Insights from the Women’s Prison: JRH
Posted by Anna Debenham, January 21, 2019
I recently started working in the women’s medium security prison here in Oregon. People ask me is there any difference between the men and the women. Not that I can see. We all have a core of wisdom and innate resilience no matter who we are.
A couple weeks ago we had a very moving conversation about sexual abuse. One woman opened up about her experience and said how she felt like she was being re-truamatized every time a triggering situation occurred – like being strip searched after a visit or a male guard walking past when she was on the toilet. Because of this she no longer has visits on the off chance she’ll get strip searched.
This conversation led to another woman talking about her experience of abuse and what that felt like to her. And then a third. JRH, normally a very loud member of our group, was quiet and in tears. She then talked about her experience of repeated rape as an adolescent. Again, her thoughts are unique to her. She has rape fantasies and is turned on by the idea of rape, even though the actual repeated experience of it was traumatic. She feels so much shame and guilt for having these thoughts. She said she feels like a monster.
I assured her she isn’t a monster but it is just how the experience shows up for her. It isn’t her fault. She’s not choosing to have those thoughts, it’s just whats happening. In the same way the other two women have their unique experience of the events in their lives so does she. It just looks different. After a while the tears subsided and she seemed to have an insight into how life was coming through her and it really wasn’t hers to control. She had tried so hard to control her thoughts but it never works. It just leaves her feeling anxious and a failure.
Last week she came back in the group, much calmer and softer and told us she hadn’t had one night terror since our last class. We hadn’t discussed her night terrors before but it sounds like she has them most nights. She said something’s changed but she couldn’t really put her finger on it. ‘I feel lighter and like I can breathe. I feel like I don’t have to pretend to be someone I’m not. I don’t mind if people don’t like me. I can just be me.’
It can seem so simplistic but we never know what the side effects are of living in our past trauma as if it’s still happening, or believing things about ourselves that aren’t true. But when we have a new realization, from within, that allows us to see how we are using our minds and thinking to create our experience of life, things change. For JRH this meant being able to be more of herself and sleep through the night. And that for her is a miracle.
