Tomorrow I go on holiday for a week and boy did I pay for it today at work. Was on all day today so got into work and was walking to the wing when I got the call most people hate, which is to go to the medical wing for a constant watch. This is where prisoners are deemed a high enough risk to themselves to commit self-harm or suicide. So they have their own personal officer during the day and nurse at night (hate to think what the cost is), so off I trot to the medical wing and do the handover.
This woman, she is very withdrawn and refused to look me in the eye let alone talk to me. So after a couple of hours of coaxing I finally get her to talk to me (albeit strange conversation) and after a while I get her to follow me to another wing for some arts and crafts and ping pong. She finally relaxes with me but still does not give me eye contact. So I was feeling good about myself. By the end of the day we were getting on nicely, and she was even telling me about the voices in her head telling her to do stuff. About 30 minutes from the end of my shift I told her that I would be going soon and she asked me if I could be with her the next day. I told her that I was on holiday to which she replied, “give me an envelope, could you take these voices with you?” I am no trained psychologist. I have no idea how to handle this situation, so I say “sure” and give her an envelope as requested.
Before I left today I had to find out why this poor person was in prison and what I found out made me well up. The woman was in prison for attempted murder of her husband, but her husband was not pressing charges because previously this lady had been gang raped, which of course made her unstable. During a restless night and bad dreams she woke up not knowing where she was and attempted to smother her husband, but despite this her husband visits her as often as he’s allowed. The police will not drop the charges as they feel she needs to be in prison “for her own protection”. FFS she doesn’t not need to be in prison, she needs to be in a hospital getting the treatment she fucking deserves. The system uses prisons as a dumping ground because they have nowhere else to put them and it’s fucked up. On the car journey home all I could think was now have I made a mistake promising I can take her voices away. I hope this does trigger something on her head that the voices stop but I doubt it.
House of Glass 