than the most violent murderers and believe me, we were treated as such.

The system doesn’t care that you’re struggling with addiction or that your crime was a result of years of untreated trauma. It doesn’t care that you have no resources when you’re released, with only 30 days to pay rent or risk returning to prison.

I can’t count the number of times I was forced to apply to all of the same places, knowing none of them would give me a shot even though I surprisingly had a great resume from before my first arrest.

Some businesses told me not to waste a resume. Others laughed in my face and told me they weren’t “…interested in participating in my program. Move along now.”

I spent twenty years of my life going in and out of jail for petty, non-violent, drug-related offenses, some of which are no longer criminal. I went to detox twice in my life and remained sober for more than eighteen months each time. I was charged with Felony Escape three times, ↙️↙️↙️↙️↙️↙️↙️↙️↙️↙️↙️↙️↙️

and I never even went on escape.

First time: I went to the wrong grocery store. Two days after my release, I went to Hannaford, where my schedule said I would be at Price Chopper. It was an honest mistake, and with ADHD as kicking as mine, these kinds of incidents were quite common. I was charged with a felony escape and returned to jail two days after my release.

Second time: I was forty-five minutes late for my curfew. I don’t remember why, and I was probably up to no good, but there is no way being late warrants a felony charge unless you’re in Vermont.

Third time: My daughter was six months old, and I had almost two years sober. I hadn’t had a day or night off since she was born, so I went to Hampton Beach for a day trip without permission.

A correctional officer from CRCF (my home away from home) saw me in the water and had her mother take pictures. She sent the pictures to my probation officer. Anyone else would have gotten put on GPS, but I was forced to turn myself in and hand over my six-month-old daughter. I had a clean drug screen, and I had been doing better than ever in my life.

I love being a mom. They didnt care. They made me max out the rest of my sentence to serve nine months in custody. Luckily, I was accepted into the Lund Home, which is a pre-min program where mothers can have their kids, but get this- the state’s attorney’s office tried to block me from going.

I had no record of violence in the twenty years I had spent under supervision. Still, I had many trafficking charges and introduction into the facility for trying to traffick my mental health and maintenance meds into the jail because I was taken off them.

We all were. That’s what the DA used to try to get the Lund Home to deny my application. Luckily, the Lund worker from inside the jail had known me for all those years, and she saw how much I had changed and how I was with my daughter.

She asked me if I planned to traffic drugs into the center, and I looked directly into her eyes and told her absolutely not. And I didnt, but I was also put back on my meds, so it was easy. I was one of few who had no DCF (Department for Children & Families) involvement and never even had a negative parenting note, which they said was a pretty big accomplishment.

I was forced to spend three months away from my beautiful baby girl. I had never cried in all those years until I was away from my daughter. I cried non-stop for three months. I was also forced to look at the woman and her boyfriend who reported me, who helped her get me hemmed up every… single… day…

Don’t get me wrong. I knew the rules, and I broke them. I did it, and I was accountable. It was just disheartening to know that someone I had never particularly had issues with in the past and had always been cool to would go so far as to break up my family, knowing how well I was doing.

I could see it if I was drinking or acting erratically, but if she had kept walking, it would have had no effect on her life at all. No, she wasn’t just by the books, either. She had her dirt. Believe me.

So that is three of my five felonies. I should also mention that Escape from Furlough is no longer a criminal charge. I wonder why they are still on my criminal record.

I was always good to the COs, never giving them too hard of a time, and I was ALWAYS respectful to them as long as they treated me with respect, and after so many years, I had earned it. Some of them had a lot of respect for me. I never told on anyone and always did my own time, which they said was rare, and any time I got into an argument or fight and numbers were called, as soon as they rushed me, my hands went in the air, and I was on my knees. I was compliant because I hated being pepper sprayed., but still. 

I couldn’t make it on the outside if I weren’t selling drugs because no one would hire me, being a five-time convicted felon with those big bad felonies of mine. Pshhhh… It’s not that I didn’t want to change—there just wasn’t a path forward for me without selling drugs, and after a few years, I started to see firsthand that all roads led right back, and believe it takes a toll on you.

And that’s the real issue with the justice system. We have a prison population that’s out of control. Instead of focusing on prison reform and reducing recidivism rates, the system continues to lock people up for the long haul for drugs and related offenses.

Whether you’re dealing with a mandatory minimum sentence or life imprisonment, the system isn’t built to allow us to succeed—it’s built to break you. If you are unfortunate enough to be addicted, then trust and believe you will be punished BEYOND the extent of the law in the good ole Green Mountain State.

I was just another junkie to the justice system that wasn’t just at all. Tell me why, after going to jail, losing everything you own, ruining and losing relationships, being detoxed instantly off your maintenance and mental health medications, being thrown in the hole upon arrival for sometimes up to and over a month, we were moved to a locked-in unit called Foxtrot. Foxtrot was a unit created for people with the disease of addiction where, after everything, we were further punished for having the disease of addiction.

Foxtrot is the only other locked-in unit aside from the hole. Anyone with an addiction affliction or anyone having a positive drug screen goes to Foxtrot and is allowed out of their cells on a rotational basis. No commissary outside of hygiene and OTC medications. No outdoor recreation. No classes or groups. 

No treatment aside from a once-a-week group hosted directly across the hall where the officer opened the unit door and watched until the group facilitator accepted responsibility for the offender with a nod of the head or eye contact. The group is beneficial in no way because the turnover in Foxtrot is so quick that they are unable to stick to any syllabus or schedule. 

Most of us are triggered by the group because all of our ADHD having as*es locked in a tiny room, bouncing our knees off our legs, and literally losing our minds from our dramatic medication detox. That one-hour, one-time-a-week group was nothing. The group was run by a third-party agency, which I won’t name here. Still, I will tell you that counselors from within this agency had confided in me time and again that they knew it wasn’t enough, and they also agreed that the conditions in that jail were beyond lacking.

To further punish those with the disease of addiction, we weren’t permitted to order commissary outside of OTC medications (Tylenol, Advil, cough drops, etc.) This is unfortunate for those of us who didn’t eat the jail food, mainly because they refused to honor special diets like vegetarian and vegan back then. Every Thursday, all of us drug addicts had to watch out the unit window as all the murderers and kid crimers got buzzed into the hallway to get their big bags of commissary. It was like this from the beginning. The murderers got a special unit, too, and I bet you would have never guessed that it was a privileged unit and the most comfortable in the facility.

I remember that girls would be so hungry they would start eating cough drops by the bags. This had some really crazy side effects. I was actually in this article commenting on it because people did take notice of what they were doing. They just never did anything about it. Foxtrot also only had one semi-private shower area, which happened to be right behind the CO’s office. It also conveniently had a window where the CO could look directly at you while you were showering. This would have been one thing if we actually had female officers working the unit, but that wasn’t the case.

The system doesn’t prepare you for the free world. There are no prison survival guides, no helpful resources, and no plans for what comes next. You’re thrown back into society with no money, no job, and a criminal record that follows you everywhere. And the clock starts ticking the second you hit the bricks and you had better hit the ground running.

The Vermont women’s prison has its own ecosystem and unique inner workings unlike any other. I’ve done time in Massachusetts and New York, and Vermont is pathetic, and I never even considered it a real jail. I won’t lie and act like I was the perfect inmate because I wasn’t.

What did they think would happen, taking us all of our medications? I trafficked buprenorphine and other controlled substances into the prison, which allowed me to be at the top of the food chain. I was able to make enough money and stuff I needed to get me by with some to spare —you’re living in a world where the underground market thrives, where people trade whatever they can for a little bit of comfort.

I didn’t take their engagement rings or important jewelry, but I traded for hygiene and commissary. I shared, and I think that’s why the jail had such big issues with me. I’m not proud of this, quite the opposite actually, but this is a place where your mental health deteriorates and where you’re often left to fend for yourself without the mental health services or rehabilitation you need.

This is why people drug seek. Imagine not being to get comfortable no matter what you do. Imagine knowing that the simple act of keeping you on your medications could have prevented it all.

The system strips away everything: your dignity, hope, and humanity. And for women, especially, prison life is fraught with other dangers—like the constant threat of sexual assault and abuse, often at the hands of the very people who are supposed to protect you. To learn more about this in CRCF, in particular, click here.

If you don’t fit their impossible standard, you remain trapped. And so many of the women were, like me, serving mandatory life-on-the-installment plan sentences, stuck in the same system that doesn’t believe in forgiveness or redemption.

faces in the hearings when I calmly and professionally presented my case. I always ended by quoting statutes of Title 13 that I had inadvertently memorized with a smirk on my face.

After so many wins, I decided to be my own advocate. I read everything I could in the law library, worked with the Prisoners’ Rights office every time—and there were a lot—and did everything in my power to fight the revokes and even the system. In 2006, I got hemmed up and was ordered to turn myself in to serve twenty-five days. The jail knew me, and that I had turned myself in, so they isolated me in the zero-pressure room in the infirmary, where they violated my rights as a human being until they were able to procure a search warrant for my body. Unfortunately and Humiliatingly, I made every paper in Vermont, but I will share here, here, and here so you can get the idea of exactly what we are dealing with here.

I served three years after being sentenced to 3-6 years when I was only supposed to do twenty-five days. The reason I was given a three-year minimum to serve was for violating the probation sentence that I had just gotten the twenty-five days for by trafficking my own medications and tobacco into the facility. I thought probation started after your sentence concluded. Not for me. Not ever, and yes, it absolutely was a poor decision, and I own it, but did it warrant three years to serve and another three on the back? 

I felt like I had to do it because I was prescribed benzodiazepines, and every time, they would rip me off my meds, and 98% of the time, I wouldn’t even get a taper because the mental health “professional” wasn’t a real professional. I wasn’t strong enough for that on top of everything. One of the worst things you can do to me is take my medications and leave me alone, so for them to take me off all of my meds and throw me in the hole by myself, never knowing how long I would be in there. It’s just so cruel to do that to someone whose worst enemy in life is herself. You have no idea what all that time in the hole did to me. Words just can’t… ↙️↙️↙️↙️↙️↙️

I did end up having two late-in-life children. I had my daughter, Mikaiyah (7), when I was thirty-six and my son, Malyckai (4), when I was forty. They saved my life. I haven’t used since the day I found out I was pregnant with my daughter and left my house to live at a homeless shelter away from it all. When I was finally maxed out of the system, I did in three years what most people can’t do in a lifetime. 

I purchased my own home, became a certified coach, Reiki, crystal healing, and sound healing practitioner, and I am also a Certified Credit Counselor. I started my blog, Progressing Not Perfecting, and have put my heart and soul into it.

I am teaching myself as I go. I help others on a similar journey get to where they deserve to be. Since I started with a 450 credit score, I learned alot while repairing my credit.  Look at this “junkie” now because she is an entrepreneur that’s helping people every day. I fought my way back, but no one should have to fight as hard as I did to get their life back. We all deserve a chance to live a better life, sometimes a couple, and it’s time the system gave us that.

For twenty years, I was caught in a cycle of punishment and isolation, branded by the Vermont Department of Corrections as nothing more than a low-life addict, as if addiction were a moral failure instead of a disease.

I spent years locked in a system that did everything it could to break me. They punished us, not for crimes of violence or destruction, but for “infractions” like unauthorized visitors or being out of place.

Rehabilitation was never offered, only repeated trips to solitary, alone in the dark, with my medications stripped away and my mental health deteriorating by the minute. It was a form of torture. They violated our rights time and time again, compounding the suffering of people already desperate for a way out.

They boxed us in, releasing us into the community with zero chance of success, no matter how hard we tried—never setting up aftercare, medical appointments, or employment assistance, never creating any kind of employment programs for offenders even though we are all from small Vermont towns of which we usually made the news. I wouldn’t hire me either, based on what was in the news back then. You also have to remember that this was before addiction was considered a disease.

I just want Vermont to finally create some dedicated programs for people re-integrating into the community. This one thing could have prevented twenty years of failure and struggles, ultimately leading to self-loathing and embarrassment.  It has taken a lot of intrinsic work to heal, and I’m not completely there yet, but I will be.

The most important lesson I got from my doing life on the installment plan is to FIGHT. Don’t be the person that sits there and lets things happen to you while you feel small and powerless because there is ALWAYS something you can do. It might not be easy and it definitely won’t be fun but do not just sit there and let any injustice be done to you or yours. If you know whats happening is wrong SPEAK OUT LOUD AND PROUD.

Do your homework find the highest up of higher ups and FIGHT the injustices. We are learning more and more every day about the many ways we have been repeatedly, horribly, and irrevokably lied to by a government some of us trusted. Just because they are in charge doesn’t mean they are just or right- it just means that they fought harder to get where they are than the other gal.

They are much more serious criminals than me or my friends ever thought of being. FIGHT if you are right. FIGHT if you are wrong. FIGHT for the underdog, and FIGHT for yourself. If you FIGHT, you have a chance, and sometimes that’s all it takes to get the ball rolling.

I don’t care what anyone thinks or how badly people rip me apart in the comments. I am simply sharing my experiences trying to help, motivate, and empower others on similiar journies. I have repeatedly proved them all wrong. It feels so good I now help others like me do the same. I just want to help people. I do that and it has to count for something. Feel free to check out my blog and support my mission by doing all the things that is creators ask you to do. Be well and take care. Metta, friends. Until next time TTFN.

If this post resonated with you or you have something you would like to add or share, please do so in the comments below. You know I love to hear from you. You could also support my work by liking, sharing, commenting, subscribing, following, and registering to join our free-of-charge, supportive, all-inclusive, judgment-free, meet-you-where-your-at online community where teachers learn, and learners teach all while working together to #provethemallwrong and #showthemwhatwecando.

In our support forums, you can give support or receive support all on the same day. This community is for all of us who are more progressors, less perfectors. Addiction is not a prerequisite. All are welcome. This is a new, growing community, so please have patience, and if there are any issues, please contact me at [email protected]