Jeremy - 37

I never saw it coming, driving down the I-5 that sunny day. It was supposed to be my last drop, and then I was headed back home to Canada. When I passed the beige SUV parked alongside the highway, something deep inside of me knew what was about to happen but I resisted the truth. The flashing lights of the SUV are now in my rearview mirror, nervous yet trying to find some calm to believe I can get out of this. I pull over, my hands tightly gripping the steering wheel, my palms sweaty, and my heart rate maxing out in my chest. I ask myself two questions: how can I act confident enough to get away, and how did I land in this position in the first place? The sheriff is now knocking on my window, proceeding to tell me I was driving erratically and speeding, which I was not. He goes on to ask me what I am doing down in California and then asks to search the vehicle, which I deny. He says not to worry, that they have a drug dog in the back. As soon as I heard the word, “they,” I knew it was a setup, after which I was in a trance. There I was, a 21-year-old, leaning up against the SUV, awaiting my fate, what was going to happen in mere minutes, how my life was about to be turned upside down in the blink of an eye, it hadn’t started there, it had been going downhill for years.

As I sat in an 8x10 cell for 22 to 23 hours per day, I had nowhere to hide, nothing to distract myself with. I could feel the discomfort of sitting still with my thoughts and realizing that I was the one who put myself in this place, no one else. It was a truth that took me a couple of months to accept and take ownership of, and one that I needed to start turning my life around in this darkest of moments. In truth, the disconnection I felt from life started back in elementary school. I stood up for a kid who was bullied by my friend group, as a result, I was then the person they turned on. I was cast out from that group for doing what I thought was the right thing, I was punished for it. I internalized this to mean that I should not say what was truly going on for myself or do what I believe to be the right thing in the moment, that I should leave that decision up to other people out of fear of being abandoned or rejected again by friends. From that day on, it was like a slow drip, the disconnect away from my own needs and wants, and into “fitting in” and “getting along” only to ensure that I didn’t disrupt the flow of the friend groups that I was trying to become a part of after being ousted from my original group. It’s a very lonely place to be, in grade 6, and feeling like you’ve lost all your friends and believing it’s all your fault. I started to suppress my emotions and minimize my needs, which drew me further away from myself and into the influence of others. I started to accept telling lies that were deceptive and elaborate only because it meant not having to face the truth of who I was becoming and the path that I was headed down, not to mention the big pile of incomplete emotions swirling around within me.

I struggled to accept my situation of being in prison for an undetermined amount of time. I got updates on my case only sporadically every few months. If you have an issue with things going slow, the federal prison system in the US will force you to get comfortable with things going slow. After a few months of being locked up, I started to accept my fate and realized that I still had something that they couldn’t take away from me, that was my internal state and mind, my drive to push forward and change my life is something that only I had control over. When I first got arrested, I was 50lbs overweight and wasn’t paying attention to my health. The first thing I started to do was to trade my bread for extra veggies from other inmates and get a daily workout going with a couple guys I had befriended up to that point. I started reading more, I was fortunate to have an outside support who would mail me letters and ordered me a subscription to the local newspaper. The impact of mail sliding under your cell door each day was monumental, it was like a piece of the outside world coming to greet you, so you didn’t feel so alone. I thought I had hit a good stride, I’d been in prison a little over a year at that point when one day I got called out of my cell for a lawyer visit, it was my public defender, he handed me a plea deal for five years and said “I think you should take it”, I grappled with the thought of serving another four years, if I took the deal I would no longer have to wonder when I would be going home, this piece of paper would guarantee it. I took the deal and I said to myself that I can do this, I can continue changing my life while finishing up my sentence. Until I got another call out of my cell two weeks later, another lawyer visit, I feared the worst, more charges? More time? Those fears weren’t confirmed, yet it was something heavy. I was informed my public defender had been disbarred from practicing law in California, and that these two guys standing before me were now to be my legal team, and they seemed interested in my case. Unfortunately for me, the moment I signed that plea deal, nothing could take it away, not even my former shitty representation. This sent me into a very dark tailspin, immense anger would grip me each day. To find out from my new legal team, that they had found evidence of wrongdoing in my arrest, and that I would have been set free if I hadn’t taken the plea deal only deepened the tailspin I was experiencing. It took me months to get free from the anger, and grief of what could have been.

The moment I walked out of prison three years later (due to the judge being incredibly nice and forgiving and reducing my sentence by two years), I was once again struck by a tidal wave of shame and guilt, going back home to Canada, to where I had let down my family and friends with my choices, I built up big walls around myself to ensure no one would find out what had happened. Only to find out the hard way, that by closing myself off to others, I was closing myself off to me as well, like an onion you had to peel back the layers. Through a great deal of healing, hard work, and turning the lens inwards, I found a sense of peace with all that had occurred in my life, and I experienced a state of post-traumatic growth from those experiences. It has motivated me to support other men going through periods of hardship and wanting to work their way through it rather than letting the situation work itself out on the person. It is my belief that true healing, growth, and a deep sense of understanding are available for all of us if we are willing to do the hard work and ask for help. We are not our mistakes, and we are all worthy of living a meaningful life.

Music - Jeremy’s music choices during our photo session included Pink Floyd, The Rolling Stones, Tash Sultana and AC/DC.