[This is Part VIII of this series, printed on an ad hoc basis, which follows author Vera Moret’s journey into addiction and depression, and her subsequent entry into the ongoing process of recovery.]

This has been my own story, but there are millions of them out there. We have the highest rate of incarceration in the world. That’s a fact. It’s big business. Much of it is privatized. But in jails, at least two-thirds of the prisoners are mentally ill. The correlation between mental illness and drug use is, I believe, very high. I understand why people turn to drugs to ease their symptoms.

The medical profession places both mental illness and addiction as legitimate diagnoses. So why are these people being placed in jail? We don’t put alcoholics in jail for drinking. We don’t put smokers in jail for smoking. Why do we hold some addictions as legal and others as not? Why are we placing people who are clearly mentally ill in prison for being mentally ill?

I just read the disturbing story of Elliot Williams, a mentally unstable veteran from Tulsa who was brought to a hotel in 2011 by his family because his failed marriage and bipolar disorder became overwhelming to him. The police were called to the scene where the situation only escalated. In the end, he was placed in a “medical” jail cell, alone and nude. He broke his neck, most likely when he rammed his own head against a solid object. He lay on the floor for five days. Despite stating many times that he could not move and he believed he had broken his neck, no medical aid was provided. Food and drink were shoved through the door. He was obviously unable to reach any of these and died in his cell from complications of a broken neck and dehydration.

We only know about this because there was a camera in his cell that caught all this. This, a man whose “crime” was being mentally ill, died. Prisoners are not treated as human beings. Even in the Wayne County facility that I was in, for only three months, I knew I was at the mercy of those who ran the jail. And it doesn’t get much better once you’re released.

I lost, conservatively, about seven years of my life to the criminal justice system. There was the year that I was just waiting for decisions to be made, and then there were six years after my release that I ceased to have an identity. If I had not been placed into the system, I’m quite sure that with rest and time, I would have recuperated and been prepared to start a new career. Instead, I became completely lost and hopeless. Every door shut in my face. I lost four jobs in three years. I was too old and educated and had only been a nurse for over a decade. There was no place in the working world that I fit in. I couldn’t even volunteer. I was, again, largely alone all day. My husband and I used to be middle-class taxpayers who helped fund social services. Now, we depend on them for survival. Where is the logic in this?

I cannot tell you how or why I finally succeeded in coming out from the shadows. I tried one job for a while, as a stringer for this very newspaper, but then the depression came roaring back, and I couldn’t get the work done. Then I managed to get a job as a freelancer doing more challenging writing for another newspaper; that helped a great deal. People were very kind to me, and my sources were always available to me to explain what I didn’t understand.

Music also played a huge role. When I started listening to music again, it seemed like my soul opened up. I listen to music nearly all the time now. I began reading again. I just came back to life. Even after I had been hit by a car shortly after taking on that freelance work, it did not stop me. I missed very little work because I am stubborn.

I ended my relationship with that other paper by mutual consent. The editor found my past embarrassing. I felt that it was my greatest asset, and told him so. I bridge the gap between two worlds. We could not reach a meeting of minds, and I left because I felt that I was being censored.

Shortly afterward, I sent a very brief email to The River Reporter asking if they might be interested in publishing a series on my experiences. I received a “yes” in record time. The editor had read a previous piece I had starting working on long ago and had known all about my past from the beginning. And thus this series was born.

[In the final installment of this series, the author will reflect on what she has learned from her experiences and how she has come to cope with her depression.]