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Returning home from prison is a strange time. It’s hard on us, and hard on the family. Here’s a couple of things I have noticed:
(CW: reference to sexual and carceral violence)
(CW: reference to sexual and carceral violence)
Everyone involved in the coming home has to adjust their expectations...and expectations between your loved one and yourself may not match up or align. And that is ok, but tough if you don’t talk it through
Expect intimacy of any kind to be hard for some of us who return. Some of us will crave human touch, some will seek out unsafe or high risk intimacy, some of us will recoil at your touch. This all depends of the levels and types of traumas we experienced inside.
And expect us to cycle through different needs at different times in this area. I have gone from wanting human touch to despising it, to fearing it, back to craving it....and back around all over again
The type of intimacy, the frequency and my responses to it continues to vary as my heart and mind cycle through the stages of recovery from the sexual violence I experienced inside.
Expect that how you look at your family might change. Mostly you may look at them like you don’t know them that well anymore. This can depend on the amount of time you’ve spent inside, or it may not, because...
...while you were inside and your life was on hold, everyone else’s continued marching on. Finding a space for yourself in their life is sometimes tough.
You might have difficulty making decisions. I have struggled with this monumentally. It doesn’t take long to be institutionalised, and after any stretch of time not being able to exercise any agency let alone make a simple decision, it is going to be a rough road to recover from.
You may under-parent or over-parent or both. I have struggled working out my place as a mum again. I’ve struggled with the new found independence my kids have, and struggled with questioning whether I have a legitimate right to parent given my absence...
You will likely hate the state & despise authority. Eg: when the cops are in line with you at McDs, you may experience panic, anger, revulsion, rage, fear, anxiety...it’s all normal. Agents of the state have brutalised you, it’s ok to feel all of those emotions when you see them.
These are just a few things that we struggle with, my list is growing day by day. I hope this is helpful for formerly incarcerated mob, and for the families welcoming their loved ones home. Prison is violent, brutal, unsafe and damaging...
Please be patient with us, with yourselves, adjust your expectations, or better still be flexible with them...and most of all stand with us to abolish this harmful, violent and too often deadly colonial frontier.
