No time for weakness

I want to rip apart this cubicle.  I want to throw this computer monitor across the floor.  I want to punch the walls until my knuckles break and I can't feel them anymore.  I want to cry until the tears run dry, and scream until my voice is gone.  I want to rage, and fight and make lots of noise.  I try to maintain calm for the sake of those around me, but the panic attacks are coming.  I can feel them welling up inside my chest like that alien from that Ridley Scott movie waiting to burst out and show the world my gleaming insides.  And yet I keep my tongue, hold my breath, and pray to get through the day so I can sleep and forget one more night.  And then the next day it starts all over again.  No escape from the daily grind.  No savings to hold me over so I can have time to put my head back together.  No secret rich relative to leave me enough money to buy a shack in the woods so he will be allowed to come home to me, or better yet, buy a lawyer to tell the truth and get us out of this nightmare.  Still, I hold my tongue, swallow my fears, and pray for the strength to get through one more day.  Just one more.  Just one more.  It will all be worth it when it is over.  (Will it ever be over?)  Just when I think I can't make it through the day, the next day comes, and I have the nerve to be surprised that I made it.  And I'll be damned if I know how I did. 

A boy named Luke

Luke is seven years old.  He has his mother's eyes, and his father's bright smile.  Luke lives with his Nana and Papa in the country with wild kitties and lots of land to run around on.  Papa takes him prospecting for gold and fossils and arrowheads.  Nana helps him with his homework and makes sure he gets the right chicken nuggets for dinner. 

Luke likes to play Lego Star Wars, and he got lots of Legos and Star Wars stuff for Yule and his recent birthday.  Oh, and you can't forget the Hot Wheels and Battle Hamsters!  Sometimes Daddy calls him on the phone, but he can only talk for a little while because he only has so much money on his phone card.  Daddy was supposed to be home last year, but some dumb judge decided to keep him away from him.  He doesn't understand why the judge made Daddy stay away.  

Mommy is a few miles away, living her life and trying to get by.  Daddy has been locked up for as long as he can remember.  And he will never forget the heavy doors, razor wire, and men in blue shirts taking his Daddy away from him after every precious visit. 

Daddy's wife Holly comes to visit sometimes, usually to bring him presents or to hang out, play games, and read him stories.  She tells him that Daddy loves him and misses him so much, but Luke can't understand why she gets to see him every weekend, and he doesn't see his Daddy at all anymore. 

And what Luke doesn't know would break anyone's heart.  He can't visit his Daddy because the place where Daddy lives is full of pedophiles.  Daddy isn't even allowed to keep any pictures of Luke because of the men he lives with.  And little does he know that when Daddy finally comes home, which could be months, or even years from now, he probably won't be able to contact him at all.  He won't even get the phone calls that he has grown accustomed to because Daddy won't be allowed.  And when Daddy is finally able to see him, strangers willl have to watch them, and there will be a time limit on a special day to visit.  And Daddy will have to get special letters from people who he goes to visit giving him permission to be around their families and children.

Even though Daddy will be free, he will never be "free", and it means he won't get to be his Daddy like he wants him to be his Daddy, and Luke has no choice in the matter until he is an adult.

And Daddy does not have a crime that has anything to do with children or any form of pedophilia.

That is Luke's reality.  And he has no choice. 

How does all this affect my life?

I figured I would just get this rant out of the way, because I hate reliving the reality of this life in my head more often than I have to.

I miss my husband everyday.  No matter how many phone calls we share.  No matter how wonderful the Saturday visits are.  No matter how sure I am that this is right where I am supposed to be, and this is exactly what I am supposed to be doing, I miss him.

O, I have bought the mansion of a love, but not possess'd it, and, though I am sold, not yet enjoy'd: So tedious is this day as is the night before some festival to an impatient child that hath new robes and may not wear them...Juliet Capulet

I fiigured nothing could capture the desperation of my longing better than a quote from Shakespeare.  I have married a man, and no matter how long that fact is a fact, he is still only an idea to me.  We have never shared real life together.  We share friends.  We share family.  We share a boy named Luke, who he never sees, and to whom I play the second-hand replacement of a stepmother.  We share a few hours every weekend.  And we share many hopes of a life that we so desperately want to share with each other.

Everyday, those dreams get pushed further and further back by all the people who tell us that there is nothing we can do.  They are the people who ignore him, kick him while he is down, and remind him of the awful label he will always carry for the rest of his days in this life by denying him his simple human rights everyday in that place.  And then there are the people who tell me that it is a lost cause and it's not too late to divorce him and get a life for myself before it is too late.  They tell me it is not my fight, and that he made his bed, so he has to lay in it.  Then there are the lawyers who do their job, but care nothing about the people they represent.  They do what they have to do, and nothing else.  And the lawyers who actually do care about those they represent want forty thousand dollars for a good trial.  It's about the money.  Not the justice.  And then there are the parents of the children they believe they are protecting by denying other human beings the rights we are all born with in this country, simply because they can.  I agree with them for the most part, but they have no idea how the laws they support are being used and abused to treat these men like monsters.

We can't tell the future.  We can't predict the fate of anyone, anytime.  There has to be some trust that our higher power has a plan that no manner of human law can override.  We are not fortune tellers.  No one can stop bad things from happening.  But, in the name of a civil society, we deny these men a second chance at a life simply because we can't control the chaos of life, but we can keep them locked up.

I want my husband home.  I want to share my life with my best friend.  I want the intimacy that is my right in my marriage, and I desperately want to be a mother.  I am 34, and my time is running short.  At this point, I would settle for a cabin in the woods where no one can find us, and we can live our life as we see fit. 

I have never been convicted of a crime.  I have lived a fairly boring life, waiting for the love I found with this man.  And now I am still alone, waiting for a bunch of people who are not cheering for us to decide our fate.  Who cares about us?  Who wants to help us?  I tell people about this life I have stumbled into, and they listen, shake their head, and continue to take their life for granted.  They get to go home to their lives and families everyday!  I can't.  I go home to a crap apartment with my kitties, my cable, and my head full of so many things that no one can or will understand.

My heart is full, but it is broken.  My head is full, and I fear it is breaking.  I have some little pills from my doctor that are supposed to patch it up, but they don't seem to fix what is broken.  They just make things numb for a little while, and then all that emotion just comes spilling out anyways.  This is the point I have come to.  I am so full of all this stuff, and I have no one to spill it to, save my husband, and my father.  My friends care, but have no idea what to do, and the rest of my family always say the same thing:

Save yourself.  He is lost.  You still have a chance.  Find someone without all the baggage.  Find God.  Go to college.  It is better to be alone than suffering with someone when you didn't do anything to deserve it.   

I have been alone all my life!  And I won't go back to that crutch again.  The only thing it leads to is more loneliness.  I have a love.  I have a purpose.  I have something worth fighting for.  And I need help and support that no one can give. 

So here I am.  And I have to get up tomorrow...and do it all over again.  

 

This is just an example...

Kidney stones.  Something my husband has to deal with occasionally when he gets stressed, and they are very painful, as some of you may know.  He has been passing a few stones this week, and at the worst yesterday, he was laid up in his room and couldn't get up because of the pain.  He screamed for help for 45 minutes, had to crawl across the floor to the door, stick his head out and scream down the hallway for help so he could piss.  They got him up off the floor, took another 45 minutes to get him a muscle relaxer (no pain meds) so he could actually piss, and then it took them another 45 minutes to bring him a urinal so he could piss, because he couldn't get to the bathroom under his own power.  Meanwhile, he was reduced to tears, and almost pissed himself.  This is the kind of frequent neglect these men have to face because of who they are and how the people who are supposed to care for them feel about them.  They do a half-assed job because they take care of sex offenders. 

The visit from the Parole Officer

Yesterday, I got a knock on my door at 11am.  It was Parole Officer W.  I had gotten a phone call from this particular fellow a little over a week before asking me a bunch of questions about myself and my husband.  He had also informed me that my residence was not a suitable place for him to reside because it is a couple of feet too close to the local YMCA.  Then he told me that I had to get rid of my computer, my cell phone, any and all forms of pornography, among other random bits of bullshit.


And, in reference to finding a new place of residence that was suitable for my husband to live, he said that if I didn't find a suitable address within the next week, that he would have to fail his inspection to the courts.  In all, I was given two weeks to find, procure, sign paperwork, and pay first and last months rent on a place more suitable for a sex offender to live.  Oh, and he suggested that the place be rural since living in close proximity to people might cause problems with neighbors because he is registered, AND that he is not allowed to get a driver's license or drive, so I would be responsible for getting him to all of his programs and treatment, regardless of my work schedule.

Now, where was the last rural setting that you know of that has convenient public transportation?  If he has a class during my working hours, I either have to take time off to get him there, or drop him off so he can wait, and then pick him up after I get out of work, which is probably after the scheduled curfew he would be given, and then he could be violated solely for missing curfew or simply loitering outside the place where his class would be held.

And this is on top of the fact that I am flat broke, in the negative, and my credit score is well below what is warranted to find a mortgage.  So finding a place to live where he can live is pretty much impossible at the moment..  More to follow...gotta get back to work...

Social Workers

My husband has had 3 different social workers since he has been in the hospital.  The first was an older lady who seemed to give a shit about him and his welfare.  She even blew smoke up my ass, telling me that there was no excuse for these men being treated like they are usually treated by the staff that is there to look after them.  But, in the same breath, she tried to tell me that we should get used to the way he is treated and how hard it is to deal with this situation because he will probably be there for a very long time because the program is in it's "infant" stages.  So I guess that is supposed to make it ok for them to completely disregard their civil rights.

Anyway, I used to call her all the time and leave her voice mails to be put on the visitors list weekly.  I would also have to complain on a pretty regular basis when the staff would mess with him.  They conveniently forget to give him his packages, put through the money for his phone cards on time, and screw with his commissary orders to the point of being blatantly on purpose.  Needless to say, she rarely returned my phone calls, but things got done when I called.

Then they moved him to another ward, so he had to change to a new social worker.  He seemed like a nice guy, but I barely even got to speak with him because he quit the facility.  His reasoning was that he had taken the job there to help the men in the program, but he wasn't allowed to help them in any way that would matter.  He refused to stick to the script, so he would get in trouble, and he quit because of it.  How awful!  I worry every day that there are not many people there who actually give a shit about my husband, and now there is one less because this law is a joke!!!

Now he has a new social worker, and I only know her name.  I hope she doesn't get too intimidated by my voice mails advocating for my husband.  It would be nice to have someone that doesn't treat me like I don't understand the gravity of my day to day life.  The life I live every day.  While all those people who treat my husband like shit because of his label get to go home to their loved ones every day, I get to live alone, worrying about how the state is going to decide our fate.  And yes, as they don't seem to think I can grasp, I know that things can turn out very badly.  I do.    

A visit to the ward...

I visit my husband every Saturday at the CNY Psych Center in Marcy, NY.  Visits start at 10am, they say, but it really depends on when they feel like coming to get us from the waiting room between 10 and 11.  First, I pull into the parking lot.  I have to lock up all my valuables in my glove box, then make sure that I have what I need to go in: my clear purse with money for the vending machines, my driver's license, and any package items he may need that week.  Then, I walk up to the first heavy door that buzzes and walk through.  I walk up to this glass bubble where a guard sits, waiting to ask me for my ID and who I am visiting through an intercom.  I pass my ID through a double door so he can see who I am and write down my address, time of arrival, and who I am to see.  Then he gives me back my ID, and tells me to proceed through the next heavy gate, which also buzzes.  Then there is a flight of stairs and two more locked doors that open automatically and lead to the conveyor belt and metal detectors.  My money, keys, ID and all package items go on the conveyor through the Xray machine, while I walk through the metal detector.  Then, one guard inside asks again for my ID while another looks through the package items and my money bag.  The guard hands me back my ID with a visitor badge that I must wear while walking through the halls, and keeps my keys in a bin to retrieve upon exiting.  Then, we get to wait for the visiting room staff to come and fetch us to the visiting room.  When I finally get through all the locked doors to the room (EVERY door is locked there), I have to wait for him to come downstairs.  I have to sign into a book with my name and address and who I am there to see.

After all of that, the moment arrives when he walks around the corner and smiles at me.  I get up out of my chair and throw my arms around him.  We hug, and kiss until the babysitters start clearing their throats.  Then we have until 2:45pm to eat, talk, laugh, play cards, enjoy each other and make plans for the week ahead.

Then they kick us out at 2:45 SHARP.  We then throw our arms around each other again, tell each other "I love you" a few more times, and then he cups my face in his hands and kisses me good enough to last the week.  And as we are led back through all the locked doors, I go numb trying not to cry, and am already looking forward to the following Saturday when I can hold him again.  Ad infinitum.  This is my life as an Article 10 wife.

What is Article 10, you ask?

In April of 2007, Eliot Spitzer signed into law Article 10 of the Mental Hygiene Law, also known as Megan's Law.  Basically, this law allows the State of New York to hold anyone with a sex crime in a mental health facility pending a civil trial which would determine whether or not they have a mental abnormality that would cause them to commit future sex crimes, and whether or not they should be committed based on the court's findings after the trial.  If they are not committed, they can also be placed on a special version of parole for sex offenders that basically makes sure that they are supervised in every aspect of their life until the State is content that they need not be supervised anymore.

Now, I bet you are all asking yourselves "how did she fall into the trap of this law?"  Well, it is a long story.  Long story short, in May 2008, my best friend hounded me into writing her ex who just happened to be in prison.  She thought we would hit it off, and we absolutely did.  I was 31 at the time, and he was 23.  He was serving two consecutive 3 year sentences for what I like to call "glorified statutory rape".  No violence involved.  Just an age problem.  So, six years total for what most men would only have a 2-3 year bid.  By the following June, we were married, and we had our honeymoon all planned for the two weeks following September 13th, 2010, when he was supposed to be released from prison for good.  He was maxing out, which means that he never tried to get out on parole.  He served his full sentence and was supposed to be free for good.  Well, all except the whole being a registered sex offender thing.  But we were both willing to deal with the backlash from that little glitch.  His now 7 year old son was so looking forward to finally be able to see his Dad in a place not surrounded by razor wire and big heavy metal doors.

Well, about a week before he was supposed to be released, we were informed that he would NOT be released.  An expert, obviously paid by the State, had sat down and had a 2 hour conversation with him a couple of weeks previous to determine whether he would be affected by Article 10 or not.  Basically, what his report said was that he (the expert) believed that he showed signs of a mental abnormality, but that he was basing his findings on his past history.  No mention of how much he had changed over the SIX years he had been locked up.  So, just in case, they better hold him at a psych center and go ahead with the expensive trial that could be avoided if they would just have someone not being paid thousands of dollars by the state to be biased to sit down and have a real conversation about who he is and how he has changed.

This is just the tip of the proverbial iceberg, as they say.  Obviously, it is now April of 2011, and he is still locked up at the Central New York Psychiatric Center in Marcy, NY, and the trial probably won't even start until around Samhain.  That's the end of October for you non-Pagans out there.

I am a woman.  I am a wife.  I want to be a mother someday.  All of these tiny dreams that many others stumble into, and take completely for granted are denied me because the State made a law that is being used without abandon.  My husband deserves a chance at a new life.  A new start.  I deserve to have my husband here, home, in my arms.  We deserve to consummate the marriage we both know is the right future for us, together.  We always joke that if the lawyers and judges and experts and people who seem to be able to decide our future could see us every weekend in that visiting room enjoying every precious moment of time we are allowed to see each other, they might not be wasting the taxpayers money on a man who is very obviously not sick.  He was convicted when he was 19.  He was child himself.  He has never had a chance to make the life he always wanted.  And now he may not have that chance for a very long time.

I am sad.  I am angry.  I live alone in a one room apartment that has cockroaches.  I work 40 hours a week building medical equipment.  I am in limbo, waiting for a system to work that is not working.  This law was not created to help cure sex offenders of their mental abnormalities.  This law was created to keep sex offenders locked up for as long as they can be locked up, even if they have done their time.  And if they can't keep them locked up, they can keep track of their every move for 2, 3 or 4 years on the outside, all the while looking for any reason to violate them and put them back inside those walls.

Trust me.  I am not defending the men who have done unspeakably awful things to women, men, or children.  I am defending the other men like my husband who were misguided, made a mistake, and do NOT have a mental condition predisposing them to be sex offenders for life.

And maybe I am just being selfish.  I want my best friend home here with me instead of on the phone or in a visiting room where we aren't even allowed to touch each other during the visit.  I miss him everyday, and want to live our life together, and no one cares!  No one will listen!  We are alone in this struggle, and some days, it is unbearable.  The only good part in this whole story is and always will be that we have each other and we are lucky for that.

If you care, send this blog to someone you know.  I will be posting as often as I need to, being I have no other outlet for the myriad of thoughts I can't get out of my head.  I need to fight.  We will fight this until we are heard.  This law needs to be fixed and addressed.