Chapter 4: ORIENTATION (CHANGE, SHOCK & AWE, SUICIDE WATCH)

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From Surviving to Living

(04) ORIENTATION (CHANGE, SHOCK & AWE, SUICIDE WATCH)

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Part One

March 2011 – September 2015

“There is none righteous [none that meets God’s standard], not even one.” ~Romans 3:11 (AMP)

“The way of the wicked is like [deep] darkness; they do not know over what they stumble.” ~Proverbs 4:19 (AMP)

On my second day in prison the prison placed me in a two week orientation class. We were called R&O’s (Reception & Orientation). One purpose of this class is to teach the rules and consequences of breaking the rules, consequences like LOPs (Loss of Privileges), DLOPs (Discipline Loss of Privileges), seg time (Solitary confinement), and UI (Unintended Idle). I had become a guest of Acronym city. It was very confusing, and more alarmingly, I needed to learn this information quickly to survive.

The Minnesota Department of Corrections (MN DOC) assigns a six-digit Offender ID (OID) number to those committed to the Commissioner of Corrections. This is the primary means of identifying offenders in the system. OIDs are a sequentially numbered system, and one is assigned the next number available the first time one is incarcerated. One’s OID never ever changes, even if one comes back for another crime. OID numbers tell a story- they tell you who’s new, who’s not, and who’s back. Every inmate wears an OID badge with a photo, name, and OID number.

On my third day of orientation a new R&O arrived named Ashley. Curiously, her OID was a lower number than mine, telling me she had been here a week longer than me. Ashley was 20 years old, with long, light brown hair and sticks for arms and legs. Her olive-tan skin nearly matched her hair. Most notably, she resembled my youngest son Tim. This bruised yet comforted my heart.

Katy was another classmate. Tall and thin, her blonde hair shaved nearly to the scalp, Katy was in her mid twenties. Katy spent her time in the dayroom chatting with other women. I worried about her also. Katy was eager to make friends, was too trusting and slightly awkward. She reminded me of my son Lukas.

Class started after breakfast and ended at 3 p.m. Our evenings and weekends were free, and I longed to vanish to my room or call my children. Each day as I made a getaway from the classroom, women behind me slapped themselves into chairs in the dayroom and wondered what to do with themselves. Ashley could also be heard calling plaintively, “Does anyone want to play a game?” Everyone answered, “No.” This happened every afternoon. I would turn and see Ashley’s outstretched, pleading arms droop, her imploring expression turning sad. I thought of Tim – he often begged his older brothers to play with him.

How pitiful. I wanted to hide in my room whenever possible, but this was too much. After our third day of class I remained in the dayroom to socialize. Ashley once again asked if anyone would like to play a game and waited for the answer. Her optimism had faded. She turned to each of us, reading our averted eyes and silence. Her face began to fall once again. “I’ll play with you,” I said, “What do you want to play?”

Surprise widened her eyes before they crinkled. She smiled, opened her arms and leaned forward. “That’s great! I don’t care what we play as long as it passes the time.” This was the beginning of our friendship. As the days passed she explained the mystery of her lower OID number and late arrival to orientation. When arriving at the prison she had refused to speak at all. To anyone. For days. The prison placed her on suicide watch until she would talk. The trauma of arriving at prison can manifest in many ways.

Even though I sat in prison, I remained unaware that I needed to change. I believed myself to be a good person or at least a person who understood what good is, even if I lacked the ability to perform it. If I could tell you what was right, didn’t that make me …right? ‘My beliefs don’t need changing,’ I thought. ‘I want skills to perform well!’ It never occurred to me that beliefs affect performance.

One of my biggest struggles began in my teen years and continued for decades, serious depression. My depression made personal stability impossible. For me, happiness was based on circumstances, which were my masters – shifting, demanding, defining. I had trouble holding a job, especially a full-time job. Medication helped, but it didn’t cure me. Believing I must perform at a high level, my inability shamed me. When stress became too great, I would crash from intensity to apathy, disconnecting and sleeping much of the time. Doctors prescribed me high doses of anti-psychotics, anti-depressants and mood stabilizers. This cycle continued while in prison. Exhausted, I would hide in my room, dreading even going to a meal. I didn’t know the answers then, but in a few years Jesus would free me completely. Christ dethrones circumstances. They fall beneath the greater reality of His Presence. He promises – “And you will know the Truth, and the Truth will set you free.” (John 8:32)

Day after day I sat in orientation class and my mind wandered, trying to imagine the future. In the evenings I called my kids. I still felt present in their lives, as if I’d be home in an hour or two. “Moooom!” Lukas would bellyache on the phone, “Timmy is poking at Vivianne!” Screaming and arguing could be heard in the background.

“Put your brother on the phone,” I’d instruct. A clatter of the phone, accompanied by stomping feet and the echo of Luke’s muffled voice nearby relaying the message, “Mom wants to talk to you….TIM!” Another clatter as the phone exchanged hands and I heard Timmy say, “Hi Mom,” with a hangdog note. Vivi continued to scream somewhere in the house. “Tim? Have you been poking your sister?” I queried. I told them to go to their rooms for a well deserved break.

Tommy, my 10 year old, picked up the phone. His little boy voice shook with loneliness and frustration as he described problems I couldn’t solve so easily, problems at school, problems with friends. Trying to soothe him I choked out, “I’m still here, Tommy! It’s not like I died!” In stunned silence we both listened to the words echo. In fact it felt like I had died. Tommy gasped out a sob.

Later I spoke with Vivi. Once on the phone I wasted no time in apologizing for our separation. In her little girl-turned stern lecturer voice she scolded, “Yes mommy, but you keep doing it!” She had believed my earlier stay in jail was my punishment in full for my crime, so when I returned to prison a year later she thought I’d committed a new crime. I should have better prepared my family!

Explaining now, I soothed Vivi and encouraged her to talk about her day. I told her I was going outside with friends to play after I finished with our phone call. Again her tone of voice changed. Even at such a young age she must have found this an implausible prison activity. She challenged me, “No you’re not.” Insisting I was, she responded in her best grown-up, threatening voice, “If you’re going to continue to lie to me Mommy, I’m going to end this call!” I burst into laughter.

Again and again I would revisit my past with longing and regret. Raising five children can be chaotic, challenging. From the quiet solitude of prison, however, ordinary moments from my past took on a poignancy as never before. What I wouldn’t give now for five minutes of my past life at the dinner table on an ordinary day! I yearned to tell one more bed time story, push someone on a swing a few more times. How did I breeze through life so carelessly? When did I lose the ability to savor every moment? I ached with loss and cried for what would never be.

After orientation the prison assigned us a job and moved us out of Broker. On a Thursday morning I opened my mailbox. A new schedule for me was inside. I had been assigned the job of folding balloons. Then I heard my name called over the PA system, “Aho, Staff Desk…..Aho, Staff Desk.” Over the last 2 weeks I had become familiar with that summons. Over the next 8 years I would hear it thousands and thousands of times.

Climbing out of my bunk I stepped out of my room. Before closing the door I tapped pants pocket with my right hand and the front of my shirt with my left hand. Having confirmed my keys were in my pocket and I’d placed my badge on my shirt, I shut the door and headed to the guard desk. This ritual, too, is one I would repeat thousands, millions of times, over the next 8 years. To forget a badge or keys led to punishment.

At the staff/guard desk a female guard addressed me, “Ms. A-ho,” pronouncing the A and O with long vowels. My name is pronounced like the word “also” (replace the middle letters with an h). The male guard sitting next to her must have known the correct pronunciation. He snickered when she said it wrong. Then he turned to me and, grinning impishly drawled, “Ms. Ah-o!” (pronouncing it correctly) “I believe she just called you an A-ho!” Turning, he waited for the other guard’s reaction.

She flushed a deep pink. Leaning back, her hand fluttered near her heart. Staring at the ceiling as if the answers required were written there, she struggled to compose herself. The other guard snickered again. I waited, uncertain. Regaining her composure, the first guard declared, “I’ve now forgotten why I called you down here. Go to your room until I can recall.” The other guard’s snickers turned into guffaws.

Shortly she summoned me again to move me to a living unit named Tubman. I wedged my meager belongings into two gray bins and signed out of Broker. I would sign into Tubman when I arrived. Every building at Shakopee has a sign-in book. Like the badge and keys ritual, signing in and out of these books at every building is mandatory and punishable if not done. Depositing my bins on a wheeled cart, I rolled it down the walkway and across the property to Tubman.

Yanking my cart up to the staff desk at Tubman, a white haired guard rose to meet me. His name badge read, “Officer Lik.” In a loud voice he grilled, “Ever been to seg?”

Referred to as “seg,” prison segregation is a special housing unit separated from the general population. Inmates are most often taken to seg for discipline.

Startled, I peered up in surprise. “N-No!” I stammered.

“Want to go?” He hammered back.

Shocked again, I flung back another, “N-No!” Satisfied, Mr. Lik turned to my paperwork and slid me new keys. In the months and years ahead I would come to appreciate Officer Lik, but at that time I viewed him as the enemy.

Roommates are randomly assigned, so it surprised me when I opened the door to my new room and found Sarah, an R&O from my class. OID badges are clipped to our shirts with a clear plastic tag. Sarah’s tag was a cheerful shade of red. “Hey!” I remarked, jealous. Her flare of color was a bright spot in our gray and khaki world. “How did you get that?” I demanded. She smiled knowing, understanding my need for girlish sparkle yet sheepish about the truth.

“I forgot to sign in,” she told me. “Sgt. Laabs gave me an LOP.” Her red tag signified discipline status. Gabbing like old friends we fell to talking half the night.

Monday after lunch, I headed to work. I immediately hated it! I was packaging Mylar balloons for 50 cents an hour. The balloons were for holidays and birthdays, and it kept my grief raw as it reminded me of special days I was missing with my family. I’d fold the balloons and cry. Prison regulations allowed us to take a sick day but take too many and you’re fired. Overwhelmed, I took many sick days but hated what this said about me.

A woman named Char sat behind me folding balloons. She’d been incarcerated for 14 years. Despite this, she still had a sense of humor. One morning a small group of us worked without a supervising guard. Kathy had also served a number of years and worked near the front. She employed a walker with wheels to get around. When she left her walker at her desk and made a trip to the restroom, Char pounced. Packing tape in hand Char set to work encasing the walker’s wheels in thick balls of tape. When the door handle turned, Char ran back to her own desk.

Leaving the restroom Kathy failed to notice the change to her walker. An hour later work was over. As a guard came to relieve us Kathy shoved her immobile walker without success. The guard pointed out the giant tape balls surrounding each wheel and snickered.

The next day we were all busy at work again when the same guard returned and called, “Char.” No response. “Char!” he said louder. Again no response from Char, who remained hard at work in the back. The guard switched tactics, “Hey, Satan!” he yelled.

“What?” Char asked as her head popped up.

The guard suppressed his smile as everyone else laughed. “You missed your class this morning,” he told her.

Char erupted, “Dang it!” She began pounding her desk in frustration.

“What class was it?” the guard asked.

“Anger Management!” Char yelled in reply. Even the guard laughed at that. So there were some not too bad days, and life went on.

One week after moving in with Sarah the prison moved her to another cell. We said our goodbyes, and I received a new roommate. One day later, I said goodbye to her, and the prison placed me in a wing-lounge. Wing-lounges are bedrooms holding 4-6 people that used to be something else (a lounge). A few days later I was delighted when Ashley became our newest roommate.

After a month, my parents’ visiting applications were approved and a guard called me to visiting for my first visit. Sitting in a blue plastic chair I waited. The entrance door clicked open and my parents appeared. As I stood my dad covered his face with his hands and sobbed. This surprised me. He recovered quickly and we all sat.

Wanting to reassure me, they told me how the kids were doing. My dad leaned forward and said, “Don’t worry about anything. The kids can live with us until they all turn 18 if necessary.” This made me grateful!

A week later my cousin Jennifer came for a visit. My dad is an identical twin, and Jennifer is his twin’s daughter. Our birthdays are one day apart. She has 6 boys and one girl, to my 4 boys and one girl. Our visit encouraged me, a bright spot during dark days. Unfortunately she never visited me again. Years would go by without a word between us. Once in awhile I sent her a birthday card.

When I wasn’t working I didn’t know what to do with myself. Cells are unlocked at 5:30am and outside of one’s work schedule you may do whatever you please with your day until cells are locked again at 9:25pm. Some free time options include trips to the library, gym or courtyard, signing up for sports or sitting in the dayroom.

“Holly, do you want to come sit in the dayroom with us?” a neighbor asked me. It was my day off and I lay on my bed doing nothing. I considered the question. What did I want? How do I know what I want? I imagined myself sitting in the dayroom and felt nothing. So I imagined staying in my room and still felt nothing. I changed tactics. Does someone need me in the dayroom? Does someone else want me in the dayroom? Those questions seemed easier to respond to. Before prison I never had time for leisure. Everything I did was dictated by the needs or wants of my children or husband. I’d live so long that way I no longer knew myself. My stress became so acute I began wetting my bed at night.

I called my kids daily. Phone calls are on a 15 minute timer. With five children this amounted to an hour and fifteen minutes a day. I wanted creative ways to spend time with my children. I also sought to avoid conflict with other women over so much phone use.

One solution was story reading early in the morning before my children went to school. At the library I considered each child’s reading level and interests. Sliding a book off the shelf I read the back. It was a mystery novel for tweens set in the early 1900s and involved a father and son traveling magic act. Luke might enjoy this book. Choosing another four books I looked forward to calling my children in the morning!

At 6:30 a.m. the next day we began. The hallway was dark and most of the women were sleeping. Trying to speak softly on the phone I wondered if I was disturbing the other women. After 15 minutes I would call back and read another book to my next child. One day the woman living nearest the phones confessed she was sad to be moving. She awoke every morning to the sound of my voice and had become engrossed in the plot of our books. She would miss it!

From other inmates I learned Shakopee offered many programs. They ranged from educational to early release opportunities. As I settled into my new life I began to dream of a future where I earned work release, higher education, or early release. This gave me great hope after the shock of my sentencing. Maybe I could get some of my old life back! My caseworker gave me an unwelcome surprise, however, at our first meeting. “You do not qualify for any of these things because you are a sex-offender,” she told me matter of fact.

In one second my hopes for the future were taken away. I blinked in surprise. Before I could ask a question she added, “Also, because you are a sex-offender, the prison has put you on the Predatory Offenders list, which restricts your visiting privileges. You will only be allowed “non-contact” visits with your children.” Non-contact visits are done through a glass window. I had no idea there was such a list. I didn’t know there were restricted visiting rules. I had been waiting to hug my children at our first visit. Now I couldn’t! I burst into tears.

My caseworker appeared surprised. I cried and cried in her office, shocked. She stared at me as if to say, ‘Don’t you know you are a monster? Why would a monster expect anything else?’ I stared at her through tears thinking, ‘Don’t you know I’m a mother? Why would a mother expect anything else?’ Her hard expression revealed a new layer of reality to me. I added ‘monster’ to my new identity.

“You can appeal this decision,” she added, avoiding my eyes. My heart leaped again with hope. “If you want to improve your chances you should take parenting classes here,” she finished.

I discovered the next day that my balloon folding job schedule interfered with the classes. I would need to find a new job. Not long afterward Shakopee’s “Memo of the Day” advertised a clerking position. I applied, and the prison hired me. I signed up for the parenting class.

Shakopee’s visiting room is kid friendly. Half of the room has carpeting you’d expect to see in a kindergarten or daycare. Kid sized, colorful folding tables are spaced throughout the room next to adult sized chairs. Pulled up to these small tables are animal shaped chairs, small folding chairs, and other fun children’s furniture. Puzzles, toys, and games line the walls. Mothers play with their children, read them books, and color with them. The walls are decorated with their works of art. On special Saturdays children can spend the day with their mothers in the gymnasium, eat lunch with them in a special room, and on holidays have parties with them. Even teenagers can spend the day playing basketball with their moms, hanging out, and reinforcing that special connection.

Along one interior wall were windows with tall legged chairs in front. Each window faced its own small room with a mesh screen underneath. These windows and rooms were for non-contact visits. Until I could appeal my visiting restrictions this is where I’d visit with my children. Visitors sat in the visiting room while the inmates sat on the other side of the window in the little room. The mesh screen allowed for regular conversation.

My children found it fun to sit so much higher than everyone else in the room. Vivi took the window to be a personal finger painting challenge. She couldn’t leave an inch of it unsmudged. While she talked she swirled her hands this way and that over the glass, her little eyebrows pursed in a light frown, surveying her “handy” work for clean spots she may have missed.

My parents brought my children twice before my world tilted again. I called one morning to talk to my children as usual, but my dad had news for me. After my sentencing, the home my family had lived in sat empty. When the county jail released my husband, he petitioned the court for permission to move back in, and as neither I nor the children lived there anymore. A judge granted him permission. He remained unemployed and could not afford to pay rent or utilities. The city had shut off the water, electric and gas utilities. Immediately he began contacting my parents, his anger now focused on them. He began threatening to kill them, raging against them. Then he demanded to have the children returned.

“Holly,” my dad calmly started, “we decided to give the kids back to your husband. We think it is the best thing for them.” The news stunned me. Four young children living in a home without flushing toilets, running water, electricity or heat – with an angry father – how was this best for them? My dad would listen to none of it. He kept repeating what a sensible decision he already made, the children were gone.

Next, my husband began demanding money from me. Before my sentencing I’d received a tax refund, which I’d used to pay the utilities and rent. I’d loaned the remainder to a friend. Now my husband demanded I give this money to him, but I couldn’t. It was gone. Enraged, he refused to let me talk to my children anymore.

I withdrew from my parents, not understanding the sudden change of heart. My future kept shifting, and my footing in the past appeared less solid than I’d believed. Jesus said, “everyone who hears these words of mine and does not do them will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand. And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell, and great was the fall of it.” Great was the fall of my house! I had further to fall.

In June the prison assigned me to another room, another roommate, Janna. Sgt. Laabs, the officer in charge of Tubman, believed Janna to be a discipline problem and I became guilty by association.

Janna was in her early thirties, with medium brown hair and a nervous laugh that rarely met her eyes. Her body was filled with anxious energy that couldn’t be burned off in quiet solitude. Pacing , her steps eating up the tile, she tirelessly stomped away her thoughts and fears until Sgt. Laabs released from her room to perform this ritual on a larger stage. Sgt. Laabs adored quiet solitude; he hated agitation. Janna was a pebble in his shoe.

I, on the other hand, saw Janna as an energetic new friend, friendly and inclusive, and I really needed a friend. During my free time I sat with her and her friends in the dayroom. Oblivious that Sgt. Laabs had a fervent love for cathedral quiet, I laughed like I was on the show ‘Hee-Haw!’ Sgt. Laabs solved this problem by punishing me, Janna, and all of her friends, to death. During the months of July and August, I was rarely without the red LOP tag.

In mid August I called my 16 year old son Noel. Instead of our usual chat he gave me terrible news. My only living grandparent, my grandmother, had passed away. I had recently received a card from her in the mail and this news didn’t feel real to me at all. Forgetting that I couldn’t call or write to her I remembered just as I reached the phone.

By the beginning of September I’d received so many LOPs that I was headed for DLOPs, a progressive and more serious form of discipline. The prison sent me to visit the head of discipline. Sitting in her office I attempted to describe my point of view and struggles. “How do you wish to explain all of these LOPs?” she demanded.

“I don’t deserve half of them,” I responded truthfully. “For example, at 7:25 Sgt. Laabs called me to the staff desk and gave me another citation for remaining out past my scheduled break time, set to end at 7:30pm. When I directed his attention to the clock on the wall behind him, which indicated I had another 5 minutes of break time left, he refused to turn around and look. He sent me to my room with the LOP.”

The discipline lady remained impassive. “Why not go to your room 10 minutes early? Why are you remaining in the day room until the last minute?”

Bursting into tears, words tumbling out I accused, “You’re mean! This place is mean! I’ve been grounded for months for reasons I hardly understand, my grandma just died, and you aren’t helpful at all!!” Searching for a tissue I blew my nose and sank into my chair miserably.

Looking panicked, the discipline lady leaned back in her chair and braced her hands on her desk. She began searching her memory and her desk for something useful. “Would you like me to call the chaplain?” she offered.

“No,” I whispered, eyes leaking tears. A few minutes later I collected myself and slunk from the room, chastened and wrung out.

Isaiah 60:1 “Arise from the depression and prostration in which circumstances have kept you—rise to a new life! (AMPC version)

Discussion Questions:

The passage begins with Holly reflecting on a realization about the need for change. Have you ever experienced a moment when you became aware of the need for personal change? What was it like for you, and how did you respond?
Holly describes struggling with depression and the impact it had on various aspects of life, including work and personal relationships. Can you relate to any aspects of her experience with depression or mental health challenges? Do you need help with these challenges today?
Holly discusses the concept of conditional love and the pressure to perform in a performance-based worldview. How do societal expectations and views of success contribute to the pressure individuals feel to meet certain standards?
Ashley, a fellow inmate, becomes a significant part of Holly’s story. How does Holly’s decision to play a game with Ashley mark a turning point in their friendship? Have you ever experienced a moment where a small gesture or act of kindness transformed a relationship?
Holly reflects on the significance of storytelling and reading books to her children during phone calls. How do you think such activities can help individuals cope with challenges and maintain connections with their loved ones during difficult times?
Holly faces unexpected news about not qualifying for certain programs and restrictions on contact visits with her children. How would you cope with such unexpected and challenging circumstances?