Families of Prisoners Support Group
This community is dedicated to families that have been disrupted by prison. Having a loved one incarcerated or having been incarcerated comes with its own unique challenges that require support and understanding. Join the group to find others who know what you're going through, and to seek advice or share your experience.
Hello everyone.
I dropped my loved one off at prison a few days ago. It was one of the hardest things I've ever had to do, knowing that I won't see him until the visitation paperwork process has been completed.
He didn't tell me right away. We'd start talking about the future and he'd get this funny look on his face. I tried to explain to him that he could tell me anything but it wouldn't be until months later that he revealed what was troubling him. I hate that he felt that he couldn't share this with me, in fear that I'd leave him.
But, I'd already known. I looked up his name and found out that way. I read a lot and had just experienced that moment when one of the main character's deep dark secret is revealed. When he finally told me, a week before his sentencing hearing, I cried with him. I'd finally met someone who made me happy and he'd be taken away from me, over a crime that happened a few years ago.
I'm sad without him. I'll be without him for almost 2 years. I'll be able to visit because he's only a few hours away. We've already been emailing through CorrLinks.
I joined this group because I know that I'll need you all's support and advice and words of encouragement. I never thought that I'd be dealing with this but I'm trying to face this head on. I'm anxious for this to be over with!!
To everyone who has a loved one in prison, how did you cope? How did you deal with nosy neighbors and friends asking questions? How did you keep yourself busy? How did you maintain continuous support to your loved one?
I dropped my loved one off at prison a few days ago. It was one of the hardest things I've ever had to do, knowing that I won't see him until the visitation paperwork process has been completed.
He didn't tell me right away. We'd start talking about the future and he'd get this funny look on his face. I tried to explain to him that he could tell me anything but it wouldn't be until months later that he revealed what was troubling him. I hate that he felt that he couldn't share this with me, in fear that I'd leave him.
But, I'd already known. I looked up his name and found out that way. I read a lot and had just experienced that moment when one of the main character's deep dark secret is revealed. When he finally told me, a week before his sentencing hearing, I cried with him. I'd finally met someone who made me happy and he'd be taken away from me, over a crime that happened a few years ago.
I'm sad without him. I'll be without him for almost 2 years. I'll be able to visit because he's only a few hours away. We've already been emailing through CorrLinks.
I joined this group because I know that I'll need you all's support and advice and words of encouragement. I never thought that I'd be dealing with this but I'm trying to face this head on. I'm anxious for this to be over with!!
To everyone who has a loved one in prison, how did you cope? How did you deal with nosy neighbors and friends asking questions? How did you keep yourself busy? How did you maintain continuous support to your loved one?
It is scary and lonely and sad. You will have a hard time adjusting at first. It will get a bit easier, but you will always miss him.
Ask questions, someone will respond with hopefully things you need answers to.
I have a lot to say, but I have to go to work in a few minutes. I will check back with you tonight.
And yes, although it is hard, especially at first to stay busy... it really does help. Even if you have to push yourself out that door to do anything, even shopping or walks. But you have to for your own sanity.
How I dealt with nosy and nasty people, I just stay away from them. If they persist, I give it to them. I blast them for being that way. I am not ashamed I love him, not ashamed of what he did. I just miss and love him.
I will talk to you again, soon.
Welcome to our little corner of the world! You'll meet some interesting folks here and learn all kinds of things. Ask whatever you like because someone will know the answer or will find out for you. ^o^
I know right where you're coming from. They took the girl I've love for the last 12 years away from me. Thing is, we hadn't seen each other for 7 years and when we reconnected she told me she was on probation for drug related crimes. I didn't care, I waited so long to tell her I love her (i was too scrared to tell her before) and not too long after, she relapsed and missed her meetings and got arrested. She spent a while in county waiting on her violation hearing and they sentenced her to 30 months with half the time served. It's the hardest thing I've gone through. Finally tell my baby I love her and wanna get married and they take her from me. It's gotta be even harder for her. My advice is to keep communication open as much as possible. If you don't hear from him dont immediately assume he's ignoring you. Many times there are things beyond their control there keeping them from the phones. The prison system could care less if you get to talk. Hope it works out and I admire you for loving him regardless of his past
The second thing is, you aren't going to like this. The prison staff usually are very cold hearted people, except a few. They don't care if you call and need information. They mostly do not help.
The waiting for them seems forever. Visits are priceless even though they aren't very personal. At most places it takes a month or more to get approved.
They need us to send money for canteen. We do it even if we don't pay our bills. This makes for a financial mess for many of us.
There are many women on here that would do anything for that man they love, giving up so much for themselves.
October2014 left where she lived. Sold things, got rid of things, packed up and moved far from her home to be near her man. She lives out of her car til she can afford to get a place. She is a great example of what we do to be with them, or near them as much as possible. We all worry about her. She really does live out of her car right now, but has a job, and is working on getting a place.
We get to be a close knit group of people, so welcome to our lonely hearts club.
You will miss him, and you will be mad at him sometimes too. They are loving one minute, demanding the next, and sometimes they won't tell you why they are in a bad mood, so they take it out on us. They live in a terrible world, not like reality. They live with people that they would never even associate with on the outside world. They can't trust anyone. They maybe get close to one or two people. It's best to stay by themselves.
Guards are usually cold hearted assholes. There has been one of two that are really nice.
I read this site many times a day to see what others are going through and what they have to say. We have went through women giving birth without their men, many end up losing homes or are homeless. Many are in dire straits throughout the ordeal.
It is hard to just go on with life, when your life has been ripped to shreds. We go through a mourning period. A part of our life that was dear to us temporarily died. We go places alone, we fend off people's negative comments, we avoid telling people where they are, for fear of their reactions and how we will respond.
People are idiots, uniformed, and think any person in prison is BAD... that is not always true.
So there is a bit of what I wanted to say to you.
I found that when I was unemployed, I just laid around feeling worse. I may not like my job now, but it gives me money to pay the phone bills, the regular bills, go see family and go see him. And it keeps me from crying a few hours of the day. The main thing to survive this is STAY BUSY... it does make it better for a bit of the day. Nights are the worst for me. He should be here, he should be home.
Then we just had the situation where SOMETHING happened at his prison, and they were locked down 22 hours. I worried what was wrong, why he didn't call. He did finally and has no clue what happened, but it had to be bad. So then I worry what if something bad happens to him.
You will wait for those phone calls and if you get used to set times he usually calls, then he don't, you will imagine all kinds of awful scenarios. Most of the time it is just crazy thoughts, not truth. Usually it can be something simple like couldn't get a phone, were locked down, or just fell asleep waiting to get a phone. I should be used to it. After all he is IN prison more than he is out.
Ok, I am going to relax now. Try to do that too.
Your stories have brought me to tears, which is something that I've been doing a lot of, crying! I try to stay strong for him, but he knows that I'm upset. I try not to let him know that. He feels awful that I'm having to go through this.
To all that have responded, thank you so much. I need you all and hopefully I can be there for you all as well. It's surreal that his is even happening but I'm trying to remain realistic.
It's been a huge disruption in our lives. You go from seeing each other every day, falling asleep together, eating, laughing together, kissing, whatever, to waiting for an inconsistent email or phone call. It isn't fair.
I don't know what to expect from the prison system, which I already hated because of how unjust it is. I read the handbook and the prisoner's rights but I'm still very skeptical. I worry about his safety and if he's being treated fairly. He's already been branded a criminal. Are the guards really able to overlook that or is it just a job or some sick way for them to feel important about being in charge of criminals?
I guess time will tell. But in the meantime, thank you again to everyone. Talk to you soon!
My fiance has been in and out of prison several times since we met, and my son was in a couple times too. At one point, both of them were in at the same time, in different states. I went to see both of them. I was the prison mama, or expert, I guess. The guards get to know you. I don't know if that is good or not but after awhile many of them become nicer to me. Not to him sometimes though. They are just a number, an inmate, a bad person. But not all of them.
He had a heart attack a couple years ago in prison. He sat there waiting for the ambulance, in a wheelchair, and he cried. One guard took over, sat with him, went in the ambulance with him and stayed with him, next to his bed the whole time. He had cried saying he didn't want to die alone in prison.
My son got out about 5 years ago, and is doing great now. He works, he has a ton of kids, his and his gf's kids. He has nice things, and is doing it the right way. He said Mom you can tell I am not doing what I did before because I am broke and tired all the time.
This is a big disruption in your life. Everything has changed. Nothing can seem right until they are home. You almost feel guilty if your life here is being ok. But they like us to go on and be ok. They don't want to worry about us. They love hearing stories on the phone or in letters of what we have been doing.
Mine loves to " consult" me with things I need to do, how to do them, etc. It makes him feel a part of this world he is missing.
I send him pictures. Not just the normal things, but things like if I crunched the car, what it looks like, or things I have seen, like a rainbow that was over our house so pretty, or a car the neighbor bought. Just examples. It makes him see this part of the world away from there that he is still a part of.
He helps me decide what bills need to be paid, how to handle things. I include him in everything so he still is a part of it all. It helps them get through this.
One thing he does to help himself, and my bills is he took on a really cool craft. He makes things that he sells for pretty good money, it puts money in his canteen, so I don't have to send so much, and he gives me some of it. It also keeps him busy.
I am not sure what it is like where yours is, but where mine is at, he got a job cleaning, so he gets his own room, no other men in it. A tiny little " apartment' I call it. A place for himself, away from all of the others and the noise and crap that goes on. He pretty much cleans, doing his job, and goes to his room to watch tv, do his craft thing, and listen to music, or sleep. It sure has helped him get through this. He used to be in a room with 16 guys.
I sent him through websites, a ton of catalogs so he can look at them and plan for when he gets out. Things like camping, making a deck for our house, windows to buy for it later, car parts, you name it, I sent it. He gets so many the mail lady, who is very lazy was mad he gets so much mail.
Mail is important to them. Seems a highlight of their day. I used to write a lot of letters, but not so much anymore, because we talk about 4 times a day. But I still send him things.
I tend to lose important papers, so I send him copies and he saves them in case I need them later. This too makes him feel like he is still connected to our world.
It is expensive when they first go in. They need so many things. TV, Radio, shavers, underwear ( he don't like wearing underwear others have worn) sweats, etc. I am going to send him subscriptions for magazines. Make his world as comfortable as possible. OMG when he got out last time they had to have all his boxes of things on a flat cart thing. Tons of stuff.
I look up things for him on the internet. At one point I was finding legal stuff online for him, which some of it helped his case back then. I also took criminal justice classes just to know what they can and can't do. That helped tremendously. They usually only send them to a prison doctor who usually are pretty worthless. But after I found a statute to the constitution, they had read our letters and saw we knew what their rules were on how they had to treat them. It got all different then. They actually took him to regular hospitals and clinics in that town. They sent him for tests at a University hospital, and were very thorough. Even yesterday they called him in to make sure he was ok, got him on med's and sent a sample in for tests on something. They are required by law to give them adequate medical care because they can't arrange it themselves. So this is something to remember.
Some of their dr's are ok. Many are doctors that have lost their licenses, been banned from practicing in hospitals or clinics. In other words, not good physicians. So I made sure he got ADEQUATE care.
After many years of being involved in this system, that stinks I have learned many things. Heck, years ago, I even caused so much trouble when we were being extorted from inmates at a prison, I got him moved to another one,. the one I said we wanted him to be in. A little investigating and lying helped in that one.
Guess Old Tammy Wynette's song " Stand By your Man" is an understatement for me.
I'm new to this site on DS. I trying to find the link to join this group. I haven't been on DS in over 3 years. I decided to look for on DS because I know next to nothing about the prison system.
Last night I finally get a call from my guy, I hadn't heard from him in over a week. I was worried sick. We usually talk everyday, sometimes 2-3 times a day. I went on the CDRC website looking for for info to see if the prison was on lockdown. I couldn't find info on the lockdown, but I found info on other things that were helpful.
It turned out that they were on lockdown. My guy told me that when I don't hear from him they're on lockdown. I was imagining all kinds of things, none of them good.
In September my close friend asked me if I would write to her brother who is in prison and will be getting released soon. I said sure. He called me. We wrote each other for months, then he asked me to be his girl. I said yes. I wasn't expecting to fall in love.
This really new to me any advice would be helpful and appreciated.
He's still waiting to get a job. He needs to have something to do because he's bored. He's a hard worker, so to go from working many hours to having too much idle time is bothering him.
I read the rights that prisoners have and while I'm hoping that they won't do anything to slight him, both he and I will be aware of things going on.
I know that we have a long ride ahead of us but I told him that I'd be there for him.
Your advice has helped so much. Thank you!!!
Suchaslife is from Australia. She used to teach me Austrailian slang for things. And we would dicuss meeting halfway someday. We figured out that would be in the middle of the ocean and we joked that we better get started paddling and beware of rough water and storms. HAHA
We do try to lighten up our moods on here too. It isn't all sad stuff. Stick with us. We are a caring bunch, and a crying bunch, and we complain, and condemn our justice system. Yep we do all that and more. Welcome ChelleT
Oh I think I'm rambling again!!
But I do have experience of having someone in prison. My ex husband was in and out of prison for years of our married life. He saw our son for the first time when he was there and we got married in there! So I have an understanding of the heartbreak and questions you have. It's been many years so things have probably changed a bit bit. We didn't have cell phones so I spent many time at home waiting for calls.
My heart goes out to you and anyone going through this including your loved ones!
I'm glad you had a good response here! I hatewisconsin has been such a blessing to me and helps get me through. Just being able to talk to people who understand and don't judge makes a world of difference! I felt so lost and alone before I got back on dailystrength. Journaling helps me a lot and reading others.
My Faith has also been my rock! And keeping busy when I have the energy and resting and not being hard on myself too!
Welcome to anyone else that is new!
We will get through this together!
Prayers and hug to everyone!