Dear Reader,

My story is not unique. I was born in 1968, and grew up in a dysfunctional family. My parents divorced when I was 11. I was an angry, sad child with no emotional outlet growing up. As an adult my go to coping skill usually involved some sort of addiction. By 2011, my addiction was so out of control that I found myself with charges that were likely to send me to prison. I wanted a different kind of life. I didn’t want to live the way I had been living. I just didn’t know how to stop getting loaded. It was the only coping tool I used. While sitting in county jail, a pretrial supervision agent came to talk to me. I was scared and didn’t want to talk to him and I told him that. He asked if I wanted help with my addiction. It was the only thing I wanted, and desperately I said yes! 

They moved me to a facility a few weeks later and over the next six months I engaged in classes at DePaul Treatment Center in Portland, Oregon. It was a time of personal growth and I learned a lot from my experience there. After graduating treatment, I still had to face the charges brought against me from before. So with 6 and a half months clean, off to prison I went for 70 months.

After arriving at Coffee Creek Correctional Facility, I was overwhelmed and scared. Adjusting to life inside prison was hard. The 6 months I had spent at DePaul had given me a small foundation of healing but I knew that I had a lot of sadness and personal trauma to deal with if I wanted to stay clean. My intention was to sign up immediately for mental health therapy thinking that would be the next best step for continued wellness, which was not the case. The therapist I started seeing when I first got there told me that the prison cut funding for inmate therapy services. Yikes! I couldn’t understand why they would do that. Yearning for continued growth and healing, I was devastated. The prison did offer some Dialectical Behavior Therapy skills classes and Non-Violent Communication courses, which I took, and retook. But I also wanted to work on my emotional heart stuff. I wanted healing from the sadness and trauma that affected my spirit and kept me in a dark place. I was joyless.

One day a flier came into the housing unit. It was an invitation to see a theater event in the cafeteria. I signed up and went. Carla & Don, the couple that came in, talked with us about their theater experience. Don played the ukulele and Carla sang a cute song about a teddy bear. I remember laughing and feeling happiness again. I don’t remember much else of what happened that night at their show… What I do remember is afterwards they asked if any of us were interested in starting a theater group at the prison. Every single person that came to the show that night signed up for their class.

We would meet one day a week for 3 hours. At the beginning of every class, we would sit in circle and each person would check-in about their lives. I was grateful to be able to participate because in this prison, at no other time or any other place were we allowed to sit together and converse like this. If we did, the guards could call it unauthorized organization and it was a punishable offense. For me, this Open Hearts Open Minds theater check-in circle was healing and therapeutic. 

While living in the general population unit, I stayed in that group for the remainder of my prison sentence. Over the next few years we put on plays and singing events for other inmates and OHOM invited outside guests. It was a fulfilling experience and I found pride in doing something I didn’t know I could accomplish.

I remember having many personal epiphanies while engaging in their program. I regained my child like joy, learned the importance of vulnerability, found my voice, overcame fear, we cried together, we laughed together, and we smiled together… I actually remember smiling so hard that I got cramps in my cheek muscles!  I did not know that was a thing that could happen.

I was released from prison in 2016. I am proud to say that I have not returned to my addictions. I remain friends with some of the women in the program. I have continued on my personal path of growth & healing and will be forever grateful to Open Hearts Open Minds for coming inside prison walls, sharing their healing love of story, of life & of art. OHOM stood in the gap and filled my life with the healing I didn’t think was possible in prison. I can’t thank them enough. 

Love with my whole heart,

Denise B