Buried Alive: Stories from Inside Solitary Confinement

It resulted from a mental break down, causing an arrest which was not justified legally but the officer at the scene was annoyed by me. The charge were eventually dismissed but still haunts me like it would for any person.

I'm transgender which is related to the situation; at the time I had troubles communicating what I was going through and an attempt at failing 'x' which caused a wreck. Luckily nobody other than me was injured physically or mentally by the wreck.

I was told by other officers & firemen, "I would not be arrested as I had done nothing illegal" but the leading male officer decided to arrest me regardless and I ended up in the place for mentally ill criminals.

I either pissed off the officer by asking to speak to the female officer instead when questioned or he had something against me by how I looked.

I've never had a mental illness or have been diagnosed with any mental illness or even depression but I somehow ended up on haldol for schizophrenia which was shortly decided a day after the arrest without seeing any medical professional qualified for making such a diagnosis which needs 6 months observation anyway.

It all happened in Texas, almost ruined my life and has influenced other events in my life by negligence of others not understanding; leading to discrimination with other things by negligence.

I'm trying to pursue some justice for connections to what I've experienced resulting from negligence of others, so I can sleep better but let me now get on to the solitary confinement story.

The solitary confinement I was put in (while stripped of all clothes) had a button/speaker system to an supervising law enforcement person.

None of the law enforcement in charge of watching would make any indication to sympathy and would say things which would escalate any grief a person communicated even if it was a sane request.

Talking by button/speaker you would hear short responses made to sound annoyed and I was told to "get used to this as how am I going to survive when I go to prison" which to this day I cannot understand how messed up a person must be to feel the need to say something like that to a person in the situation I was in.

The confinement smelled similar to bleach or some really strong chemical odor, it would make my throat dry and people would be screaming for water. Other inmates in solitary confinement would scream they are Lucifer or that they are on true crime TV with nonsense stuff.

There were bars on the floor forming a 2 by 2 square for #1 or #2. Meals would consist of a paper bag containing an apple past it's prime, a milk carton, chips/pretzels and a small sandwich of tuna.

So you're stuck in this small space with a camera watching you and no clothes. Eventually I became anxious where I needed to know the time and ended up annoying the guard on duty by repetitively asking for it. I only had to stay in there for close to 2 days, until my lawyer managed to come and get me out of there. Bail was set at 50k which luckily I have parents that paid for it and it was returned to them after the dismissal.

Anyway I think it's reasonable for a person to prefer death when experiencing solitary confinement because I would have preferred death to that experience.

I really do enjoy life though but going through that was just wow.

I'm not comfortable with these folks being in prison before they've had proper mental health care, honestly. Most folks with mental disorders are OK once they are stable with medication and sometimes need support to make sure they take such medication. We should more likely require by court order they stay their course and continue to receive proper help than try solitary first. This is how you treat the same folks as neighbors.

If this fails, prison is still not the proper environment - a live-in mental health hospital is much more appropriate.

For me it might come down to the details of solitary confinement. From the sounds of it, I probably wouldn't want to be in the kind of solitary confinement that's imposed in prison. But if I had access to books (say, public library loans by mail), I too, emotionally, have a preference for solitary, even though I rationally think the evidence suggests I would be driven insane.

It's rather unsettling TBH. Are you a particularly introverted person (in the Myers-Briggs sense of the word)?

They made an exception to that glass before his mother died - he was allowed direct physical contact with his mother.

Not only that, but I'm pretty sure he can earn his way outside of solitary. And theoretically, he'll wind up getting released. I've heard it is possible to label him a threat to society, in which case he's more likely to wind up in a mental institution at that point - but it really depends on what he does in the next 10 years or so.