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.
It has been a long time since I have posted.
I have recently been volunteering with a local non-profit that works to connect inmates with penpals on the outside. I do data entry, so I basically just read inmates request forms and enter their data into a database.
This has become a sort of catharsis for me in terms of dealing with my own loved one's incarceration. I haven't spoken to or written my father for over a year. I am still working through the feelings of betrayal, anger, shame, and sadness reguarding everything that led up to his incarceration.
In reading these letters I have cried and had feelings of such sadness but also feelings of hope in seeing the human side of so many people behind bars. It angers me to see so many people who have no one on the outside to talk to, yet I still cannot bring myself to write to my dad. I feel like a hipocrite in that respect. This causes a lot of my guilt. I know some day soon I will be ready again to correspond with my dad.
This volunteering has also brought up somewhat of a divide amongst my friends. They don't understand what the point is and have nearly condemned my efforts in doing this volunteer work. This has strengthened my diligence in knowing it is something I am doing for the inmates I enter in the database, but also for myself. I have realized that no one close to me knows what I am going through and surrounding myself with the people I volunteer for and by, I have found somesort of unspoken commiseration surrounding having a loved one in prison.
I am working hard to healing myself in this situation. Only then will I be able to reach out again to my father. It really sucks knowing I am alone, amongst my friends, in feeling lost and broken, but I have solice knowing that so man others are going through the same hardships I am. It takes so much to reach out and seek support, but this kind of volunteering has allowed me to do that, in my own little way.
Next step for me is to rejoin support groups in my town and continue to work hard to heal.
But maybe when your ready send a letter to your dad and tell him how what his done has effected you he wont know unless you tell him.
Soon I will write him. Before his sentancing, while he was in county, I wrote and talked to him often. Once he was put in state we kept in contact for a few months.
For some reason I just couldn't bring myself to write anymore and he stopped calling. My brother talks with him fairly often.
I guess if I think about it, the reality of the whole situation just hit me and I can't bring myself to write. I will soon. I sit with pen in hand and don't even know where to start. I will get it started some day soon. I know that that time is coming soon. But with every passing holiday and birthday it's like I bury the emotions deeper and deeper. And my sadness and anger has turned into guilt for not writing him. He probably feels the same. We are so much alike, especially how we emotionally handle stuff. I'm so stubborn and he is too. Ha.
If that makes sense at all!
Being in this group helps a lot.
Hmmmm you don't know where to start well maybe talk about the weather go from there. His still your dad regardless of what he did under all the bs his still the same guy he was when you where a kid. You just have a bit better understanding of who he is. Maybe just send him a card saying hi when your ready.
Big hugs