Spiritual Survival Guide
5: Complicated Stuff
One way or another, your arrest and incarceration (and whatever led up to it) has had an impact on your family. It has created all kinds of tur- moil—emotional, psychological, financial, spiritual. It may have come as a sudden shock, or it may have come as one more thing in a long se- ries of dealing with you. Either way, your family has been through a lot. We went and talked to some family members who have a son or husband or father in prison. We asked them about the range of feelings that they were going through. Not every family member feels exactly the same way, of course, but there was a surprising overlap in what they told us. Your family has been through a certain amount of shame and guilt . Shame, because they sometimes don’t want to show their face around other people. They’re tired of being known as “the parent whose son is in prison.” Sometimes they just want to hide from that. On another level, many family members carry around a certain amount of guilt. In their dark moments, they beat themselves up for not being a good enough par- ent. They torture themselves with whether they did the right things. Sometimes they feel depressed to the point of being physically sick. Moth- ers, especially, are hurting, because they know that their sons are hurt- ing. You know how you feel helpless dealing with the legal and prison system, right? Well, so does your family. They’ve been bounced around, been given conflicting information, and waited through endless court hearings. They’re sick of it all. They’ve been dealing with fear for a long time. And they still are. There was the fear of what you were getting yourself into. There was the fear of what the next phone call in the middle of the night might mean. There was the fear of the night you first got arrested. There was the fear of what would happen to you in lock-up. Then there was the fear of how your case would turn out. Now there’s the fear of what will happen to you be- hind bars, whether you’ll come out a hardened criminal—or at all. Some
mothers have a terrible fear of dying while you’re in prison and worry about what that will do to you. At some level they’re afraid of the day you do get out—they’re afraid you’ll start the craziness all over again. And so they feel anxious. A lot. What are you going to say in your next letter? Is there going to be a next letter? On one level, it’s a huge relief to some of them now that you’re locked up. At least they know where you are. They’re not as worried that the next phone call will be the police, or the psych ward, or the morgue—or you, asking them to bail you out of a jam again. They’re drained. Emotionally spent. And sometimes, financially drained as well. The path that leads to prison puts a huge dent in a lot of fami- lies’ finances. They don’t have much left in the emotional bank, either. They’ve been caring for so long that there’s no longer much positive emotion left. And so when you call demanding, “Help me! Take care of me now!” they’re thinking, “Oh, now he wants help! How many times before did we offer and he refused?” From time to time they find themselves really, really angry. Mom’s so angry with you that she could just hit you across the head. Hard. And then they’re angry with themselves for losing control and saying so many nasty things. At some level they feel betrayed, angry at God. Why my kid? What did I do to deserve this, God? They’re often angry at each other. They’re still hurling accusations at each other. Why weren’t you a better father? Why did you baby him? Why do you keep enabling his addiction? From time to time they feel beaten down, robbed of a son, numb and just plain tired. Sometimes they feel like they need to put on a show when they write or come to visit you. They like seeing the sober you, but they feel they need to put on a show for you. They’re not sure if they should hide the good things from you (will that depress you?) or the bad things (will that depress you even more, since you can’t do anything about it?).
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