A man I know was recently arrested for assault. This particular individual lives with schizophrenia and substance use disorder. I haven't seen him in a couple of years, but I got to know him pretty well over a 2-3 year period some years back. His name and picture made it to the sheriff's department website, and somebody commented that he is a 'monster'.
I'm not writing to defend my friend or what he allegedly did. I would like to let folks know that I've met a lot of people on my journey that at given times could be described as monsters. When I had regular contact with my friend who was arrested, he was managing the symptoms of his illnesses. At the time that I knew him, I did not understand schizophrenia as well as I do now; nevertheless, I rode with this man, and went to meetings and other places with him. During the time I knew him, he never displayed any antisocial behavior - he wasn't a 'monster'.
I've spent 5 years of my life incarcerated in prisons and jails. During that time, I've met drunk drivers who killed people, obsessed men who killed people, rapists, thieves (like me!), drug dealers, drug mules (runners), thugs - all manner of criminals. I have yet to meet anybody that is a murderer 100% of the time. I've yet to meet anyone that is a rapist 100% of the time. I've yet to meet anyone...well, you get the picture (I hope).
My point is that everybody is human, and everybody has both good and bad in them. There have been many, many times when I felt I was the worst human on the planet. Fortunately or unfortunately, it's hard to feel like the worst human nowadays.
An interesting aspect of prison life is that inmates are ranked on their crimes. Nobody wants to go to jail as a person who has committed a crime against a child. No police officer or correctional officer ever wants to go to jail. Those are things that can make one's sentence extremely rough, if not fatal. However, if you were a drug dealer, that's considered fairly good, even if the drugs you sold killed a child. As a thief, I didn't have it too bad, even though I deprived a few people of their cars. Think for a moment what it would feel like for your car to be stolen. Very often we keep stuff in our cars - child carrier seats, money, music that's special to us, etc. It's a violation of one's safety and security, and can be traumatizing.
Another point: almost every human being does shitty things to other human beings from time to time. That, unfortunately, is the nature of humanity.
From my experience, our 'corrections' system does nothing but warehouses and stigmatizes human beings. I'm one of the fortunate ones - I utilized the resources that were provided, and I'm not nearly as likely to steal your car or your money today as I was 20 years ago. This is a good thing; however, many never make it out of the corrections system once they're in. (Please note that I didn't say, "I'll never steal again!" It's not in my plans today, so I think we're good for now).
Nobody was born bad. Things happen during our journey, and one person reacts one way, another reacts another way. Instead of taking damaged people and damaging them more in the correctional system (as it is today) we could be asking, "What happened to make this individual behave this way? What to they need?" We waste a lot of human life locking it up.
I used to feel that I was useless, a waste of oxygen. I used to believe I deserved to die. If I had managed to kill myself off, I would have missed many opportunities that I've had to help others. I am grateful that I no longer have to behave in monstrous ways, but the 'corrections' system is only one part of my recovery journey. The rest of it is being surrounded by people who see the good in me and who support me in developing that goodness.
There is a way of looking at other human beings with compassion and empathy. There is a way to bring healing to ourselves and others. We are at a point in human evolution where we no longer need to throw people away. Anybody. The answer is to look for the good, no matter how challenging, rather than labeling people as monsters.
Namaste,
Ken
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