Monday, the day the cops told me that I would more than likely be let out of jail....yet I was not released like they told me, and I had no idea of how I was going to get out of there, or how long I'd be in there.
The jail...it was horrible. I was glad to at least have my own cell, but it was still horrible. I can't understand how people can spend their lives going in and out of jail. Once was more than enough from me. Once, was one time too many times for me.
My cell had a steel bed bolted in to the ground. I had a thin, rubber mattress. Lying on that bed hurt my body. The rest of my cell wasn't much better.
I was barely eating, and my weight was dropping very fast. So fast, that the other inmates were making comments to me on my low weight.
They had approximately 4 showers out in the public area. They were horrible. I learned on my first shower there, how to get changed so that nobody could see me.
Every day we had to go in to lock down. Lock down is where we were locked in our cells. It was while we were in lockdown that the cops would come by and take their counts, to make sure we were all accounted for. When they came by, we had to be standing at the door with our wrist which had a wristband on it, up to the window on the door so that they could do their counts.
I remember they would take their counts in the afternoon, and late at night, and very early in the morning. It didn't matter if we were tired or not, or if we were in the middle of sleeping or not, when they came by to do their counts, we had to be at the door. I never missed a count.
"Yes, sir", "no, sir", "excuse me,sir", "thank you, sir"...I was very respectful to the cops. I was probably the nicest, most compliant, and most respectful inmate that was ever in there.
At some point, my bond was lowered to $35,000. To get bailed out, you need to come up with 10% of the bond, which meaned that I needed to come up with $3,500, plus, I needed to come up with collateral....i.e. put my house up.
I went to court 2 or 3 times while I was in jail. The first time was on Monday. The second time was approximately Wednesday. My first time in front of the judge, she was over a T.V. The second time, was in person. My wrists and legs were shackled when I went in front of the judge.
My ex was there when I went before the judge. He just sat there, cold as could be. He could have spoken, but he didn't. I don't even feel that the fact that I was in jail and shackled even phased him.
I was still speaking to my sister at the time, but she is the only person in my family that I was speaking to. I finally gave in and called her on approximately Tuesday night. The phone allowed me to call a number one time, and it gave me approximately one minute on a collect call...after she picked up the phone, she received an automated message indicated something along the lines of, an inmate was calling from (the name of the jail I was in).
Long story short, it was the next day or so that my sister brought up calling my biological father to me. She told me that she would call him. I hadn't spoken to my biological father in over 5 years, but I was desperate. He was the only one that I knew that had the money.
I called him up. He was furious, and that is an understatement. He wouldn't even get on the phone with me in the beginning. Instead, his wicked witch of a wife was on the phone with me. He was going off in the background. She told me that they felt that I belonged in jail. Finally, my biological father got on the phone. He told me personally, the he felt like I belonged in jail. I was crying. He didn't care. He was yelling at me non-stop. I couldn't take it anymore. My last words to him on that conversation were, "Where do you think I learned it from?!", and I hung up the phone on him.
I ran up to my cell and I crying non-stop. I took out the Bible that they gave me in the jail, and I opened it up to anger because I was so very angry. It was at that point that I read that we need to forgive one another for their sins, or we won't be forgiven for our sins. We can't be forgiven, unless we forgive others. It was at that moment...that very moment, that I started praying and forgiving everybody that has ever hurt me in my life...whether they apologized or not...it didn't matter. I forgave everybody.
My biological father ended up changing his mind about bailing me out of jail, although, he would not put his house up (he owns two houses). I told him I'd put up my house.
So, I went in to jail on Saturday, June 14, 2008, and I was let out on Friday, June 20. 2008. That was the longest week of my life. I got out just in the knick of time, as they don't let inmates out of jail over the weekends....only weekdays.
I was so very glad to be out of that horrible, horrible place.
