1.”Can you share more about your family dynamic during your early years?
Family was everything. I did not speak often as a child. I was only comfortable around people who already knew that. My mother spoke for me. My brother was with me the rest of the time. All my babysitters were aunts. The only functions I attended were family affairs. Outside of school, I was never with anyone I hadn’t known all my life.
2. How did constant moving and changing schools hurt your sense of stability?
People are not instructed on how to maintain lasting relationships. We meet people and spend long periods with them. We live in the same neighborhood, go to the same school, and associate with the same people. Our families get familiar with us. We learn by trial and error what to and not to do to maintain lasting connections. By not having that experience, I did not get those lessons. I don’t value people the same today. My approach to relationships is more academic. I get that I need people because I see in me the issues that are said to arise from isolation. I avoided that truth, but it is now too obvious to ignore. I am missing pieces.
3. Can you provide more details on your experience in LD classes and the challenges you faced?
LD was probably harder for me because I had fewer social skills to start with. Being labeled as less smart added to what I was already deciding on my own: that I was different in all bad ways. The label singled LD out from everyone else and, as kids do, it was used by others as a curse word. LD meant retarded back when retarded wasn’t a curse word yet.
4. What specific incident stands out to you from your time in school?
I had a teacher who made class a safe place. I was in Ms. Brown’s class for the fourth and half of the fifth grade. I hated the thought of school. But getting through the hallway to her classroom was like escaping to safety. Then one day she was just gone, and her replacement was her total opposite. I had bad teachers before but going from Ms. Brown to Miss Crashaw was rough. I will send a mostly true story I wrote about that soon.
5. How did your relationship with your brother affect you and especially when he left?
My brother was everyone’s favorite. He was universally loved, and he deserved it. He was good-looking, and his personality was magnetic. He went out of his way to show love to those around him. He was the class president in his eighth grade and his fifth-grade class. When he passed away, there wasn’t enough room for all the people who showed up for his funeral. When he went to live with his father in Arizona, it was a huge betrayal. He went to be a big brother to some other little brothers. I blamed myself because it meant that I was not enough. But I let go of what we had so that it could not hurt to lose him again. By that time letting go of things was becoming routine. He was the last significant loss in my early years.
6. How did hiding in the woods impact your perception of the world?
It made it seem like I was better alone. I love quiet. No people, no noise. Just hours of sleep and daydreaming and fantasizing. That was what I found in the woods. Comfort inside my own mind. I lived inside my head more and more from then on.
7. What led to your incarceration and how did prison shape your perspective?
I don’t remember most of my late teens and early twenties. I was arrested for breaking and entering at 10 years old, stealing books from Summer Hill Elementary School. I went to Job Corps twice, Oasis House group home. I was sent to St. Joseph’s Villa and then Elk Hill group homes by a judge. Rubicon Rehab at 21 after I had violated my probation on a stolen car case I had since 19. I did a year for violating probation again. My probation officer violated me for not coming to see her. She admitted on the witness stand to threatening me with incarceration for no reason. It didn’t matter. So drunk and disorderly and destruction of property at 16. I was back and forth to jail and various other places. My life on the streets was day-to-day survival. I was living the same life as before. Inside I had fewer places to hide so I ended up fighting more in jail. By the time I got to prison, I was adjusting to medications.
8. Can you share more about your realization that you have not done any better on your own than with people?
Being alone always made sense. I was different, and it was not about anyone’s inability to adjust. It was all on me. It made sense that I would do better only on my own. I believed this through the majority of my life. The truth became more and more clear as I adjusted to medications and took stock of what my life had become. My dealings with people didn’t coincide with any worse outcomes than when I was isolated. I still acknowledged that I was my own biggest problem. That never changed. I did come to accept that I would still be my own worst enemy whether I interacted with others or not.
9. How has your understanding of yourself and your experiences evolved over the years?
I got lucky in many ways. The most significant way being that I can accept fact. I was blessed with a scientific brain. What can be proven to me is real to me. I understand that my life is all mine. I cannot fault others for their disregard. Where once I thought my own sadness and isolation was significant, now I know that it only matters to me. Because of that understanding, I can.
10. What insights you have gained in prison have compelled you to share?
My own worst failures have come from a lack of information. My lack of understanding options being the largest contributor. That I cannot correct. A life sentence is forever in Virginia. But there are others who can still benefit from my wasted life.
11. How do you envision reaching out to others and what outcome do you hope to achieve?
The possibility of achievement is not mine. The best I can hope for at this point in my life is finding some meaning to my having lived. As I write this, my greatest accomplishment is stringing together all my fragmented memories of missteps and misunderstandings to create a picture of what not to do. So, I have that to gift those not totally out of reach.”