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In November 2013, my world was shattered when I received the gut-wrenching news that my youngest son, Tim, had been rushed to the hospital for emergency surgery. I wasn’t by his side to offer comfort and support. No, I was locked away in prison, grappling with the overwhelming weight of emotional turmoil and isolation.

I share emotional struggles I faced, from the agonizing wait for updates about Tim’s condition to the crushing weight of depression and loneliness that permeates every aspect of life behind bars.

I discuss de-humanization and powerlessness and correlation it has on emotional wellness. Are you suffering from anxiety and stress? Do you have trust issues? I understand. Learn the secret of trust and discover steps you can take to begin healing today.

TRANSCRIPT:

Do you suffer from stress and anxiety? Have circumstances left you worried or scared?

Join me on my journey through the prison system, where information is scarce, decisions are dictated, and agency is stripped away. From frightening news to the dehumanizing effects of prison, discover with me the secret of real power.

I’ll reveal the secret of trust and steps toward peace you can take today. Listen until the end – you don’t want to miss a word.

It is November 2013 – Prison staff retrieved and delivered me to my caseworker. Social Services in Washington state had called. My youngest son Tim, aged 11, was in hospital for emergency surgery. Scared, I had many questions. My caseworker had no information. It would be many days before I received an update.

I entered prison with a strong sense of self-efficacy, which, according to the article Self-Efficacy: The Foundation of Agency, means believing in your own ability to plan and carry out actions needed to achieve certain goals. If people don’t think they can make a difference through their actions, they’re not likely to even try. So, believing in your effectiveness is the basis for taking action.

I sought information and knowledge as keys to strategic decision making. Prison starves one of information. I’d now suffered data deficit for years.

Are you in the middle of a challenging circumstance? Do you or a loved one have difficult decisions to make? How important is good information to your decision making?

Prison, a small town, is designed holistically for lifelong care. Onsite can be found library, chapel, gym, clinic, education, cafeteria, job sites, and more. I had a daily work schedule, planning my day around it. Prison sabotages daily agency – daily plans, too.

Appointments made for an inmate outside their work schedule are not usually told in advance to an inmate, in order to prevent the their ability to future plan. Future plan for what I have no idea. At first I found that odd. It is odd, dehumanizing.

According to the research article The Impact of Power on Humanity: Self-Dehumanization in Powerlessness, “Power allows people to control outcomes with respect to both the environment and the self. This control is considered to be a fundamental human need; therefore, it follows that powerlessness will disrupt an individual’s sense of humanity…

Daily interactions in an unequal relationship appear sufficient to cause us to see ourselves as less human. As the ability to make choices, have freedom, and be able to think in different ways are all qualities thought to be central to human nature, powerlessness lead us to feel we are losing these essential qualities.

In prison, a dizzying array of the unexpected always left me feeling inhibited, ungrounded. Failure to appear somewhere in the prison on time was a reason to receive discipline, yet advance notice of an appointment or event was rarely provided to me. I felt constantly tense, threatened with the unknown and unknowable. It was at this time that I was threatened with seg again.

One morning my name appeared on the roster for a 1pm Property appointment. I also started work at 1pm. Unsure where I should go first I asked for help. Guards and staff offered me no solution.

Chaos reigned here but Punishment ruled. Everyone’s best guess – go to Property first; so I did.

I made a mistake, however, when I signed out, and a recent inmate escape attempt made this worse for me as it had staff on edge. At the time Shakopee prison had no fence. A recent arrival had raced past a guard into neighboring properties. The guard didn’t chase, rolling her eyes as she hit the alarm. Guards quickly found the inmate, hiding in nearby bushes, and she was given an additional 5 years to serve.

A week later I now leaned against the wall across from Property, mentally urging the shuttered window up so I could hurry to work. I’d fast-walked it, a ridiculous hustle – arms straight, elbows locked, legs churning. We were never allowed to run nor jog (it might give the impression of an escape attempt). I was first in line.

Without a fence Shakopee managed inmate locations using sign-out books and locked buildings. Hourly, buildings opened, people moved here and there, then buildings closed. Work sites reported in, sign-out books were reviewed.

 I’d signed out to go to work as usual at 1pm, however at Property, not work, I waited. This was my mistake, not indicating my stop at Property in the sign out book. After the buildings closed, my worksite reported in without me and I was officially missing.

Just then Property opened for business and alarms ripped across the campus. Bundled in my winter coat, holding an armful of books I sighed. ‘Great, a delay,’ I thought. I had no idea. Radios squawked to life across the counter. “We have a missing inmate. AHO. I repeat, missing inmate. AHO.”

Surprised, I pushed off the wall and spoke into the chaos. “I’m Aho.” No one noticed. I cleared my throat and repeated louder, “I’m Aho. I’m right here!” Heads whipped up. Behind the counter an older guard slapped her hand on the counter and spat at me, “Where’s your ID badge?”

It was pinned to my shirt, trapped under layers of winter clothing. Shifting books in my arms I struggled to reach for it. My coat zipper caught and my books slipped to the floor with a crash. Pounding the counter the guard demanded, “WHERE’S YOUR ID BADGE!!”

Stunned I froze. Time stopped, and everyone held their breath. With shaking hands I stepped to the counter, freeing my badge with a snap. “Here,” I said, placing it before her.

Jerking the card to her nose, she squinted. “Next time a guard asks you to do something, you don’t ignore it! Understand?” She growled. “You do it!” she snarled. She peered over her glasses at me, scowling.

Suddenly more guards swooped in, grabbing me by my elbows and lifting me off my feet. Quickly my pockets were searched, turned inside out, and I was yanked down the hallway to a holding room. Tossed inside, a metal door clanged behind me.

Left alone I shuffled to the metal bunk and sat. I studied the block wall. Somehow graffiti was on it. I read it. Words were scratched into the paint of the bunk. I read that too. I laid down and cried.

I lay there for hours. Sometimes a guard would come, peaking through the small square window in the door. I ignored them. Once a guard came to taunt me. “I heard you had a real bad attitude at the Property window! Gave the guards there a real hard time!” I didn’t know how to respond so I didn’t. I cried harder.

Eventually released I was sent to my room and given DLOPs for being in an unauthorized area. I felt wrung out.

Timmy recovered and from hospital he was placed in foster care. Feeling anxious and overwhelmed my depression came back and I began missing work at the gym. I was fired in December and placed on UI. I would spend the next 3 months locked in my room 21 hours a day.

UI means unemployed. Warehoused. I had little money. Didn’t matter, I lacked opportunity to make calls. And while Tim remained in foster care I’d been forgotten as his parent. While I’d been assigned a Washington state public attorney, no effort had been made to contact me.

Finally in February I risked asking a guard if I may call my attorney. He said yes and I did. “Yes?” she answered, surprised to be hearing from me.

“Hi,” I responded. “I have not received any news about my son since last November, and now it is February. I was told he had emergency surgery and then went into foster care. You are my attorney? How is he? When can I speak to him? How do I contact my son?”

Surprise leaked out of her voice as she answered, “No one has contacted you?”

It was my turn to be surprised. Who would contact me? What should I expect? “No, no one,” I threw back. “What is going on?”

“You have a right to visit your son, which in your case would be by phone. You have a right to all information and reports about him as well. I’m surprised no one has contacted you before now,” she rejoined.

I thought but did not say, ‘Why did