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The Other Side of The Mirror

Another Prison Testimonial

By Kyle CejkaPublished about a year ago 6 min read
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Most mornings when the lights come on, I'm already awake. I don't think I've had a full Night's sleep in my life, certainly not in the last nineteen years. The Nights I cannot remember dreaming are the best, when I just wake up and have to take time to reassess, to remember who I am and where I am. Those are good Nights for me.

The others... not so much. There are many times when I wake up in the small hours of the Night biting into my knuckles to keep from screaming at some terror that chased me out of a restless sleep. For those of you who don't know, fear sweat stinks. It's almost like urine.

Thus do my days begin.

Getting out of my bunk for my morning piss, I'm careful to avoid looking into the mirror. I cannot trust what I will see there. Sometimes everything is as it should be, but sometimes I cannot see my face -- there's just a blurry smear of features where it should be.

Worst, though, are the days when I can see a face that looks like mine, but it's not me. Whoever that is on the other side of the mirror, he's watching me; for what sinister purpose I don't know, but he scares me. Sometimes I can catch him by making a sudden move that he's just a split second too slow to keep in sync with. When I lay in bed at Night, I can sometimes feel him standing there on his side of the mirror, staring at me. He'll be gone when I look up... So now I avoid the mirror altogether. Even then I know he's smirking at me for my weakness, my fear of him.

The doors open for pod recreation. I grab my watch and slip it into my pocket. I never leave my cell without it; not because I particularly care what time it is, but because time passes weirdly for me. It's not always the time it's supposed to be. Sometimes I lose two or three hours and have no idea where I've been. I'll just suddenly realize that I am not where I was a moment ago. Who's been in the driver's seat all that time? What have I been doing? I can't answer that. I've had to devise systems to keep people ignorant about this happening. The watch at least gives me an idea of how long I've been out of touch, how much time I need to fill in.

The game today is good. We're closing in on the mastermind behind all the evil going-ons in the campaign, about to put a serious case of The Hurts on him, when my name is called over the intercom. Appointment with Telepsych. I tell the Pack to run my character until I get back -- no sense in holding the game up for this.

Telepsych is an every three month teleconference appointment with the prison's psychiatrist. My current one has lasted four years, a record. There's a high turnover rate for mental health professionals in prison. Go figure.

I take my seat in the tiny room where the appointments are held and get handcuffed to the little red metal desk. Why I have to be handcuffed to a desk to talk to a video screen is a question I've never gotten a satisfactory answer to, but that's prison life for you.

After a minute or two, the television screen comes to life and there she is. I've been holding back on her the last few appointment, hoping that the medication would resolve the problems I've been having, but they're not working. So now I've got to do that one thing I hate doing: open up the armor. Being weak is dangerous. Telling these people certain things can get you put in the hole, which will only make things worse, but I've got to at least try -- I know I cannot keep going like this.

So I open it up and tell her. About the Night terrors. About nineteen-plus years in prison and having passed the half-my-life-in-prison mark last year and not knowing how much farther I can carry the ever growing weight of years. I tell her how I've watched my hopes and dreams wither a little more each year and about not having any options or prospects for my case to get back in court. I tell her about the voices that needle me in my quiet moments, that torment me, and the questioning of my identity. I tell her about my fear that all the good things in my life are just hallucinations, delusions my mind has manifested in order to cope. I tell her about that smug fucker in the mirror and how I wish I could reach through it and strangle him but I'm afraid he'd pull me in, I don't know what would happen if he did. I tell her about him watching me and how I catch him out of sync when I move suddenly, and how hard it's gotten to brush my teeth because I cannot look in the damn mirror, and the way I just want to stop questioning my own identity and I'm afraid that I'm going to lose time one day and that when I do whoever is in the driver's seat will decide to keep driving and nobody will ever know.

I tell her all this and I can feel the tears rolling down my cheeks, the tears that I hate myself for having, for allowing them to fall. But the armor has been cracked open and I can stop the tears no more than I can stop the words pouring from my mouth.

I talk about dying, about the way the idea of dying has begun to appeal to me and why that wouldn't be such a hardship on the world, how I worry that when I do die I'll leave nothing behind worth remembering except that I killed somebody who was doing great things for the world. No real legacy, nothing worthwhile that will echo through time. I don't fear death, I fear obscurity. I fear being forgotten, I fear not living a life worth living.

All this I tell her... and when I am done, I look up. She's not even looking at me but instead at something off screen.

"Uh-huh," she says, as if I'd just given her a weather report. "Is there anything else going on?"

It is then I realize I've never met her face-to-face. She's just a reflection, part of the mirror world my own reflection lives in. She doesn't care, she can't or won't help me. How many times will I forget? "Security, not therapy," that's their creed here. NEXT I feel the armor snapping back into place. I dry my tears and clench my jaw. This is not a mistake I will repeat. I give her the answers to the only three questions that matter to her or the prison:

No, I'm not planning on hurting myself;

No, I'm not planning on hurting anyone else;

Yes, I will continue taking my medication.

With the liability of the prison and herself thus safeguarded, I am dismissed back to my pod with instructions that if I need anything to put in a request to see Mental Heath.

That Night in bed, I can feel him watching me. I don't need to look to know he's there; I don't need to hear to know he's laughing at me.

There will be no sleep for me tonight.

incarceration
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About the Creator

Kyle Cejka

Kyle Cejka is an incarcerated author whose profile is facilitated by his Wife, Cydnie. He lacks direct internet access, but is determined to fulfill his lifelong dream of being a world-reknowned bestselling author despite any obstacles.

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  • Bob Tinsman6 months ago

    You were vulnerable and even cried. That takes strength. It sounds like mental health care in prison is a joke. I hope that you can endure it and be well.

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