One of the most gut-wrenching things I learned about a woman in the weekly workshop I teach in prison was that her mother shot her up with heroin for the FIRST time when she was 10-yrs old. That was until today when I was told that a woman in my class was recently set on fire by her pimp. I learned this about 2 hours ago. There is a new hole in my heart left by the part that feels as if it was scooped away and dropped into the pit of my stomach.
Another woman shared that she set HERSELF on fire while smoking crack. Others have been battered to a pulp. Most have lost their children. I've heard stories like this week after week after week and if I EVER become inured to them it will be the signal to stop. That will never happen.
These women, at one time or another have lived their dreams that arose from their talents. They have been on their high-school debate teams, restaurant owners, professional organizers, ice skaters and nurses. They've been sober, parents, dance instructors and world travelers. One or several missteps have broken some of them, crushing their spirit and the hope that they will ever be who they were meant to become.
Because of their criminal backgrounds and repeat felonies, one woman can never be the judge she wanted to be. One will never be able to work with children, the one thing she knows she's good at. Others will go back to the way they ran their lives before they became incarcerated, turning tricks and forging checks to make the money they need to support a daily drug habit. They admit that in no time in their lives did they dream of giving a guy a hand job for $20.
Today, a young woman asked if I knew how to interpret dreams. I said that I could take a shot at it and here's what she shared:
"In my dream which I have a lot, I'm at the methadone clinic and Jesus is standing right next to me. He's there to get his fix too. He tells me that if I don't stop using I will die and that God will never forgive me. He says that if I do stop, there is a chance that my son will forgive me and that God will too."
To the rest of us this seemed rather obvious. One of the woman responded by saying, "Yeah, it means stop fucking using!" Point taken.
I've asked the women to write about their dreams and the steps they might take to achieve them and to next week share them with the class. I can't imagine what a woman who has been set on fire will say, but I just want to tell her so very badly that the world is okay and that there is room in it for people like her to succeed. How in the world would she ever believe that that is the case?
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Angie Miller
Christine Macdonald
john blumenthal
L in the Southeast
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Comments
I volunteer at our local battered women's shelter, but I work w/the residents' kids; I deal w/the pre-teens. The stories we hear are just incredible, and I can just imagine: if the mother has lost all hope, then how can her kids hope for anything better than they've known? What I hope to achieve is that these kids can see in me a different kind of woman than they've known before--someone educated and aggressive enough to live her own life, and perhaps someone to be emulated later on.
Having known some friends who were previously incarcerated and seen their struggles, perhaps sometimes you ARE "just fucked." That still doesn't solve the original problem.
About the only thing I could advise these women is to find something to do that'll keep body and soul together and let that help piece their lives back together and find a different path. A difficult proposition but hopefully one that'll keep them out of the streets and lock-up as well.
(And THAT--prison--is a whole other issue; the concept of prison privatization gets a whole other slant when privatized prisons profit from every occupied bed--what better way to make $$ than by locking up every junkie-mom "for her own good?")
Telling these women it will get better without providing them with the necessities to get there are why so many are repeat offenders. Some programs are offered during parolee's post-sentencing, but even these programs have limits, and some of them are disappearing entirely due to budget cuts.
Each woman who has returned to you a written record of what she wants [her dreams] has taken the very first step towards succeeding with fulfilling that dream...each additional step will require support and guidance.
I call that barbaric and a threat to the rest of society since it creates the next generation of outcasts. Shame on America.