For today’s journal entry, I’m going to pull from a few of the questions in the second module of Preparing for Success after Prison. They focus on how our thoughts influence our words, which influence our actions, which become our habits, which is how others define us, and likely are part of the reason we’re in prison today.
In the past I’ve had plenty of influences, both positive and negative. On the positive end of the spectrum, my family, my Catholic faith, teachers, my education, a couple solid friends, and a vast amount of reading have helped me to be a positive person, to think critically about things, to always try to take others’ perspectives and experiences into consideration, to not judge others, and to try to always assume the best of others. On the other end of the spectrum I’ve had a handful of friends who were poor influences, trauma, mental health issues (especially depression, social anxiety, dysthymia, PTSD and ADHD), bullies – not all limited to childhood, and a few times where I was asked to make important decisions about my future, but then those decisions were completely over-ruled and ignored. Those all left me with a diminished sense of self-worth, a feeling that I wasn’t important, my actions or decisions had no bearing on the world around me or even my own life, that I was too stupid to be trusted to make my own decisions even when asked, that I don’t matter, that I’m an object for other people to use, that I don’t deserve to be happy or loved, that no one cares about me, that I might as well get whatever I can out of the moment and hide what I want because as soon as I express that I want something it will be taken from me, that my only worth is my achievements and whether I make others look or feel successful, and that I have no agency. These latter, negative, toxic ideas are ones that I’ve come to know to be untrue, and I battle against them each and every day. However, for a long time I allowed them to control me. I believe that I have good communication skills, but, because of the lies I allowed myself to believe for so long, I was terrified to use my own voice. I especially struggled with feeling like what I want, think, feel, and believe aren’t important to others and they will be ignored, even by those who love me – or worse, used as weapons against me. This left me with a deep discomfort, even fear, of speaking up for myself and led me to become extremely self-isolated and self-destructive. I began to believe that, since my words didn’t matter and had no real effect, my actions wouldn’t either. I began to completely disregard how my actions could effect others and even myself, which allowed me to justify acting on any and all impulses in whatever way was easiest, never weighing how they could effect others or myself, or even considering whether they were right or wrong. I quickly became an addict of multiple kinds – at some point or other I’ve been addicted to drugs, pornography, smoking, even relationships and plain attention, until I was simply seeking more and more intense stimulation of any kind. My only thought was towards filling the desires of the moment, whatever they may be, and, over time as my habits became more and more ingrained, my actions became automatic and destructive without any thought given either before or after acting, and the chemical use helped silence any remnant of my true self, the best version of me, when it tried to stop me from doing things that could hurt others or myself.
Now, people very often do define me by my habits, current but most especially my former destructive habits. That’s why I have to carry labels such as ‘sex offender’ or ‘recovering addict’, and even those these are the smallest pieces of me, the pieces that least reflect who I am today. I refuse to accept those as my identity, except for the word ‘Recovering’. Recovering from addiction, yes, but also from trauma, from my own self-loathing, from the delusions that held me captive for so long. I’m now in the process of developing and strengthening positive habits – journaling, creative writing, prayer, reading and learning, caring for and serving those in need (which is everyone). But even these are just pieces of me, reflections of what I value.
While those destructive habits I engaged in for far too long are absolutely why I’m sitting in prison today, they have never aligned with my values. That only further proves to me how important it is to act on and live up to my values with every choice I make, every single thing that I do and say. I’m going to be judged on my words and on my actions, because no one can know what’s going on inside of me except in the light of my words and deeds. If the values that I profess don’t match my actions, not only will I be defined by the actions, I’ll lack integrity, my word will have no value, and I will have become a self-fulfilling prophecy – I will devalue my own words, bringing what I fear to become my reality. It really is a huge risk to state your values publicly and permanently, but it’s a risk that can bring such great rewards. It’s a risk that I’m now absolutely willing to continue to take.
I am, and will continue to live my values in all that I say and do, and I invite and encourage others to hold me to them.