Vince’s Daily Journal – Day 2
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I think the lie that people can ‘stagnate’ to not only be absolutely absurd, but horribly dangerous. The idea that a person who does nothing to .grow. for a long period of time will actually stop .changing. is nonsense. And I’m not talking about superficial things like aging or physical changes, nor things that are directly tied to current events – our feelings about the government, our neighbors, friends, spouse – the things that naturally fluctuate from week to week, even moment to moment at times. I’m talking about those core pieces of our identity – our values and morals, what we’re willing to sacrifice for, not how we feel about specific people, but how we see humanity as a whole.
You see, when I came into prison, I believed that, and because of that lie, I did irreparable damage that I will have to fight against my entire life, screwed up my time, and not only took good time, thus lengthening my sentence, it also decreased my possibility of ever going before the judge and successfully request compassionate release, despite his obvious compassion and his statement at sentencing that if he could’ve sentenced me to a shorter stay, he would’ve but his hands were tied. I believed I didn’t have to do anything, I could just lay around and idle away the hours, and it would have no negative effect on me.
Roughly a year into my incarceration I found myself in the SHU, strung out on opiates – a drug I had barely ever touched as a free man.
How I went from where I was on the outside (which, to be fair, was actually a very dark, hidden and isolated place of deep depression and anxiety, but that’s a battle for another day) to where I was about a year and a half ago, when I hit rock bottom, is not so much a story of increasing evil; to me, it’s a story of an increasingly lazy and apathetic heart that allowed itself to become smothered, and took a whole team on the other end of a good stout tow rope to pull me out.
Like I imagine most people who are told they’re going to have their family and friends, their job and home, everything they love taken for the next fifteen (or however many, a single year of incarceration is traumatic for EVERYONE) years, I went into a fairly deep depression, a depression that had already begun to affect my health before I even left county (my weight fluctuated up and back down for a round trip of nearly 100 pounds in the period of about 7-8 months, and I’m a person who’s weight has stayed within 10 lbs.. of the same weight since I was 16). I figured that, as long as I resisted the urge to self-harm, kept out of suicidal ideation, kept in contact with my support network, I’d be fine. I figured that depression was THE thing to worry about. So when I was introduced to a chemical that made it easier to deal with my depression, I was fertile soil. And frankly, it did help, and the Sublocade that I’m now prescribed goes a long way toward filling the neurochemical void left behind when they discontinued my Wellbutrin and Adderall that I’d relied on my entire life – nothing is simple. But that illustrates the problem perfectly- the chemical isn’t the problem. As prescribed, it’s extraordinarily helpful for me. Taken at will, I was frequently sick, running high and low constantly, dealing with extremely strong emotions that would swing from high to low at the drop of a hat. In short, everything I was trying to avoid when I first started taking it – because I had formed an unhealthy attachment to it. In this case we call it addiction. And it’s something I still fight on a daily basis. I’ve realized that the only way to beat an addiction is to leave no room in your life for it. There’s a scripture passage in the Gospels where Christ is teaching his disciples, and he talks about casting out demons. He uses the example of a person who drives a demon out of their house, cleans everything up, then leaves the house standing empty. The demon goes out, bounces around for awhile, doesn’t find a new home, goes back and finds the old house, clean, swept, empty, and waiting for him, so he grabs a few friends and moves right back in, now with his buddies. When I first was trying to beat my addiction, I tired to just white knuckle it… that’s like a drinker trying to go cold turkey while living above a bar where she still has an open tab. It didn’t take. What it took was replacing my whole way of life in here. Instead of waking up and seeing where each day will take me, I’ve developed a routine, and am working my way into it. It’s a routine that doesn’t leave me a whole lot of wiggle room, though many of the tasks are things such as ‘Read with Megan’ (my fiance and I have developed fairly unique ways to maintain our relationship in here – and her presence in my life is also a significant piece of my recovery. People are always the most important part), or ‘Write a Letter’.It’s ever evolving – I recently added “Post Daily Journal” to the list – and I’m still getting really used to it, but it’s already bringing stability to my days. And most importantly, I’m growing – not “stagnating” and leaving room for something worse to come in, and not wallowing in my issues. As long as I’m growing every day, I’m on a decent track.
Quick note: As mentioned, I do have ADHD, and it’s fairly severe, so I’ve been told that it can be hard to follow my trains of thought sometimes. I apologize if these are a little tough to follow, but stream-of-consciousness is my primary writing style right now. I hope to develop a better style over type. But there will always be some chaos when it’s coming from my head, so I appreciate your patience and understanding.
