Transcript
Loneliness, Isolation, And Boredom Equals Suicide Honestly, How many of you have thought of committing suicide? How many many times in your life have you felt so lonely, Isolated that suicide looked to be the only way to end the Loneliness, Isolation, and yes even The Boredom? How many times has suicide seemed like The right thing, The only Thing left to you? Truly the only way to get rid of the Loneliness, Isolation, Boredom, Depression and The Emptiness in you and your life. This Loneliness, Isolation, Boredom, Depression, Emptiness, being taking away from everyone you love and taken at away from The Simple Things you loved or liked to do. Will and does drive even the strongest minds to Thoughts of Suicide. In Texas Prisons even more guys think about and do commit suicide. This is not only because of the guilt they feel for what ever crime they may have or did commit. Its because of The Loneliness, Isolation, Boredom and so on. The suicide rate in Texas Prisons is worse than anyone will admit. This week in mid-July I lost another good friend. He committed suicide by cutting his own throat while stitting in the shower. He sat there for three hours until the T.D.C.J guards found him. Friends in prison are hard to come by. A lot of us are friendly to one another. But to call someone a friend and truly meaning it is rare. In Texas prisons it even more difficult to make or call someone a friend. The Texas Prison System frowns on guys becoming friends. The Texas Prison officials even do what they can to keep friendships from forming. I’m sure they have there faulted reasons. The system does what they call “Random Moves” all the time. Or they do what they call “Housing Reassessment.” Really this is done to keep guys from forming friendships. So you can imagine how hard it is to call someone friend or brother. But if you do call someone friend or brother it is well earned. Losing yet another friend to suicide is very hard on me, on all of us here. My friend who we will call “Sean” only had his mother over there in the “Free World” and a few of us in here. I know he loved and miss her very much. I hope she knows how much she meant to him. It’s just that the loneliness, Isolation, Boredom, and all becomes all consuming and it was just too much for Sean. It’s too much for a lot of guys. Many times its almost been too much for me. Add on to all the feelings, with Covid-19, everything inside prison has shut down. In Texas Prisons there is No visitation, No pay phone privileges, limited or no commissary, no outside rec, limited or more often no dayroom, no or limited T.V. time, limited or no hot meals, no church of any kind, no board games as in No Chess, Checkers or Dominos, No library and limited or no showers. Which is all Texas Prisons allows us to do or have. This is going on Five months now. All of this adds to our loneliness, Isolation, boredom, etc. This only increases the thoughts and chance of suicide inside Texas Prisons. I’m sure this would increase suicides anywhere. These feelings are not only because of Covid-19. This is a year around thing in Texas Prisons. Thoughts of suicide are always amongst us in Texas Prisons. I’ve seen more suicides inside these prison walls. Then all my years as a firefighter in the free world. The rate of suicides in Texas Prisons is very high. Still not all suicides are cutting, pills or hangings. Many guys use the medical excuse. “I’m not going to take my cancer treatments” Im diabetic so I’ll just eat as much sugar as I can and slip into a coma and die.” To them its not suicide. But it really is. They’d rather die than live in and with loneliness, Isolation, Boredom, etc. The suicides, of friends, Brothers, fellow prisoners takes its toll on all of us. It can make you think and make some believe, that the ones who have committed suicide have the right idea. (It’s not of course) Me, I don’t believe I’ll commit suicide. Its not like I haven’t thought or even planned to do it, I have. And its not that I’m stronger than anybody else. True its hard to fight the thoughts with your friends dying around you and the T.D.C.J guards pushing you to do it. And with nothing to do but think about how lonely, bored, isolated, and depressed you are, of course suicide is always on your mind. What stops me from taking my own life are a few things. My Dad is my main reason. He came back into my life a few years ago and hes been in my corner ever since, He even sends me a little money when he can. But its his and his new wonderful wife just being there that helps. Another reason is, even though I’ve lost my faith, I don’t know if Hell is real and worse than Texas Prisons. (Which I doubt.) I don’t want to go to hell. The heat, loneliness, boredom and all the rest is bad enough right here in Texas Prison! This may seem silly or crazy but I’m hoping that Texas will catch up with the rest of America and start selling T.V’s, Playstations, Movies, Books and other things. I really miss the small things liking watching a movie or playing a game on my Playstation. Man what I would give for a Playstation. Still I hold on cause theres so many books I haven’t read yet. From J.K Rowling, Brent Weeks, Stephen King, Brandon Sanderson, George R.R. Martin, (still desperately waiting on Wind’s of Winter, Mr. Martin) and many other writers. I Thank you all for your wonderful books. I will tell you since this is about suicide, that J.K. Rowling and The Harry Potter books saved my life. Many, many years ago The loneliness, Isolation, Boredom and emptiness was getting to be too much for me. The thoughts of suicide were about to become actions! As I was throwing away the things I didn’t give away, I found the first three books of The Harry Potter Series in the trash can. I don’t really know why I took them. They were in bad shape, loose pages and all. I believe they’d been read many, many times. I thought I read those then I’ll say goodbye. Reading them, and living Harry’s life with him and Ron and Hermione. I lived Harry’s loneliness, isolation, abuse and then his victories, friends and love so deep that he was willing to die for those he loved. I saw then that I felt better. J.K. Rowling saved my life! So you see, books, T.V’s, video games, movies, all those things and more can and do save lives. You never know what may stop someone from committing suicide. Anyone or all of those things can and has helped keep the loneliness at bay. It’s helped with depression, boredom and so much more. Like I said it may sound silly or crazy to you. But these are the things I hold on to. The things that help me continue day to day. For over 13 years now I’ve told myself T.V.’s, Playstations, Movies and more will be here. So I wait and try to keep the bad thoughts away for another day, week, month, year! I wish everyone could find something to keep suicide away. I wait because what other choice is there. To commit suicide, to sit and go deeper in to depression, to allow the loneliness to enter my heart, my soul. No, not me! I’ll try and hold on. I’ll read any book I can find or someone gives me or someone tries to throw away. And I’ll use the books to kill the hours between loneliness and boredom. Until T.V.s, Playstations, movies, and what not get sold here. Because I believe one day they will. Until then if Texas Prisons can open visitation again, allow us to use the pay phones again, reopen the library and rec yard, allow us to play dominos or chess, allow us to go to the dayroom, maybe it will make the loneliness easier and help with the higher than normal thoughts of suicide. The truly sad part is Texas Prisons officials love all this loneliness, depression, boredom, etc. I’ve had a few guards tell me. “Most of my coworkers will do anything and everything to make you guys feel lonely and suicidal. They even take bets to see who will kill himself next. They also truly believe its part of their job to punish you all.” For those reading this, I’m sure you will think or even say I’m lying. I don’t need to lie. You can ask almost any T.D.C.J guard who quit or you can go on your computer and look it up. There was once a website for T.D.C.J guards. I’m sure you can still find parts or all of the site somewhere. On this website they would get together and talk about all the guys they killed. About how they abuse all of us. How they would make someones death look like a suicide or an accident. Where they’d talk about all the things they’d do to us. So you see I don’t need or have to lie to you. The truth is all ready out there. Hopefully you’ll see how much Texas Prison guards make us feel even more lonely, isolated, empty, depressed, bored, and suicidal. They thrive on it, on how we die because of it. Yes, we are in prison, yes most of us are guilty and yes we should feel SOME of this loneliness, isolation, boredom, etc. This way those going home don’t come back. Also it help us see the hurt we’ve caused others. But how much loneliness, fear, emptiness, isolation, boredom, etc. is one prisoner supposed to suffer? Or are we supposed to feel all this until we commit suicide? Sean was a good man who got hooked on drugs after his six year old son Sean Jr. lost his battle with cancer. The drugs Sean did helped or so he thought, cope with the death of Sean Jr. But those drugs lead him to prison with a 25 year sentence. You may say the death of Sean Jr. is why Sean committed suicide. And I’m sure thats partly true. Still Sean had been doing fairly well handling Sean Jr.s death for the last ten years. I’ve talked with hundreds of guys before writing this essay. I know it was loneliness and boredom that finally got Sean and so many others. And it will get so many more. It sad cause if they could of only have had help against the loneliness and boredom, help occupying our minds, maybe they’d still be alive. Maybe these thoughts of suicide would have become less and less. Please understand that just because you think of committing suicide does not mean you will. It’s almost impossible to live in Texas Prisons with all thats done to us not to think about committing suicide. Again thinking does not mean doing. Though that is a very fine line, that unfortunately most fall on the wrong side of. Me, for now and as long as I can I’m gonna hold on to my hopes and books. I’m gonna spread my hopes to whoever will listen. And I’ll hope enough people out there will hear of our loneliness, boredom, isolation, emptiness and suicidal thoughts here in Texas Prisons. Then hopeful changes will come. When someone in the world dies of loneliness, its called the broken heart syndrome. What do we call it when someone in prison commits suicide because of loneliness? I call it heart breaking and avoidable. A possible future for me and many others. What would you call it? The state of Texas calls it JUSTICE! William T Jacobsen 9601 Spur 591 Amarillo TX 79107
