I am 12 years into a two-decade sentence, and I am crippled by fear. Sweat drips off my body. My heart races. I lose my breath. This doesn’t happen because I am in prison. It happens at the thought of leaving prison. The truth is I’ve become more comfortable inside than I am out in the free world. This is what happens when you become institutionalized.
I realized I had become institutionalized three years ago. It was a winter day and it was so cold inside that I was bundled up in my coat and gloves. I was watching a Christmas movie and got to thinking, I will never know what that is like, to have such a loving family. Then I acknowledged that part of me was OK without family because I had friends inside these prison walls.
I sat still and thought about how I had been in institutions for most of my life. I was taken away from my parents due to their abuse and spent the majority of my childhood in group homes in Missouri. One of the homes had cells in it. Hearing the lock click taught me to feel like a prisoner. And I learned from a young age that those in authority could not be trusted.
The staff was often physically abusive. Being hit, kicked and thrown to the ground was not uncommon. I, like my peers, failed to learn how to have healthy friendships. Instead we fought one another for certain rewards from the guards. The winners of these gladiator-style bouts would receive prizes like extra food and phone time.
After I aged out of the juvenile system I soon entered the adult one. At 21 I did a year for assaulting a police officer who showed up to do a welfare check on me. I truly hated law enforcement and enjoyed disobeying them.
When I got out of prison, I had started HRT but hadn’t fully come out to my family so they were there for me. I had an apartment, a truck and a job working at the local grocery store waiting for me. I got married and had a child. But I was later convicted of shaking my child to death, something that haunts me on a daily basis. That’s how I ended up with a 20-year sentence.
I am now a trans woman living in Missouri’s Jefferson City Correctional Center, a maximum security prison for men. I’ve experienced atrocities that most in the public wouldn’t be able to handle. I was raped soon after I entered my first prison, Fulton Reception and Diagnostic Center. Throughout my 12 years behind bars in different facilities, I’ve seen things like stabbings and people dying. And when I go outside, like to the hospital, I am seen as a freak dressed in an orange jumpsuit with shackles and handcuffs.
And yet prison feels like home. No longer do I have family there for me when I get out. They’ve either passed away or stopped talking to me because I am trans. I’m afraid of so many things. I’m afraid that people in the free world will try to hurt me because of the nature of my case. I’m afraid of being homeless because I don’t have anywhere to stay upon release. I’m afraid of looking for a job with my criminal record. My fear is compounded by my being trans because I know how judgmental society can be.
Everyday changes frighten me too. I have no clue how to order food and clothing from an app. There are now robo taxies, drone deliveries by Amazon and robot doctor screens at hospitals. The world as I knew it is truly gone.
This is why I am way more comfortable in places where everything is structured. Behind these prison walls is a world in and of itself. We have a grocery store: the canteen. We have a restaurant: the chow hall. We have a YMCA: the gym. We have a hospital: medical. I have a select group of friends that I’ve made in here that I wouldn’t have in the free world. I also have a boyfriend — the love of my life — that I will have to leave behind because he’s never getting out of prison.
While my release is years away, I’m trying to prepare myself. I’m taking self-help classes such as anger management and critical thinking in order to change patterns of behavior that have landed me in prison. I know that the first thing I’ll do when I get out is go to Walmart and buy new clothes. And yet I still dread the day when I have to say goodbye to those I love and the place I call home. Despite the fear that grips me, I’ll have to put on a brave face and live in the real world as it is today.
Lexie Handlang is a 39-year-old transgender woman incarcerated in the Missouri Department of Corrections for a sentence of 20 years for child abuse and neglect resulting in death. She has served 12 years of her sentence. She writes for a variety of publications.