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Follow us on Instagram @imnotokkpodcast
Email us at notokkpodcast@gmail.com
We appreciate you!
Hi, I'm Kimberly and hi, I'm Kelly Kranz and welcome to the I'm Not OKK podcast.
Speaker 2:Yes, welcome, and we are recording on a Friday today, so my brain is already shut off. Kelly, how are you doing today?
Speaker 1:I'm doing good. I'm doing good today, really productive, I feel like.
Speaker 2:Don't need a break.
Speaker 1:Okay, really productive, feel like don't need a break. Okay, yeah, yeah, yeah, no. Today I feel like I've gotten more done than other days, which makes me feel less guilt shame spiral, which is nice it is.
Speaker 2:You get the guilt spiral. Yeah, yeah, you get it too. Yeah, but normally I'm in my bed not recording a podcast, so you know, yeah, yeah, I try not to break down in front of people, but it doesn't always happen, you know, sometimes it's like okay, I guess I'm in a grocery store and I'm having an anxiety attack.
Speaker 1:That's because the fluorescent lighting, the fluorescent lighting in grocery stores and like larger stores, like costco and stuff like that, they literally give me panic attacks interesting.
Speaker 2:Is that weird? I don't know do. Do I look like a doctor? I'm not licensed in anything.
Speaker 1:I even had fluorescent lighting in my kitchen in like one of my apartments, and I absolutely hated it. Like I wouldn't turn on the overhead light, I had lamps around the kitchen instead.
Speaker 2:Maybe you just don't like the lighting.
Speaker 1:I don't know. It just throws me back to like when I was in middle school and there was terrible lighting and dressing rooms.
Speaker 2:That's a weird callback, but that's fair.
Speaker 1:That's fair, it's like body dysmorphia yeah. Yeah that's for sure.
Speaker 2:Okay, okay, I mean, I'm not judging, I'm not judging, but okay, that's not why I have panic attacks in grocery stores. It's normally so many options. And then I think about money and when I stress out, but I, oh my gosh, so random side, tangent oreos, freaking love oreos. The amount of flavors oreo has. Piece de resistance are you?
Speaker 1:seriously, gosh, do you eat? No, I used to back in the day, but the amount of flavors I just don't keep up. Oh my gosh, I don't get the Oreo calendar.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, there's an Oreo calendar, If there was.
Speaker 1:I would have it there. Probably is there, definitely is.
Speaker 2:But oh my gosh, so, oh my gosh. This was years ago. They don't make them anymore. It was called a triple double and it was cookie cream, cookie, cream, cookie, so cookies. Two layers of cream and I think it was like vanilla cream and chocolate cream or something. So fricking good, so fricking good. My favorite is probably like the peanut butter pie one Cause it's like I think a cookie is like graham cracker. I need to get off this soapbox. I'm going to buy like $50 worth of Oreos if I keep talking about it. But anyway, we were talking about like decision paralysis and it made me think of Oreos Because there's so many flavors.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and it's like hard to decide, that you don't know what to choose, hard to decide. Oreos used to give me nightmares because I'd have, like Oreos and milk before I go to sleep. When I was younger Again, probably around middle school, and I'd have the most vivid dreams, and sometimes like real vivid nightmares, and couldn't figure out what it was. Until one day we ran out of oreos and I didn't have them before I went to sleep and I was like, oh, oreos were affecting, affecting my psyche, like that the bowl of dairy and sugar wasn't doing well for you before you went to sleep.
Speaker 1:No, it wasn't, it was. I would have put a great good night's, great good night snack yeah great thinking, my parents great thinking. I mean cookies, cookies and milk before bed.
Speaker 2:I mean yeah, yum, but it's stable.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, it definitely is that doesn't help now now we know. We didn't know then, but now we know. Now we know legit, legit, legit cuckoo, cuckoo, cuckoo and what about you, kimberly? I'm looking at you today. How are you feeling?
Speaker 2:oh, you know, I'm hanging in there, it's friday so I'm pretty tired. Only like 10 dead inside today, so just a casual 10% dead inside. Crushing it the other 90% is getting it, it's getting something, but yeah, so we'll see what the rest of my day brings.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I see a nap in your future. Oh yeah, can we talk about like naps for a second? I can't tell sometimes if I'm just napping because I like naps or I'm napping because it's a depression nap. It's a depression nap, it's so many fucking naps.
Speaker 2:I know. But I mean this is just my therapist and my experience. But I told my therapist I'm like yeah, I nap, for like yeah, I take naps like pretty often. She's like how long are your naps? I'm like I don't know. Like two hours, three hours. She's like do you think that's normal? I'm like that's never a good sign when your doctor or therapist is like do you see that as normal, cause it's like crap? Well then it's not normal, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:That's actually funny. I had my therapist this morning. She had the same question for me Like do you think that? Like? She was trying to challenge me on something and was like, do you think that's normal? Except in my case it was to prove that it was normal and I wasn't the anomaly. Oh, wow.
Speaker 2:Well, different therapists, different ways. I mean no judgment, no judgment. Yeah, I think it's like a 15 to 20 minute. If your nap is longer than that, you start to go in REM sleep or something.
Speaker 1:I don't, I don't know science, but yeah, well, that's where I want to get. I want to get into the REM sleep. I want to disappear from the world when I'm napping.
Speaker 2:I'm not there just for a quick 10 minutes. Definitely a depression nap.
Speaker 1:Yeah, right, there, that's a depression nap.
Speaker 2:Right there, the moment you're like I want to disappear. There it is. There's the reasoning.
Speaker 1:What's the goal behind this? Is it to get more rest? Did you get a bad night's sleep? No, it's to dis a fuck up here.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's to diss a fuck up here. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, that's the gauge, like to figure out what kind of nap it is. Well, let's just keep cruising, because I want to get to my story. Yeah, I'm excited to hear what it is. I mean, it's not even a story, it's another like thing. Sources real quick NPRorg, historycom. Publichealthpostorg. Didn't know that was a thing. Namiorg.
Speaker 1:NAMI I've heard of NAMI before you have.
Speaker 2:Yeah, haven't we? Yeah, it's like I don't know what it stands for National something, mental something, Anyway. So I'm doing solitary confinement.
Speaker 1:Oh, this is interesting when I think of solitary confinement, I think of prison. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I think of prison.
Speaker 2:The majority of this is kind of going to be in prison, but the majority of people in solitary confinement went in with mental illness and then they come out with worse mental illness.
Speaker 2:So that's kind of why I'm covering it and I just I think it's quite fascinating. So what is solitary confinement? Kind of exactly, like you said, in jail. Sometimes they did do this in mental hospitals at times, but the vast majority of research has been done on prisons. So that's where I'm going. What is solitary confinement? Basically, in prisons, jails, if you are behaving a certain way, if you disobey a certain rule or something, they'll put you in a room by yourself. Many times you're in this room for 23 hours a day, no communication with anybody, not even the guard. They just push the food to you. So it's very solitary. So the living conditions are physically unhealthy, extremely stressful and psychologically traumatizing. The cell is normally 60 to 80 square feet, with a cot, a toilet sink and then just like a little window, if any window. How much is?
Speaker 1:60 to 80 square feet. Like I can't picture that. I can't like what size room, Like if I'm in a room.
Speaker 2:A small room.
Speaker 1:It's real small.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, it's definitely a lot smaller than this, I think, if you think of, like any shows, prison shows, I think it's basically a cell, but to themselves. So it's still small regardless. It's not like you have a house to walk around in, you have a small room.
Speaker 2:So like just take a small room in your house and you're stuck in a closet yeah, when they're in solitary confinement they'll have little exposure to natural sunlight. The bright fluorescent lights, like you said, illuminate each cell often through the night, so it will disrupt their sleep patterns, circadian rhythms. Those lights, those fluorescent lights, yeah, but these are left on.
Speaker 1:I don't know. I'm going to left on Walmart for hours.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but you're not there trying to sleep in Walmart.
Speaker 1:I'm trying to shop and that shit is too much. I couldn't imagine the other way around. Oh my gosh. Okay, but that's good. Look, it came up twice. Okay, fluorescent lighting came up twice. That's a something.
Speaker 2:Maybe you should cover that next time.
Speaker 1:I don't know what it says but it says fluorescent lighting and why it drives people mad.
Speaker 2:Just me? Yeah, really, you're like I did a study of one person myself. So solitary confinement it's normally silent, except for other outbursts. But sometimes the solitary confinement units are extremely loud, with people clanking, metal, you know, screaming, jingling keys, distressed voices and in like modern times there might also be like mechanical sounds and also mechanical everything, so that the face-to-face between even a guard and the prisoner is like extremely limited, so all the more they're in confinement like.
Speaker 2:So, when you say like mechanical, like something else is handling the food, yeah, I mean, the food is normally just put in through a slot, but normally there's like security guards and all these things. I think they just everything is through technology, you know like it just cuts off human interaction almost completely. Yeah, completely.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:In the federal prison system and in at least 19 states their policies permit locking people into solitary confinement indefinitely. So luckily I mean that's in place, but that's still not great, because that like okay, 10 years in solitary like that's not indefinitely, but that's still a long freaking time.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's too long. That's way too long yeah.
Speaker 2:So this is kind of where mental health kind of gets involved in this. People with psychiatric conditions they're normally the ones who will have an infraction in prison or there'll be more of a need to control them because mentally they might not be doing well. So they'll put them in solitary confinement to protect others and the person themselves. But nearly a third of people housed in these units have one or more pre-existing psychiatric condition. So it's a good chunk of people which is not good, as we'll continue to learn, because this only makes things worse.
Speaker 2:Some psychiatric behaviors that put people in solitary like they said, destroying properties, starting fires, engaging in self-mutilation those are frequently used to justify putting people in solitary. So people with mental health issues who are prone to those activities will be more likely to get put in solitary confinement and this can worsen the symptoms and even cause severe psychiatric suffering, disability and death. A recent study showed the long-lasting effects of solitary, that any amount of time spent in solitary increases the risk of death in the first year after release. Also, half of all suicides in prisons and jails occur in solitary confinement. So like a lot of bad stuff happens. I'm not saying jail or prison is necessarily a good place, but solitary, doesn't seem to be doing anything no, what's the point of it?
Speaker 1:it's not. It's not a punishment, it's not. It's that point of it. It's not a punishment, it's not, it's that's.
Speaker 2:I mean, I mean it is a punishment, but it's inhumane.
Speaker 1:It's inhumane and it's not working.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So I'm going to give you a quick rundown of the history. So solitary confinement began in a Philadelphia prison as kind of an experiment. This is 1829. So it was based on the Quaker belief that when you like, put a prisoner in a cell, you give them a Bible. They'll pray, repent. You know they'll have some introspection and see what they did wrong and you know, get better. You know, get better. But they saw that many of the inmates they're going insane, committing or attempting suicide. They're no longer able to function in society and solitary confinement is slowly abandoned. More than 100 years later, in 1934, the federal government opens Alcatraz. Have you heard of Alcatraz?
Speaker 1:No, of course, I've heard of Alcatraz.
Speaker 2:I love it. We don't need your sarcasm here, lady.
Speaker 1:My sarcasm is welcome.
Speaker 2:Okay.
Speaker 1:Lady.
Speaker 2:Well, I mean, I've heard of Alcatraz but I actually didn't 100% know. I just knew like, oh, evil people are there, whatever.
Speaker 1:Oh, there's so many good stories. There's so many good stories associated with Alcatraz. You should get into it.
Speaker 2:Okay, maybe I will. Maybe that'll be my next rabbit hole. Alcatraz is opened and there's a D block, which is the prison solitary confinement hallway, which is the prison solitary confinement hallway, and then in one cell particular it's called the hole. I know a lot of jails have like a room like oh, the hole, no-transcript, and that's it. There's no light, the inmates are kept naked and they get like bread and water, like this is bare bones, keeping a human alive, yeah, yeah. So most inmates only spend a few days in the hole. Then some spend years on the D block. In D block the conditions are better than the hole, where they get clothes and better food, but it's still solitary. So the most famous inmate is Robert Stroud, also known as the Birdman of Alcatraz. I believe there's a movie on it.
Speaker 1:I haven't seen the movie, have you? I have not seen the movie, but I've heard the stories before. Oh, you have. I've never heard of it. Yeah, yeah, the Birdman.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, the bad man. Yeah, do you want to tell me what you know about it? No, because I can't recall.
Speaker 1:Because my memory is fucking shit.
Speaker 2:I just know I've heard so many stories about this and I can't recall a single thing I'm going to start recalling, like Mothman shit to you yeah just mixing up stories, okay, well, I will, yeah, go over it then so he spent.
Speaker 1:Yeah, please tell me what I know six years in d block.
Speaker 2:So in solitary he spends six years. He had the movie about him and that's kind of where solitary confinement, and this is 1934. So this is where it kind of endures the zeitgeist of like american culture and you know people start thinking about it and what have you? And real quick to talk about robert stroud. So he killed a bartender in a brawl, goes to prison. He was about to be released. And then he stabs a guard to death and he was supposed to be hung but his mom, okay but then his mom, which this is so insane.
Speaker 2:His mom wrote to president woodrow wilson and I was like save him. And woodrow wilson then sentenced him to life in permanent solitary confinement. So instead of being hung, they're like you're just going to be alone, which is extremely upsetting. But he found injured birds in the like prison yard and he nursed them back to health and so like he had, I think they said, hundreds of like canaries and that's where the bird man of alcatraz and he would just like nurse them back to health.
Speaker 2:He learned all about these freaking birds. He wrote a book that got published, like he was able to sneak it out of the prison not him, but like somebody to get it published, yeah, but then he like didn't get the money from it because he had no rights to sue, so like it was a whole thing. But there's like oh gosh, I'm gonna butcher this like ornithologists, bird, like scientists, who are somewhat like crap, like he did this stuff, but he like he found the cure for some kind of bird illness. Like he gave a lot of good information and research to like birds, like in bird culture solitary?
Speaker 2:yeah, because he had all these canaries and like he did. I don't know. It's insane, it's insane fucking birds, yeah, birds everywhere. And I kind of wonder, because I saw a few pictures he had like a desk and like a window, so I'm not sure if it's solitary confinement is the same as what we see it now. I'm still assuming there was little to no human contact, but it's funny because it's him at the desk. Bird cages everywhere, just bird cages and just fricking birds. I was like holy crap, I mean okay, but anyway, he spent six years in solitary confinement With birds, with the birds.
Speaker 1:Yeah, with birds.
Speaker 2:Yeah, don't leave that out, not the entire time, after like three years or something, they took away his birds. What they took away his birds yeah, I know it's like what happened to all the birds Like and who would take them away.
Speaker 1:It was a healthy like activity.
Speaker 2:And they took away his birds, I don't know. Then he was moved to the medical wing of the prison and that's where he died. But during his prison experience or prison lifetime, I guess he attempted suicide several times.
Speaker 2:So it's not like he was in a great mental state. Even though he did accomplish these things, it's still like he was still, you know, suffering. Okay, jumping ahead, 1983. There is something called permanent lockdown, which is you spend 23 hours of cell in isolation. So this is where you're in your cell, 23 hours, with just one hour of time to take a shower, time, to like, and it's terrible. They like, yeah, go outside, but you're in another cell just outside, like it doesn't, it's not like you, you're free.
Speaker 1:This is the kind of stuff like I've seen on 60 days in right when they're like okay, now you're all on lockdown, like cause they yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, like it's not good. And the reason this was created because in an illinois prison two prison guards were killed in one day, so I think that's how they came up with like everybody needs to be on lockdown. Okay, 1989. So six years later, california builds pelican bay, which is a prison solely for inmates to be in solitary. It's the first supermax facility in the country by most accounts. No need to build a yard for prisoners to go outside and play. That sounds weird. Lift weights.
Speaker 1:Prisoners go outside and play. Well, what do you call it?
Speaker 2:I don't know Activities.
Speaker 1:Rec time. Yeah, yeah, okay, recreational time.
Speaker 2:Rec time yeah. So no need to build a yard a cafeteria, classrooms or shops. They spent 22 and a half hours a day inside an 8 by 10 foot cell, so 80 square feet, and then the other hour and a half are spent alone on a small concrete exercise pen.
Speaker 1:they call it an exercise pen oh yeah, I'm like what kind of? What kind of? I mean this is just, it's uh, it's very inhumane. It cannot help. It definitely does not help with psychological wellness. No, it's just tough, then, because you think, what type of prisoners are these? Is this something that the Golden State Killer is subject to, or would have been kind of thing? Because then I'd be like, yeah, go ahead, lock them up for life. Who cares?
Speaker 2:But the thing is, where does that end? Okay, so they killed somebody, can they go in solitary and this kind of I mean we could go into a whole prison reform situation.
Speaker 2:But it's just like where other countries rehabilitate or attempt to rehabilitate so they can reenter society. I still remember watching this murder mystery and it was like I don't know what country it was a European country and this guy killed somebody, chopped her up and put her in a suitcase and then, like, threw her in the ocean and within like 15 years he was towards something and becoming better and growing. And you're not just locking people up in cages until they die, I don't know. I feel like when people go in prison they stop being human in the cultural phenomenon.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we don't treat them like human once they're in prison anymore. I don't even think about them as someone's like mother or son or daughter or father. They're just not human anymore, yeah, and some of these people are wrongly convicted. I don't know the percentage, but like people get out of or they're convicted on something very, very minor. Yeah, yeah, you know like marijuana and all of a sudden now you're facing years in a prison system because you had marijuana on you. Like that's just bullshit.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and that's where this isn't. I don't think okay, because it's like, at the end of the day, there's humane treatment and they're actually going to this and they're actually going to this. So 1995, a federal judge finds conditions at Pelican Bay in California quote may well hover on the edge of what is humanly tolerable and this is in a court case, madrid versus Gomez but still he rules that there is no constitutional basis for the courts to shut down the unit or alter it substantially. So basically he's saying there's no power they have. That could say like, yeah, this has to stop. He says the courts must defer to the states for how best to like take care of their prisoners, which is kind of terrifying.
Speaker 2:But then in 1999, a report by the Department of Justice finds that more than 30 states have Supermax-type facilities with the permanent lockdown, long-term isolation. Some states put a small portion of people inmates in that kind of facility. Other states lock up up to 20% of their inmates in this way. So it's not like I mean, this ranges from state to state, but some states are putting a fifth of their prison population in isolation. That's scary. That just that scared me.
Speaker 1:I don't even know what to say to that. It's just like that's. It feels like too many. It does feel like too many. It does feel like. It feels like it feels like there's so much wrong with our prison system. Yeah, they're overcrowded and they don't know what the fuck to do. It's for profit, it's slavery, it's everything.
Speaker 2:Okay, yeah, yeah, I Favorite is everything. Okay, yeah, I think the song you making it a song makes it more tolerable.
Speaker 1:Like the idea. You can swallow it a little bit better.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's one thing where it's like a for-profit prison. I was like wait, what Like? What's happening here? But once again, we could do a whole thing on prison reform. This is for solitary, but even so, with solitary confinement, the mental stress this puts on people is insane. Oh, here's some quick prison facts. So the US is 5% of the global population, so that's cool, but we make up a quarter of its prisoners, so what? Like okay. So not only do we incarcerate a lot of people, we also expose more of our citizens to solitary confinement than any other nation, so we're like not great. Suggests that about 84,000 individuals endure extreme conditions of isolation, sensory deprivation and idleness in US correctional facilities.
Speaker 1:So that number from 1995 to 2005 increased 40%. You'd think it would get less. The more information that they learn, it wouldn't get more. Oh no, you know.
Speaker 2:Oh, no, no, no, no no.
Speaker 1:No, it's just like. No, fuck man. That's what like. No, you know? Oh, no, no, no, no, no, it's just like it. No, fuck man.
Speaker 2:That's what that's what, like you know, should happen. But I think I don't think they have a way of dealing with people who are mentally ill in prison, like, yeah, there's mental health hospitals, but what happens when those get?
Speaker 1:full. They don't. The classifications are completely off. Like you could put someone who's who is like, like you know, suffering from somewhere mentally ill, next to a killer. It's just like the classifications are fuck all Like. It's just it's not meant to protect anybody's mental health, like, or anybody struggling Like. That's not what it was built for. It's yeah, and the solitary confinement man.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's where they mostly end up.
Speaker 1:That's where our people end up.
Speaker 2:Yeah, because it's like, okay, what else do we do which I don't know, like I don't know, prison reform or anything, but it's, I don't think this is the humane way to do it.
Speaker 2:Also, even where prison population has declined in recent years, the number of people in solitary has grown. So mid-century physicians in the US and Europe were concerned about solitary confinement and they labeled it's called prison psychosis and solitary confinement psychosis, which is symptoms getting worse, like mental illness getting worse, and they say it's caused by that prolonged isolation with a lack of natural light, poor ventilation and lack of meaningful human contact. This guy, he wrote Francis Gray, wrote Prison Discipline in America. It's an 1848 book, so this is like first time seeing solitary. He observed more than 4,000 people in US silent prisons, so solitary, and he said, the system of constant separation, even when administered with the utmost humanity, produces so many cases of insanity and of death as to indicate most clearly that its general tendency is to enfeeble the body and the mind. So basically, even if you try to do solitary confinement humanely, it's still not humane or it's still not good for you like in any regard.
Speaker 1:We're humans, we're people, we're creatures of social Like. We need like socialness as a part of our build. Like we need to be able to interact with others. It can't be taken away from us. Even us introverts we need the interaction. I'm an extroverted introvert.
Speaker 2:Okay, you're like an omnivore.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I'm an omnivore. I can go out and exert everything that I need to exert, and then I could come home and crawl under a blanket and tell you to fuck off for five days, and then I can, you know, exert all my energy again and then come home and charge up. Yep, yep, sounds just like me. Alright, tell me more. Tell me more.
Speaker 2:Nearly every scientific inquiry into the facts of solitary confinement over this entire history, since like 18-whatever has concluded that subjecting individuals to more than 10 days of involuntary segregation which I'm like. Who's doing this voluntarily? Can people volunteer to be like yeah, I want to be in isolation, money please, money here to be like yeah, I want to be in isolation, money please. So it results in a distinct set of emotional, cognitive, social and physical pathologies. So this is not solely corrections issue as I mentioned like the overwhelming majority of people incarcerated will be released but the impact of long periods of isolation on their health, employability, future life chances, like everybody in the community will feel it, because these people aren't just like being incarcerated for the rest of their lives, they're being released into society. And if nobody's helping their emotional health because of being in solitary confinement, we'll begin to feel the brunt of this.
Speaker 2:And they have a set of recommendations. I can just read a few. It says eliminate the use of solitary confinement as a punishment and create alternative disciplinary measures tailored to individuals with serious mental illnesses. Individuals with serious mental illness must never be placed in solitary confinement. Juveniles must never be placed in solitary confinement, regardless of whether they are in adult or juvenile facilities, just things like that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, just common sense. Let's not put children in a solitary confinement. Yeah, let's not, let's not.
Speaker 2:I didn't even read how many children are in solitary, but I can't even imagine what that would do on growth, especially as a child. You're looking to your peers, you're looking to your community and if you have even a small anxious tendency, I can't even imagine what that would happen to be stuck in your own head, to be stuck in this room. Yeah, I feel like we're doing a disservice to anybody who wants to live a productive life Like they make. Okay, I shouldn't say they make one mistake, because some people you know make a lot of mistakes and they're not necessarily mistakes, or one real one, make a real bad mistake.
Speaker 2:Yeah, or one real life decision, and then it kind of just screws up their life, which okay, sometimes it should, because they should pay a penalty, but a kid they barely know what's happening. And then it's like, okay, guess what? You're now screwed for the rest of your life because you hit somebody in prison and you had to stay in solitary confinement for two weeks.
Speaker 1:I don't know.
Speaker 2:Anyway, okay, so reaching the conclusion here. But there are advocacy groups like Vera Institute of Justice, California Innocence Project that have called for the end of solitary Once again people argue it's cruel and unusual punishment, violating the Eighth Amendment.
Speaker 2:Also, this I found fascinating, which is like okay, this doesn't make sense because we even said money for-profit prisons, but the financial cost is too great, which this makes no sense to me. But it's estimated that one year of solitary confinement at $78,000 per prisoner, which is three times more expensive than keeping an inmate in a general prison unit. I'm assuming it's because they have their own room and then they need guards rather than sharing a cell or whatever. But I was like are you kidding me? $78,000 per prisoner?
Speaker 1:That's a lot of money that doesn't make. I can't, it hurts.
Speaker 2:It hurts my brain to try and figure that out. Yeah, that's a lot of money things, but either way it's just like okay, how about we invest that in like a therapist?
Speaker 1:Yeah, why don't you put some mental health services on site that can actually deal with this properly? Get your classifications redone, yeah.
Speaker 2:I don't know, maybe help them a little. And it's hard because with prisons it's like, yeah, these people aren't exactly the greatest people in our society. But once again, where do we draw that line between humane treatment and people being penalized for what they've done? And I think at the base, even though people torture and kill, we don't need to sink to their level.
Speaker 1:We can still treat them humanely, there could be another solution. The solution doesn't have to be solitary confinement. It can be acknowledged. This is wrong, this isn't working, let's do something else, but it's not going to be, unfortunately.
Speaker 2:Which is, yeah, very sad, but anyway, let's try and get happier. So, from 2009 to the present, 920 bills across 46 states have been introduced to end solitary confinement. 40 states have passed at least one of these bills. Since 2021, 258 pieces of legislation were filed across 41 states to try and regulate solitary confinement, and then 39 bills were passed during 2009 to the present, in Arkansas, new York, kentucky, illinois, connecticut, louisiana, virginia, hawaii, colorado and Maryland. So not Wisconsin and not North Carolina.
Speaker 1:Not North Carolina, not where we live. Our states ain't doing it. No, wisconsin and not North Carolina. Not North Carolina, not where we live.
Speaker 2:Our states ain't doing it, no, they're not, but some of these efforts have contributed to closure of entire prisons, buildings and units that inflict the practice. I like that. It makes me happy. They said the most recent was the closure of Supermax prisons in New York and Connecticut. I mean, that's progress, the fact that these places now don't exist or cease to be prisons. So that's kind of cool to hear. As a result of the ever-growing list of states advancing these efforts, many states have introduced or intend to introduce more comprehensive legislation to end prolonged solitary confinement beyond 15 days. Quite honestly, I think 15 days is too long.
Speaker 1:It is too long, wasn't it? It's like two weeks to make a habit. So by that point you already have some conditioning in you, I would think. I would think after a few hours, like you already have some conditioning in you, I would think.
Speaker 2:I would think after a few hours you'd have conditioning and just be confused as fuck.
Speaker 1:I'd be really, really confused yeah, I'd be really sad too.
Speaker 2:I don't want to think about it yeah, well, we are, because that's what we're doing and this comprehensive legislation aligns with the Nelson Mandela standards for solitary confinement. So that's kind of where I'm going to leave you. That's where we're at. There's legislation, there's stuff happening to kind of change this, which is great to see. I still think it's terrible for mental health and heaven forbid you break a law and you're mentally unwell.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you're kind of fucked. It's a toss up. Yeah, it's a huge toss up even today, 2024. Yeah, yeah, that was good. That was good, kimberly. Just I'm sorry, that was good shit. It's very upsetting.
Speaker 2:Kimberly, I'm just so sorry. That was good shit. It's very upsetting, but I just thought because, with COVID, because I don't think we really understand solitary confinement I've never been in solitary confinement so I can't even fully understand it but during COVID, people were complaining about being in a house with a TV and internet and food and whatever, and being stuck. Imagine being in a room with absolutely nothing Nothing and having to just live. At some point unless you're very good at meditation, that's going to be like you're just going to talk to yourself and, as we've talked about, thoughts become beliefs and who you are. And I don't think we as humans are meant to be so isolated and I think that's probably part of the most inhumane. Like, okay, you put them in a room, they're naked, no light, whatever. Yeah, that's terrible. Can they talk to people throughout the day? Can they have interactions? That just makes it more bearable. You feel at least somewhat part of a community. I don't know. I just think that something else needs to happen.
Speaker 2:But anyway, that's my thoughts on that, so-.
Speaker 1:I like your thoughts on that. I never thought about how that would be such a. I just never thought about that practice like that before. Yeah, well, definitely not one that helps with health, that's for sure.
Speaker 2:It does not.
Speaker 1:No, it does not. So shall we move forward and read chapter three of the book that we are currently book clubbing? Yes, all right. So Kimberly and I, we have been reading the book how to Do the Work by Dr Nicole LaPera. We were supposed to do chapters two and three on the last podcast, but chapter three turned out to be a little bit of a beast, so we're just covering that one today on its own, and the chapter is called a new theory of trauma, and that's now you can know why we're doing it on its own because it's about trauma yeah, childhood trauma yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:What do you think about this, kimberly?
Speaker 2:It was a lot. It made sense Once again. Her book is really at least for me, it makes I'm like, I resonate with it so much. I'm like, holy crap, this is me. I think the same way. But it's so hard to actually tell yourself okay, I might've had some messed up stuff in childhood, and it doesn't even need to be anything big. I think everybody has something like. Nobody had a perfect life. But it's hard to admit to yourself that, like, okay, maybe this wasn't the most perfect childhood.
Speaker 1:Yeah, who the hell had a most perfect childhood? I want to meet them childhood.
Speaker 2:Yeah, who the hell had a most perfect childhood? I want to meet them. Yeah, I almost wish I was them. But that's hard to kind of take to be like, oh, my parents didn't raise me well, and I don't think it's necessarily saying that, but it's hard to be like, oh me as a child things might've got a little jankety-jank.
Speaker 1:Yeah, see in here when she's talking about Nicole's talking about how she has no memories of her childhood. But everything in her childhood was absolutely fine, like to her knowledge and as I'm reading. But then she says like she can remember feelings and stuff. And that's me like when I tell you my memory shit like all of a sudden, like I turned 30 and my memory just went to shit and I don't remember. If I think really hard, I could like ruminate some type of memory from my childhood, but it's mostly just I can like see things in pictures and like think of, like the feeling that's associated with it. So that got me thinking because like I'm like oh no, I'm, I'm really just like you. Yeah, that's like the worst.
Speaker 1:You're like oh crap yeah, I'm like, I'm like you, but what is the secret? Now to the answer of it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, like where's the magic pill, please, right, yeah, and just going through, I know she had different types of like story or not stories, but like traumas or whatever.
Speaker 2:And it's just, it's hard to reflect on your childhood, because children are so innocent and when you think back to like your us but in the long run kind of screw us upbringings and then they have to rediscover what happened to them. And yeah, I mean I'm just dealing with like, oh, I had to be somebody to make everybody happy. I'm not dealing with In that chapter that test. Was it like ACE test or something?
Speaker 1:Yeah, the ACE test she talks about.
Speaker 2:Yeah, did you look at the questions?
Speaker 1:I did. There's one right there about people pleasing right. Is this what we're talking about?
Speaker 2:I'm not sure there Was there one about. No, this is like the trauma, like traumatic events.
Speaker 1:Oh, had the perfect families with the trauma scores of zero. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah of zero, yeah, yeah. So I looked at that list and I had a zero for a score out of 10, but I don't know. Reading the list I just think of how difficult that would be to look at these things and be like, oh crap. Or even as a parent, thinking back on their kids oh, I didn't know. Getting separated or divorced would be a point on this trauma list. That was kind of eye-opening for me, just thinking about children and the way adults affect them in life and how much influence they have on our mental health and who we are and who we turn out to be.
Speaker 1:And she breaks it down so much. There's so many different archetypes of childhood trauma. It's like I don't even like when I was reading it. It made me uncomfortable. Just like this. Just this line right here, having a parent who denies your reality. Just this line right here, having a parent who denies your reality. I'm just like, did I? Why is that resonating with me? Now I feel guilty. Did I not know that?
Speaker 1:These are the thoughts that I'm having as I'm reading it, because it's kind of challenging you a little bit to really look and really see. What do you do with all that? How does that make you feel, for instance, like I went through, I went through this having a parent that does not see or hear you, having a parent who vicariously lives through you or molds or shapes you I had a little bit of that. Having a parent who does not model boundaries, like just so. As I'm reading this and I'm just like measuring my parents up to it, I don't feel the best. I didn't feel that good about it. It felt like I was like why am I judging my parents? I had a good childhood upbringing. Why am I doing this? Why am I searching for trauma? Why am I doing that?
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's funny. I felt very similar. It felt awkward. Well, it's like my parents did a good job raising me. According to that list, I don't really have any serious trauma, but I'm still mentally unwell. I still have anxiety and depression. So where did that come from? I don't think this just came out of nowhere. Think this just came out of nowhere and, yeah, I have to take responsibility for it. But yeah, it kept getting drawn back to parents because the way we were formed as children kind of turns us into who we are as adults. So that's why parents it comes back to parents. But even in therapy I have to clarify and be like my parents are great, I love my parents, they raised me well, and then I'll go into whatever. But it's weird, I don't think it's bad and I try and tell myself I'm like nobody is going to be a perfect parent. Nobody, even these therapists who know this stuff, won't be perfect parents. Everybody will get some type of not trauma, that's too big a word but some type of issue.
Speaker 1:That's the word she uses and that's why it's so intense for me to be like I'm searching for a trauma.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but does that mean that something traumatic had to have happened to you in order to have a mental illness? I mean, besides outside of the like chemical imbalance.
Speaker 1:yeah, I don't know. No, mine's completely genetic. Thank you, grandpa. Thank you, grandma. I don't think it's completely genetic. Bipolar is genetic.
Speaker 2:Oh, bipolar yeah I think you meant just like anxiety.
Speaker 1:Oh no, the anxiety, the depression, the PMDD that we can just tack on. We could just tack that on my bill and just leave that there, the laundry list.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, yeah, I can't even blame genetics. I'm like oh crap, I just didn't deal well with life.
Speaker 1:No, plus, I think, for us. What is it? I see all of the. I think they're hilarious, the stories that come across on Instagram, because I don't do TikTok because fuck that. So I get my stories on Instagram and I love the ones about the millennial trauma. We've experienced so many things in our lifetime, like that's why we're like this, that's and they're funny. It's like oh, my millennial trauma, like 9-11, like this, oh la la la, like spice girls broke up, just like all of that kind of stuff. It makes me laugh.
Speaker 1:But then again I sit there and I'm like, oh damn, like that's actually, like we've seen a lot that is true a lot a lot and I think that has, like our whole upbringing has a lot to do with anxiety outside of our parents, just the social aspects of our upbringing, what was going on at the times?
Speaker 2:yeah, that's a really good point. That's like nature versus nurture we're like, yeah, we have true factors in, but nature, like the society we're in Because, as you were even saying that I was thinking of, just like social media and the age we're growing up in there and there's just so many factors that we don't know how it affects people. We're beginning, beginning to realize now but yeah, that's such a good point about society not helping create a good mental health environment for people.
Speaker 1:Yeah, think about the debate, all the little kids, all the cute little kids that were wearing masks during COVID and using hand sanitizer. That's going to have some effect on their psyche, I don't know what. I know that my seven-year-old niece thinks that using hand sanitizer is all she needs to do. She doesn't need to wash her hands. We get into an argument over it every time and I'm like this is the weirdest thing. Like you're supposed to wash your hands. But because they were in school all the time and they're just like little germaphobe, like no, not germaphobe little germ carrying kids. They always had the damn hand sanitizer and I'm always just curious.
Speaker 2:I look at her, I'm like I wonder what else is going to happen to you yeah, well, a lot of these kids have stunted emotional development because they were in isolation and that's the time that they begin to like another thing, figure out themselves and figure out their friends. And yeah, it's going to be a lot for this upcoming generation. But I just think our entire society is very capitalistic and not mental health driven or, you know, citizen driven to what's the healthy, healthiest thing to do for our citizens.
Speaker 1:Oh, and that's not even considered. It's capitalism. It goes all the way to the top.
Speaker 2:It does those billionaires. Honestly, when I see how much money people have, I'm like that's not a real number and that should never happen.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah. It's like how do you get out of bed in the morning? I wouldn't, I'm just be like I don't have to do anything today. Oh gosh I got my money, I can door dash everything.
Speaker 2:Watch me, watch me door dash could you imagine being the door dash person? That's like delivering a hamburger to jeff bezos. Being like can I, oh my gosh?
Speaker 1:right, right and just tips five dollars and the thing yeah, I'd be like what I'm gonna tip my door dash. That that's me. That's what I think getting rich in the luxury life is is just ordering as much door dash as possible. You know, I don't have to worry about that fucking membership 9.99, uh-uh, I can get whatever I want whenever I want gosh low bar for luxury. It is luxury, though I'm telling you yeah, it is you make me want to like DoorDash something. Yeah, I might, after no.
Speaker 1:I'm not going to DoorDash today. This is also not a sponsor for DoorDash, but if it was, DoorDash the luxury of millennials.
Speaker 2:We're not even millennials, Are we? I'm a millennial.
Speaker 1:oh then, I'm a millennial yeah, I've looked it up already you're a millennial. Okay, thank you for doing that. Yeah, yeah, we've clocked ourselves. Everybody knows now, and you know what we're cool.
Speaker 2:You don't like it. We're the cool mom I'm really cool mom.
Speaker 1:So what else I have in here is she listed some maladaptive coping strategies that she found in some of her clinical work, and she listed three that were the most common. One of them is people pleasing. That's why I brought this up earlier, because I was wondering if this is where you were going. People pleasing Once you meet the demand, the stress is temporarily gone. Then there's anger or rage. If you can discharge the emotion onto someone else, you've released it. That's me. I do that. I do that a lot. I'm very big on that Dissociation. This one is kind of I think maybe we've all done this in a way. It does have a pretty descriptive description, but dissociation.
Speaker 2:A descriptive description but dissociation A descriptive description. It has a description. God bless us. Our brains are beginning to melt before your eyes.
Speaker 1:You leave your body during a stressful event so that you don't experience the trauma in the first place. Sexually, this form of detachment can involve having sex with people we truly aren't interested in. Instead, it might involve dedicating ourselves to our partner's pleasure, without any awareness of our pleasure or attention to our own pleasure. I don't people, please, I can tell you that, but I do. Anger or rage.
Speaker 1:That's definitely a maladaptive coping strategy I have, and it's like I call it the. I don't call it anything really. I guess I describe it as like a Coke bottle or a Coke can and like you shake it and it's all fizzy and then you pop the top and the fucking thing explodes. It's like sometimes I'm just like I need to explode, I need a release. And you know, it doesn't matter who walks through that door, they're going to get a tongue lashing and I'm going to feel better, and then I'm going to get a tongue lashing and I'm going to feel better, and then I'm going to, and then after that 10 minutes, I'm going to feel bad because I realized what I just did. But yeah, I definitely have a bad coping strategy when it comes to stress and being overwhelmed, that's for sure.
Speaker 2:I'd be curious to dig into that trauma. Scary, yeah, I was going to say I wouldn't be excited to dig in. I mean, I'm a people pleaser through and through. I know that. I've dealt with it my entire life. I deal with it in therapy every time. But it is interesting how different people cope, or different people adapt, I should say, to their environment, to their life circumstances. But that's interesting about you.
Speaker 1:I mean I, you didn't know that. Can you picture that about me?
Speaker 2:Yeah, but like I don't see it very often, so it's like Well, I don't do it to you, good, because if you did, I would shut this down immediately.
Speaker 1:Yet one day.
Speaker 2:I could easily log off too. I could be like and bye and end call. Like we live in different states, so I mean, but I don't, I don't see that from you very often. That's something else. That is just so crazy is that you can know a person but like you don't actually know how they cope, what they've been through, like what mental health things they're going through. I just think that's absolutely fascinating but also terrifying.
Speaker 1:Oh, I'm so curious about it. I'm such a curious kitty. I just want to know everything. That's why I ask people so many damn questions like so many questions.
Speaker 2:You do, you do, but in a good way. I mean, I think it's inquisitive, but it is interesting to learn more about people. I think I'm similar in that I like to learn about the individual, what makes them tick. Maybe that's why we're both like what is mental health? Because we're just trying to figure ourselves out at this point.
Speaker 1:And you always feel well, I always feel alone. There's always and I think that might be a blanket statement, for maybe most of us Like we're going through our bullshit and we feel like we're alone going through our bullshit when in reality there's a bunch of us going through the same fucking bullshit, so that forgot where I was going with this. But I like not feeling alone in this.
Speaker 2:Get out of my head, and that's where I think support systems are so important. Like whoever you go to parents, siblings, partner, whatever that you need to just talk it out. And that's why I love therapy, because I think good therapists at least for me, because everybody has their preference of therapy but they kind of reflect it back to you or they ask you a question that you never considered, because it's almost like you can't think about your own thoughts and question them because you just believe it. So it's yeah, yeah, it is, it's, it's just like a cycle and that's why it's so scary. Once again back to solitary confinement, being stuck in your own head with nobody else there. That's a very scary place to be. Some people are mentally sound, but some people are not, and that's where it becomes terrifying. I can't even imagine the psychological torture that people go through for that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I don't want to imagine that and their families and their friends, and you know there's this, it's. It affects so many people, the people that advocate for them.
Speaker 2:Yeah and just but even just the feeling of being alone, not even in prison or anything, just in even society. It sucks. It sucks so bad. It sucks, it sucks, so bad it sucks. That's why I have my emotional support.
Speaker 2:Animal walter yes you do yeah I I say that to my partner and he's like, like he just gets mad at me. He's like, no, he's not that much of a therapy dog. I'm like, okay, he's not a therapy dog, he's an emotional support animal. Yes, he's not that much of a therapy dog. I'm like, okay, he's not a therapy dog, he's an emotional support animal. Yes, he's not very well trained, but he's there for emotional support. Like you know, like I'm not bringing him on the planes. I'm not doing that as like a therapy dog Because, like a therapy dog is not trained. My dog just helps me feel not alone and he like gives me kisses and he needs me.
Speaker 1:That's what the best pets do.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and they eat everything, all my money goes to him.
Speaker 1:Have you ever seen?
Speaker 2:that picture meme or whatever, where it's like my dog is basically a sugar baby and I'm the sugar daddy, because all they do is look cute and I just buy him a ton of stuff. I'm like that is absolutely accurate?
Speaker 1:No, I've never seen that Like crap. That is so accurate for you. You dress up your dog. He's so freaking cute.
Speaker 2:I have a bow tie and a tie Like there's a little laptop toy I have. I want to get him a mini backpack Like we could pretend he's at work, and I think that would be the cutest thing, one day we'll have to have him on the podcast. Then yeah, that's going to happen, Kelly, because he can speak, we'll pretend he's at work.
Speaker 1:You know, he could be our producer, he could be our sound guy.
Speaker 2:He's so freaking cute you know what it would be.
Speaker 1:We you know what it would be. We could take a picture and share it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, just us and my dog being a little producer.
Speaker 1:Yeah honey, well, all right, I think we nailed it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, freaking, crushing it.
Speaker 1:I love the story today. I love your take on it and next week we'll be reading how many pages is chapter four? I?
Speaker 2:don't know, can we only do one chapter?
Speaker 1:Yeah, we'll do chapter four next week.
Speaker 2:Because a girl barely finished chapter three, I didn't finish chapter three.
Speaker 1:Oh my God, our girl, yeah, so we'll do chapter four next week. Feel free to join us and follow along, please. We much appreciate you listening to us. Subscribe, rate and review wherever you listen. This has been a great episode and remember, because you're here, you're never alone.