This letter was written by a person incarcerated at CMC (California Men’s Colony).
At the start of quarantine I began to take things personally over the many restrictions imposed including total lockdown. While incorporating my coping skills I started to view things from another perspective, one that didn’t include what I wanted but what was best for my community.
This led to a better understanding that what was being done was to protect and save lives in the best way known. Viewing things collectively I now see that the task of inmate and staff safety is a difficult one. This came clear when after the fifth COVID-19 test and all the restrictions I became positive for the virus.
The first thing that came to me was panic as I was told I was being moved to a part of the prison where infected people were housed. The coping skills that I’ve been utilizing over the past few months helped me to focus my mind away from the panic, and on positive ways to maintain physical and mental health while fighting off the virus.
The use of my coping strategies, and knowing that they work, has allowed me to form additional courage and strength when facing continued anxiety and stressors during this pandemic. Although some days are better than others, continuously using my positive coping skills ensures that I do not become complacent, and start to resort to any of my old negative ways of coping to dilute anxieties, pain, shame, depression, or any stressors that will come now in life and in the future.
10/2020
Hello out there!
Here is a paper I wrote back in October dealing with COVID. The total cost of COVID hit the prison population hard. As of date four out of five prisoners here at CMC, yes, over 80 percent infection. With no visits or continued daily programming it really affects the mental thinking of a man as the walls and one’s mind starts to close in.
