I was born June 6, 1976, with both parents having drug and alcohol problems. I never really got a chance to know both of my parents, being that I got tossed around. My mother lost me to my father, and my father gave me to his parents to either raise or give me to the state. My grandparents gave me a loving home, did all they could to get me on track and, most of all, are two of the most wonderful people I know!
I never felt like I fit in with family or friends, or I always felt different. I developed insecurities about myself and never really expressed my feelings. It turned into hurt. I started fighting, and I got attention. Not long after fifth grade, I started drinking and smoking weed. I started selling drugs and had two wonderful children. Me and their mother decided to separate. I went back to drinking and partying as if every day were a holiday.
Not long after separating with the mother of my children, I tore a pair of panties off a grown woman and almost beat a man to death with a tire in a bar fight. I went to prison for four to eight years and did The Hole for eight years.
I was let out of prison from segregation, with nowhere to go, no ID or social security card, with $35. Dropped off at a bus stop in Lansing. No one would give me a job, but a bar in Lansing did: $50 a night and two free drinks at the end of the night. I slowly got my ID, social security card, driver’s licence, vehicle and insurance. Not even six months out, I caused the death of two beautiful people, drinking and driving. I live with shame and extreme guilt for this horrible accident. The two families and my children suffer!
I’m now in prison for second-degree murder, 34 to 60 years. The DOC doesn’t offer me classes for training to do with all my time. I’ve tried to speak with Mental Health about my shame and guilt, but pills are the answer, and the fact I don’t have mental health issues makes it difficult. Plus I truly don’t feel comfortable talking to these people. I’ve caught a case for having a large amount of weed on my person.
My days start with working out and reading self-help books, but trouble always finds me. I try not to care or think about ever getting out of prison, being the times. My family and friends have mostly moved on with their lives, probably because of the trouble I get into here. I’m in a prison with walls around it and am in a security threat group, limiting phone calls, being in case till 4 o’clock, no secure packs, and most of all no job to help support myself.
Along with not sending messages on JPay and limited contact visits, I’m here for punishment, but I feel I’m being punished for being here. Almost every prison doesn’t have enough phones for three-quarters of prisoners to make one 15-minute phone call! Also JPay machines as well—we are on top of one another.
I still have decades to go and honestly don’t feel I can be saved, but hopefully telling my story will help someone from digging a hole and then jumping in too!
I caught myself getting lost in here. Just recently my oldest child woke me up by her words to me: “She needs me out there with her.” It hurts, and I have five grandchildren. But there are two other families that suffer just as much if not more.
I would love nothing more than to help someone else from never making the choices I’ve made in my short life. Being that all my life, people just judged me from a distance and outside me, never letting anyone know me. Now I lack communication skills. The sins you commit while you’re drinking, you’ll pay for when sober. Drinking and not thinking!
I apologize to the families, my family, and all the people affected by my actions!