As I write these words, I wonder if my vision will pan out or just be another delusion. Sharing this essay with you is a way to support myself to make it real.
As I quickly approach the end of my 15-year federal prison sentence on the charge of possessing child pornography, I am asking myself what I want my life to be when I’m free. Already, my situation has changed significantly from the time of my arrest. I am divorced and my son currently does not want a relationship with me. I’ve lost most of the friends I had prior to my arrest. I have no career and no home. And my concept of a higher power is no longer the same. Even my sexual orientation has changed.
But on top of all this, there’s the biggest change: who I am. Since my arrest 13 years ago, I’ve spent the whole time working on improving myself, and I don’t want to go back to my old ways of thinking and behaving, which would only lead me back to misery. I also don’t want to go back to the way things were. So I am determined to keep up the changes in me, even in the face of the challenges to come. So there it is. At 53 years old, I will soon be starting over and this will give me the perfect opportunity to reinvent my life and me the way I’ve always wanted to be.
So I’m putting it out there – the life I want and who I intend to be when I am released. I know it won’t always be easy to hold myself to this vision, but I am intending to be this man, and acknowledging this intention will help guide me down the path. So here goes. Let me share with you my intention to be a new man in a new life. Wish me luck!
Intention Number 1: Victim No More
I’ve lived most of my life not only being a victim, but also playing the victim. It’s not surprising. I encountered many disempowering situations while growing up, including sexual abuse and bullying, and these experiences implanted in my head a victim mentality. As a result, I used to think of myself as weak, helpless, and in need of protection, and I acted that way. These beliefs carried over into my adult life. Seeing myself as weak, I often allowed others to take advantage of me, including in my marriage, but every time I did, I felt even more victimized. Angry and resentful, yet afraid to fight back, I chose to be passive-aggressive so that I would have the illusion of some control. But acting passive aggressive only made matters worse and simultaneously increased my feeling of impotence.
What I have learned is that I’m not weak. Instead, the belief that I was weak was all in my head and it made me weak because it gave me an excuse to avoid addressing difficult issues within myself and in my marriage and other relationships. The truth is: I could have stood up for myself at any time, but I rarely ever did. Staying in victim mode allowed me to blame others for the things wrong in my life. In my mind, my difficulty having close relationships, my pornography addiction, and even to some extent my same-sex attraction were all due to my mistreatment at the hands of others, and therefore out of my control. Instead of making things better, this perceived lack of control led me to feel helpless, depressed and angry and prevented me from doing the work I needed to do to get my life in order.
Now I have become a fighter, not in an aggressive way against others, but in an empowering way for me, enabling me to fight for what is right for me and for everyone. In my new life after prison, I intend to continue to own my power. Nobody has a lot of control in life, but we have some – starting with the power to address our reactions and choices. And I’m going to do just that.
After release, I may face prejudice, loneliness, fear and discrimination. But I don’t want to wallow in self-pity and blame. I will focus my energy on dealing with my own issues. I intend to no longer live my life based on the whims or desires of others, but to make life decisions based on what I feel is right for me and those around me. I intend to look for support but to trust my own judgment.
I have the strength to overcome my temptations, to make the hard decisions, and face difficulties head-on. I know this from experience, so no more excuses and no more following the crowd. I will take full responsibility for my life and the consequences that come with it. Having lived successfully for over 10 years in prison, I have proven to myself that I can handle any challenges life throws at me and I am ready to carry this success to the outside. I am a victim no more!
Intention Number 2: Gotta Have Faith
Growing up, my relationship with a higher power was one based on strict, sometimes senseless, rules and the fear of punishment for breaking them. The basic message of my religion was “follow all of these rules or you will earn a one-way ticket to Hell.” For me, trying to conform to all these rules already was a living hell. I always felt like there was something wrong with me because I couldn’t be perfect in the religion’s paradigm, and that eternal damnation was just around the corner.
My religion also caused me to feel significant shame over my same-sex attraction and fostered in me a very destructive self-hatred. It demonized my very normal sexual feelings, which made me feel defective and like I didn’t belong. I’m still trying to get this indoctrination out of my head so I can finally relax into healthy sexual relations. Ironically, while constantly preaching about the evils of masturbation, same-sex relations and premarital sex, members of the clergy were using their authority to take sexual liberties with children, including myself. Talk about sending mixed messages!
These religious struggles carried over into my adult life as I tried to live up to these standards. Because the standards were both wrong and unnatural, I continuously failed, which was probably a healthy thing, but I didn’t know that, and these failures fed my feelings of shame, worthlessness and self-hatred, which I attempted to numb by engaging in unhealthy behaviors, including pornography. These behaviors led to more negative feelings about myself, which in turn led to more acting out and the downward spiral continued. It took me getting arrested to seek help and finally break free from this cycle.
Right after my arrest, I tried to be ultra-religious in the hopes that God would forgive my many failings. However, as hard as I tried, my heart was not in it, and it felt like I was just going through the motions. I discovered in counseling that I had a lot of anger towards God and the church that had been simmering below the surface. Once I realized I was angry, I tried to overcome the anger by going in the opposite direction. I stopped going to church and tried to push God out of my life. This approach didn’t work either as it just made me feel empty.
So now, I am developing a different way of being spiritual. In my new life, I intend to continue developing true faith, which for me, is not achieved through organized religion but from a spiritual connection with my higher power built on love and trust. If I can find a church that helps me achieve this, that would be great, but regardless, my primary spiritual guidance will have to come from within me. I will be open to receiving guidance from my higher power and trusting in that guidance to live my life. I will let go of my need for control in my life, which comes from a place of fear, and relax into a life guided by my higher consciousness.
And a big focus of my new spirituality is going beyond a concern only for myself and my loved ones and instead focusing on what is for the greatest good for my community and the universe as a whole. This is a huge paradigm shift for me, but this broadened mindset allows me to have a positive impact on those around me and to feel better about myself. I am under no delusion that this will always be easy or that I won’t make mistakes along the way, but that’s ok. I will no longer feel the need to be perfect, only to learn and grow from my mistakes.
In my new life, I intend to evolve in my faith in God, myself, and others. This will help change my life from one of selfishness, self-centeredness and the attempt to control reality to one of true meaning and purpose, giving and connection.
Intention Number 3: Emerge from Fear
For as far back as I can remember, I’ve lived life in a state of anxiety and fear. Early childhood physical and sexual abuse have left me acutely sensitive to conflict. When conflict arises, even if it’s only verbal and sometimes even if I am not directly involved, I feel an overwhelming, irrational fear for my safety and go straight into panic mode. My fight or flight instincts kick in and I feel the need to escape at any cost. If escape is not possible, I usually give in and placate the angry individual or look for someone else to protect me. While this would be a reasonable strategy if my life was in peril, in most cases, it’s a huge overreaction and only leaves me feeling weak and full of shame.
The fear of conflict has also caused me to avoid dealing with important relationship issues, which has blocked me from maintaining healthy, long-term relationships and caused me to stay in some abusive ones. This behavior, which was meant to protect me, has actually just made my life miserable.
In addition to the fear of conflict, I have always felt the fear of being not enough and not inherently loveable. I felt I had to meet some imagined ideal in order to earn love or else I’d be rejected. This fear led me to be a people pleaser, to sell out myself and others to be accepted, and to make some very poor decisions. In trying to please everyone, a truly impossible task, I ended up losing myself in the process. This fear was particularly evident surrounding my same-sex attraction. I tried to live the “perfect” heterosexual lifestyle to the point of getting married because I feared rejection if my true feelings came out. Needless to say, it didn’t work, and I ended up hurting myself, my wife and child, and my family in the process.
In addition to these fears, I’ve also struggled with many other fears in my life. These include the fear of not being masculine enough, the fear of making a mistake, the fear that I would not be able to handle any challenges that may arise, the fear of aging and poor health, fear for my safety, and the fear that something bad was going to happen. More recently, I’ve added the fear of not being able to find housing and a job after prison and of having to live my life on the sex offender registry with all of the stigma, shame, and restrictions that go along with it. Filled with fear, I have lived a life full of anxiety, hopelessness, and depression, which in turn contributed to my making poor choices.
Fear has stolen my joy – until now. So in my new life, I intend to continue overcoming the fear that has controlled me. Rather than avoid conflict, I will see disagreements as a way to better understand others and to receive feedback about myself. I will not shy away from tough situations and will stand up for what is right, even if that leads to conflict or makes me unpopular.
As you may have surmised, I have had a lot of counseling during my prison time, both private counseling and an addiction treatment program. Through all this, I have been working to develop love and acceptance for myself. I am not the same person I was at the time of my arrest 13 years ago and am very proud of the advances I’ve made, although there is still more work to do. In my new life, I will not allow my fears and negative thought patterns to control me and so let me put it out there:
● I know I will face many challenges, but I now have the inner strength, confidence, and social support to deal with them rather than run away. And I will.
● I’ve already begun to accept my same-sex attraction as part of who I am and in my new life I will no longer feel shame surrounding it.
● I will reach a level of self-love that does not require outside validation so I will no longer feel the need to perform for others’ approval in order to gain their love and mine. This is vital for me to achieve as I am sure to face discrimination for my same-sex attraction as well as for being a sex offender (it will help that I’ve already had a lot of practice dealing with this in prison from both inmates and staff). However, rather than letting it get me down, I will continue to live a life of integrity and seek support from others if I need it.
I am under no illusion that all my fears will magically disappear upon my release. However, I now have the tools to identify these fears as the irrational beliefs that they are, and the more I do this, the less power they will have over me. What I do know for sure is that my self-destructive ways of dealing with my fear in the past did not work and this knowledge will help keep me on the right path when the going gets tough.
Intention Number 4: Embrace Healthy Relationships
One of my biggest challenges has always been having healthy relationships. It’s something I’ve always desired but have not been able to achieve. One major struggle for me is to maintain healthy boundaries. Instead, I have allowed others to violate my boundaries rather than stand up for myself. Over time, I would build up resentment towards them and anger at myself for allowing it to happen until I reached a tipping point. I would then cut them off emotionally and do and say things to push them away so they would leave me.
I have also been guilty of violating other people’s boundaries. I’ve acted co-dependently by believing I am responsible for “making” others feel happy rather than taking on the role of supporting and empowering them to overcome their own challenges. This in turn ended up making them feel smothered while also allowing them to push on to me the responsibility for their choices. This behavior was also disempowering for me as I was trying to take responsibility for something of which I had no control. Rather than helping, this co-dependent behavior created resentment and frustration and resulted in relationships where nothing changed and no one was happy.
I have also suffered from a lack of trust. This has often caused me to hold back parts of myself in my relationships. I feared rejection so I would not let people get too close in the hopes it would hurt less when they inevitably left me. Unfortunately, this behavior kept all of my relationships at a superficial level and the resulting lack of intimacy left me feeling lonely and unloved. Ironically, it was also a major contributor to the breakdown of the relationships I was afraid to lose in the first place. I truly wanted to develop close relationships with people and I knew it would make me happier overall, but it was (and still can be) a constant struggle for me to let my guard down enough for that closeness to develop.
A lot of my relationship issues have also resulted from low self-worth. I didn’t love (or even really like) myself so I couldn’t internalize the fact that someone else might actually love me, flaws and all. I would work hard to get into relationships but once in them, I would quickly start to lose interest. For me, the thrill was in the chase but when it came down to it, I didn’t want to be with someone who was willing to be with me.
Often, I would get into relationship with people who were interested in me, but I had no attraction to them. I always sold myself short and figured I should take what I could get. It really wasn’t fair to them or healthy for me as these relationships were destined to fail. After a while, I’d get angry and ashamed of myself for settling and would end up either breaking things off or pushing them away until they broke up with me, either way leaving the person wondering what went wrong.
And in all my relationships, if you broke my trust or hurt me, I was done. I wouldn’t immediately end the relationship as I didn’t have the courage or desire to deal with the messiness that would entail. Instead, I would become emotionally unavailable as I was angry and afraid of getting hurt again. With friendships, this behavior would result in us drifting apart. In romantic relationships, my partner would eventually get tired of my aloofness and break up with me, which is what I wanted but didn’t have the guts to do.
My greatest failure has been in same-sex relationships. Although I’ve had this attraction my whole life, it wasn’t until more recently that I have acted on these feelings. I had a lot of conflict about this. I couldn’t be in a healthy gay relationship because I really didn’t want to be gay. At best, I’d keep things at a friends-with-benefits level and deflect any attempt by the other person to get closer, which left them feeling frustrated and, honestly, left me feeling empty as well. At worst, my “relationships” would be all benefits without even the friendship. While casual sex may work for some, it always ended up making me feel cheap and depressed, as what I was really looking for was an emotional connection. Although I knew in my heart that sex without commitment was damaging to me emotionally, it’s taken my mind and body years to finally get with the program (at least mostly).
In my new life, I intend to approach all relationships with the conviction that I am enough. I won’t have to pretend to be someone I’m not in order to make people like me and it’s ok for some people not to like me or be attracted to me at all. I will remember it is not my job to make other people happy or fix their problems and will not take on that burden. However, if they want it, I will be available to support people in their struggles by listening and providing compassionate support rather than running away out of discomfort or fear. And I will not give in to my urge to problem-solve. I will also ask for support from others when I need it rather than try to deal with everything on my own.
I intend to not allow anyone to treat me with disrespect and will be assertive in expressing what I want and don’t want and will be willing to walk away from relationships that are not working or are unhealthy. I will also be more proactive in seeking out relationships rather than waiting for people to come to me, and if I am not interested in a relationship with someone, I will be honest up front.
I’m also going to give same-sex relationships a real try. I will let go of all the judgments that have been drilled into my head and go all in and see what happens. I won’t allow others’ judgments to stifle my happiness and I won’t give up at the first sign of trouble. I will finally get out of my head, stop overthinking everything, and just go with the flow. If it doesn’t work out, that’s ok. I will get back up and try again.
Finally, I’m not going to let my fears ruin my chance at happy, healthy relationships, particularly the fears about being a felon and labeled as a “sex offender.” I do not accept that label. It is a demoralizing stereotype and does not accurately reflect who I am – or who anyone else is either. Despite the negative stigmas and challenges that I’ll face in finding relationships, or just in life overall, I will remember that I have a lot to offer, not despite my prison experience, but because of it.
I intend to embrace the knowledge that I am now a much more compassionate person than I was, one who is not quick to judge others. My focus is no longer on the attainment of material things, as I’ve learned to live with practically nothing and have found it surprisingly liberating. In fact, by losing almost everything, I now see that true, lasting happiness cannot be bought, but rather, comes from healthy, loving relationships and by helping others. I will remember that I am now more open and honest with myself and others, I more deeply appreciate the relationships I do have, and am willing to share these feelings of gratitude with those I care about. I no longer take my relationships or anything for granted. There is plenty about me to love.
And since I am now aware of my unhealthy relationship behaviors, I intend to ask for help when I catch myself backsliding rather than try to hide my behaviors or give up. I am proud of the person I’ve become since my arrest and refuse to continue to let the past drag me down. I will no longer live in shame or in fear of what others might think of me. I deserve to be in healthy relationships and I’m going to make it happen.
Conclusion
As you can see, I have big plans for me and my life once I’m released from prison. To summarize some points: I intend to take responsibility for my life and my choices and no longer be anyone’s victim. I’m going to develop a strong and trusting relationship with my higher power in order to live a meaningful life. I will overcome my many fears and face life’s challenges head-on, knowing that it’s ok to fail but not ok to let fear prevent me from even trying. And finally, I’m going to open myself up to healthy relationships remembering that I have a lot to offer and a lot to gain.
Okay, so right now, I’m still sitting behind bars, talking about who I’m going to be or at least who I intend to be. Talk’s cheap. Right? But I have more than talk on my side. First, I know that if I don’t see myself differently and live my life accordingly, I will just end up being the same person I was prior to my arrest, and I refuse to go back to that miserable life. But secondly, I am not intending to do something that I’m not already doing now. I’ve been working on these changes and have seen significant growth. So these are more than intentions and a vision for the future. They are acknowledgments of who I already am and have become, and that makes all the difference. There will be challenges that may throw me, but not knock me out. I’m highly motivated and definitely up for a new life. Bring it on!
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