MaryMax
11-25-2003, 12:53 PM
I am a 35 year old ex-con. I have done two prison terms and spent over 10 years of my life in an addiction I thought I'd never be free from. My last prison term lasted from 1998 till 2002. When I was released from prison in February of 2002 I had lost everything except my father's faith in me. I have two children and one was living with his father and the other was in a program due to drug abuse. During my time in prison I made a decision that I had enough of the life and was wasting my life in places where I was not making memories. I used to refer to my time in prison as "dead time" because it was a period of years that I would try to forget. I will not go into what it was like being in Valley State Prison for Women for those years or the incredible pain and suffering that the women who are there experience. I will say that in my opinion women in prison suffer from entirely different pain than men do. They are separated from their children and ostracized by society in a way that most people will never understand. Most never see a package or a visitor and are lucky if they receive a card now and then. I will say that when I got out it was a battle. I immediately had to try and get my license. It was revoked due to child support that accumulated while I was in prison. That meant going back and forth to court which took a period of about three months before a judge would reinstate it. I came out to debt over $24,000.00 from the child support which I knew nothing about while I was incarcerated. I finally found a job after pounding the pavement day after day. That is a whole different issue. My parole officer warned me not to lie on applications and it seems nobody wanted to hire a parolee. After finding a job with a friend of my fathers things started looking up a little. I started the process of trying to visit my daughter and son. I was shot down completely by my son's father. Because I was gone so long he has convinced my son that I am some kind of monster that does not love him. Never mind the letters, cards, etc...according to them I am an "egg donor". I have not pushed the issue anymore, I pay my child support, send cards, pictures, etc. and pray. My daughter was in treatment and it took many court trips and meeting in order for them to let me even visit her for a few hours with supervision. Mind you, I have never committed child abuse or anything even close. My prison terms were for sales and transportation of meth. I was treated like a child molester or something. During all this time, I was working and trying to pay some bills that I had from when I was incarcerated and I get hit with a garnishment from 3 different sources. All of the sudden 50% of my gross pay was gone! It is an outrage to me how the system is designed in such a way that it almost seems impossible to people who are trying to make it. A whole new set of court dates were scheduled so that I could arrange to make reasonable payments and when all was said and done I was still paying almost 50% of my net pay. During all of these things which happened the first year of my freedom I was going to Church every Sunday, Volunteering at a local kitchen that feeds the homeless, and going to college full time at night while working during the day. I could probably go on for a very long time on how hard it has been and how discouraging it can be when you really try to always do the next right thing and continually get shot down, but let me just say this...it has now been one year and nine months since my release and I haven't given up. I have been promoted to Office Manager where I work, just bought a new vehicle, my debt in under control, my daughter lives with me and I have almost four semesters full time college under my belt. I have transformed my life to the point where 99% of the people who know me would be in disbelief if I were to tell them I was ever in prison. I am writing this to let people know that it can be done. I will never sugarcoat it for my friends who are still inside. It's extremely hard and there may be alot of pain involved but the rewards in the end were worth changing my life. I have faith in God and He has seen me through the dark hours. I have dreams today. I have a sense of self and my self esteem is good. I have done everything on my own without a man taking care of me for the first time in my life and it feels good. I am setting a good example for my daughter. My family is proud of me and even inspired by me. People who I meet everyday respect me. These are things that I could not have said before. Praise God!