2 Delante’s Story

First let’s begin at the beginning of my life, literally. My biological mother was 15 years old when she had me in 1991. She was arrested and sentenced to 122 months at the age of 17 and my father was murdered around the same time so I was placed in foster care. I was adopted shortly after to someone my biological mom somewhat knew. But I don’t learn any of this until I was 12. My adopted mother was physically abusive and it only seemed directed towards me. I happen to be the middle child of the five kids my mom adopted and the only multi-racial one. I was by no means an angel but the “spankings”, with various items, were over the top. This was admitted later on in my life by my mom. So for the early stages of my life, this was my first and only understanding of “home”. And as I recall the memories, this was also my first prison because of the constant fear of doing something wrong locked me into myself emotionally and mentally. I was terrified to make decisions for myself in fear of either making the wrong decision or displeasing my mom. This has had a lasting effect because even today I find hard to voice an opinion, try something new, or even talk to someone because deep down I “believe” something bad will come from it.

But to me, this idea of “home” as a young boy was all I knew. As I think about this now, I realize this “home” experience is the reason I find it difficult to want a “home”. I can remember hating the final school bell because I knew what I had to look forward to when I returned “home”. I would shut down and lock into myself so I didnt have to get beat for a mistake or action I didn’t know was wrong. This has had a lasting effect because even today it is hard for me to attempt anything or approach new people because I feel bad things will come of it. I pieced together a few reasons why my mom, who said she loved me, is supposed to protect me from harm, who should be teaching me life lessons, could be so abusive to a child. The first reason I believe is because of her husband, my adopted father. Besides me, they adopted four other kids as a team and he didn’t hold up his end of the deal. He not only defiled their marriage, he scarred two of my sisters by molesting them. This devastated the whole family but destroyed my mom because they were high school sweethearts with 35 years of marriage and 3 biological adults of their own before us. This is when the physical abuse started, I was 4 or 5 years old at the time. The abuse worsened after my mom had herself hypnotized to quit smoking and this is the second reason I believe because the abuse was unpredictable somewhat after that.

As I got older the physical abuse started to escalate and I couldn’t tell anyone because we were all led to believe that nobody would love us like our mom did. If we told what was happening then they would take us away and separate us. She also used religion to justify the abuse by saying “Spare the rod and spoil the child”, and if God said its OK then we can’t do anything about it. But this reaches to a point to my first suicidal thought when I was 11 years old and I experience being physically locked up for the first time and it was not at a juvenile detention center, it was at my “home”. It was summertime and I tattled on my little sister and she couldn’t go with us to the museum of flight with our church’s summer day camp program, she had to stay back and help our mom with her job at the senior center. My sister retaliated by fabricating a story about me sneaking out at night through my window, drinking, and doing drugs with our teenage neighbors, who by the way our mom despised. She also said that I lined our siblings on the fence and threw knives at them, beat the many pets we had, and finally stabbing her in the leg on my return from partying with the neighbors. When the rest of us return from the museum, our mom takes us to the Buren police department and asked to speak to an officer. I knew something us up because of the evil look my mom was giving me and when the officer came out my mom turns to my sister and plainly says ” Okay Dezzy, tell this officer exactly what you told me earlier”. I was dumbfounded and terrified because I knew she was lying but my mom believed all of it. The officer took me to a room and asked me if I did any of it and through tears I denied everything and he believed me. He said the main reason him believing me was that sister’s “stab” wound was clearly a scratch from a cat. My mom was furious because she thought I tricked the officer and said I wasn’t out of the woods on this one. When we returned home she reversed the locks on my door and screwed the window shut and my “home” was already a kind a prison but now my room became my cell. I only came out to do chores/yard work, to go help out at our mom’s job while the other kids were at day camp, and an hour of Joyce Meyers on Sunday. Yes, I ate in my cell.

I can remember feeling so alone, abandoned, and helpless because if I could be so severely punished for something I didn’t do then I don’t think I want to live anymore. The pain and hurt from that incident still fucks with me today and to add insult to the injury I got a letter while serving time at Maple Lane ( A Juvenile Rehabilitation Administration facility) from my mom saying that my sister admitted to her that she made the whole thing up and that she was sorry. I was 16 years old and well down the path of crime and incarceration.

What led me to crime you might ask, well I started this when I started running away at the age of 13. After being in the kind of “home” I grew up in being on the streets was a better alternative and it felt so liberating to me. I wasn’t too scared of being out on the streets because I could sneak in and stay at a friend’s house and anything was better than where I came from. During school hours I would wonder around Burien, steal food from stores, and wait for schools to get out. I started making close friends with kids who skipped school, drank and smoked weed but eventually i couldn’t stay with them anymore so I had to tough it out alone in the streets and finally experienced homelessness for the first time. I eventually gravitated towards people who knew more about being a person of color and was taught how to be more like them. They taught me how to make money and be able to provide for myself at 13. I utilized the skill of stealing cars for a place to sleep during the frigid nights and to collect stereos, speakers and change for some food and clothes. I didn’t care at this point of consequences because if I got arrested I would get a break from the crazy lifestyle I was involved in and get a dose of kind, caring and compassionate treatment from the staff at the King County Juvenile. I felt oddly at “home” here because the adults here were nothing like my mom. I was such a regular the staff there kind of saw me as a part of their family and I felt loved and valued here. Sure I got into fights and they had to slam me and cuff me up but they took the time after, placing me in my cell, to ask me what’s going on and to see if I was alright. This would cause me to breakdown and cry and I still don’t understand why it did that….

But this care and concern I felt with the staff combined with motivational talks made the juvenile a kind of “home” for me. When I was committed to Maple Lane I felt even more at “home” and didn’t want to leave. I recall feeling like this was where I was meant to be and purposely messed up every review so I could stay longer. Until one of my counselors convinced me it was time to move on. But moving on meant returning to my first “home”.

Being incarcerated taught me skills I should have learned as a child and teenager. The system became my parents because I had structure, responsibility, goals, and a sense of purpose. I feel at “home” incarcerated because I have spent the majority of my life in this environment. I feel comfortable, respected, loved, and valued by my people. As a juvenile, I had some of my happiest moments locked up. I had experienced so much kindness and love from the staff that worked at these facilities. But the adult system has none of that but it doesn’t stop me from feeling at “home” because of my people (API) and the sense of community we have amongst each other. After spending so much time in and out of incarceration “home” is what being locked up feels like. I have bounced around from numerous living situations for 17 years trying to find “home” and I have concluded that “home” isn’t a place. For me it’s a combination of feelings of security, love, community, value, and happiness. “Home” is fluid to me because of the constant change of location and I have grown used to that. Since running away at 13, I have never spent more than 3-6 months anywhere except in institutions. But I know I can’t stay in prison forever but the thought of releasing causes anxiety because I know I have to try and make it out in society in ways I have no experience with. I know more about how to be a convict and follow rules to get to my Earned Release Date as soon as possible. I need help to live outside prison and with my childhood traumas and other mental health issues I will need a lot of it. Vital skills such as budgeting, paying bills, and doctor visits were not part of my routine running the streets. For most of us incarcerated this is a sad reality. I want more than anything to live a “normal” life and feel like I matter. A lot of us who are stuck in this perpetual cycle of incarceration isn’t because we enjoy breaking the law, it’s because we feel valued and our life matters to those we group up with. For people like me who lacked love, security, purpose, community, and respect find these qualities in prison and it feels “homey”.

There is a missing piece to successful reform/rehabilitation and that is reentry. After being removed from society for whatever length of time and you have probation after, then you have very limited resources available to you that don’t help with successful reentry. To name a few, there is the housing voucher that is only available to you if your past your ERD and if you need a release address. This voucher gets you three months rent-free but at a drug-infested “clean and sober” house because that’s all that really accepts the voucher. The next two are easier to describe because its a whopping $40 and some Obamacare for a year. Work release is the better resource because you can find employment and have money to pay for a more pleasant living arrangement. But this is a resource that not a lot of people have access to because of space and requirements that unless asked for, are unknown. But these very limited resources are still way better than what you’ll get if you don’t have probation. All you get is $40 and a year of Obamacare once your time is up and that is what they feel will help you reenter Society but we all know this is not even close. I had this experience December 17th, 2019 accept something happened with my medical insurance paperwork and I didn’t receive that. I needed that more than the money because taking care of my mental health was a key part of my release plan. Instead of renewing medication I resorted to self-medicating with meth and things to fund not to long after my release. While incarcerated I found how helpful seeing a counselor once or twice a month and venting and talking about my past that was so liberating emotionally and mentally and for me not to continue that once I was placed in a way more stressful situation than prison I shut down because I released back to my adopted mom’s house. I regressed and ran away from that situation once again. In 6 short months, I found myself back behind bars for shooting someone in the face for 99 months. I was just released after 4 a half years……..

In closing, I would like to point out that though I find myself once incarcerated I have never felt more loved by those who are currently a part of my support system. They are all a blessing to me and a positive influence on my life. I now have something to look forward to because I have community outside of prison. With that being said I also want to point out that I’m not trying to take away from the poor decisions I have made throughout my life. I take full responsibility for all of my actions and deeds. I knew the difference between right and wrong but I felt the wrong was necessary at the time as a ground boy trying to survive alone on the streets. All my life I have struggled to find, or even create, “home” in each stage of my understanding of the word. But now “home” to me isn’t a physical place because that changed to many times for me to place value there. “Home” is where I feel valued, loved, wanted, secure and comfortable. I felt that in jails, prisons, juveniles and the streets because I have spent most of my 30 years of life in these settings. But being constantly incarcerated for being a physically abused dual diagnosed man and boy, your “home” feels like prison.