More sage advice

A person wrote this to me as a reply to a post last month. I just want to copy and paste it here for posterity so that I can access it easily.


I am sorry so far no one from Arkansas has responded. I don't know of any, but maybe someone that is from there will see this. I am sorry you are going through this. We all are, some longer, some shorter than you will have to. Stick it out with us on here. Hopefully it will help you. We don't have to be from your state to understand and give you some advice as far as what we have all felt and went through. Give us a try. You are going to go through many emotions. Sometimes you will be so depressed you think you can't take it. You can. I have for many years off and on. You will be mad at him, or mad at the system. Oh that is normal. You will feel lonely, probably isolate yourself from the world. That's normal at first too, but then you gotta just force yourself to do things, go places, have a life. He will want you to. It will make time go better for both of you. That will be hard, but you gotta. One day at a time. Do something, anything to get your mind off it and him. Then you will have something positive to tell him when he calls or in letters. You have to learn a new NORMAL life without him. You have to find ways that you can do things " together". Such as ask his advice on things as if he is home with you, or read the same books, or watch the same tv shows. So you feel you are doing the same things and still have the same interests. Send him pictures. Not just of you, family and friends, but of anything he would enjoy seeing. I send pictures of houses I am looking at to move to, if I dent the car, the neighbor's messy yard they got in trouble for, or whatever. Just to bring him back to our world through pictures, To let him see what is going on around our world out here. I send him magazine subscriptions, I send him catalogs of things he would want to buy when he gets out. Make it your project to keep him busy too. And that will help you. He does a craft project that is pretty cool, and he sells them to help me pay the bills. He makes them, I take them home and sell them. He then feels like he isn't totally abandoning me. Get your mind working in these positive directions and it will keep you two connected and keep you saner than just sitting there crying. But know that even when you start to acclimate to the situation a bit, you will still have sad moments. I still do and he has been in over a year with 10 months to go. He was home 10 months after being in 3 and a half years, and he messed up and got his probation revoked. We can stay mad and sad, or we can LIVE. And they want us to. They need us to. And we definitely need to learn how to do that. Baby steps. But you will get there. I did. Mine has also been in several times before, so I should be used to it, but you never get real used to it. I am sick the last couple weeks, and still have to work. Everything is on my shoulders. I wish he were home to cuddle me when I feel awful, or sad, or work so I could just stay home when I feel like crap. But he isn't here, so I just do what I gotta do. When he first went in, I was unemployed, had nowhere to go, no purpose to my days, so I sat and cried a lot. Working and getting out helps. Contact me anytime. By my username you can tell where I live. But all our experiences are pretty much universal in prison situations.












Reply#2 - 10/15/15 1:59pm
I just read your profile. You ARE a very educated, talented woman. Make sure you keep doing those things, and TELL him about things that you are doing, like concerts, students, GOSSIP, whatever. You can get through this.