same things I have always done, like to count and breathe if I felt a panic attack coming on. And then they told me to think “happy thoughts,” as if I were Robin Williams being taught to fly by Julia Roberts in the movie Hook, after the children were abducted. However, unlike Robin Williams, that was “professional” advice that I would not accept. If I could just think happy thoughts… don’t you think I would be doing so?
It is now 2022, I am single and I have healed a lot from last year’s devastation of my severance ritual from my husband. It’s been a long journey, but the week in October 2020 still haunts me. I brought it up in a mental health evaluation that the prison’s medical contractor conducted. The psychiatric doctor responded coldly, saying “still?”, which elicited a cold response of my own: “yeah, still.” Today, I reflect on that appointment and I also ask myself, “still?”
The people I’ve reached out to for support have told me that things will get better in time, but the effects of the trauma that I’ve experienced may last forever. Where is the healing in that?
I had made a promise back then that was holding me back from the kind of self-protection that I would have normally engaged in. Yes, I was poisoning him — but the doses were low and would only cause drowsiness at that level; it was the justification I told myself as I risked his life. But after time moved on, I made myself a promise that if I had to, I’d engage in the defense needed. But the question is, what does healing and compassion look like to me now?
I am looking for the voices of compassion and of justice to stand against those in places of power that abuse that power, who don’t use their power to enact a compassionate justice. Healing looks like change. Reckoning those powers and replacing them with those who would protect others from suffering what myself and many others have experienced. The justice system as long been flawed and it punished consenting partners while ignoring a lot violence and rape. It also is a breeding ground of hate, not love. People in here do not always take an opportunity for rehabilitation and instead, the harsh environment makes us harder. And many leave as harder criminals than when they came in.
Compassion would mean reaching out to inmates, especially the LGBT communities within the prisons, and learning about the condition they live in. Joining groups that act against injustice in the justice system. Voting on laws that would help inmates, not harm them. And healing would mean change.
I hope that if you’ve suffered the same sort of experience, and you’re reading this now, that you take some comfort in knowing that you are not alone. This is a common problem and there are people, like us, who will fight the system until change occurs. And there are people outside of prison who are compassionate and will help people like us. We cannot give up, we will win. Blessed be.
Did you notice the Unitarian Universalist Church in between them?
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