The People Left Behind

My dad is in prison.

He has been for the past 6 years and has about 8 more to go before he is released.

This post is not about my dad. It’s about me. It’s about my mom. It’s about the people left behind.

I had just graduated from college when my uncle called and told me he had been arrested by the FBI. It was a day I will have burned into my memory for the rest of my life. Unfortunately, it is a memory too many families have to struggle with. Often times we are forced to struggle alone. Silently going through the motions, looking for some semblance of normalcy that allows us to put aside the frustration, anger, and shame we feel on a daily basis.

I remember in the first week there was a lot of crying. I screamed a lot, too. Sometimes at my dad, sometimes at my mom, sometimes just into a pillow so my mom could have a reprieve from my emotional response. You see, my mom deals with things like this very differently than I do. She slays dragons. She figures out what needs to be done and does it without processing the emotional toll. I, on the other hand, feel things deeply and immediately. Things stay with me for a long time. My mom openly admits she did not have an emotional reaction to my dad’s arrest until after his trial – about a year after his initial arrest.

The FBI made a lot of promises to my mom, specifically about me. My mom saw the effect this was having on me and wanted assistance in getting the help I needed. We were told if my dad cooperated with the investigation, I would be given access to some of the best mental health professionals in the area who were trained specifically in situations like ours. Despite my dad’s cooperation and to my mom’s frustration, this help never came. Despite being told we were just as much victims in the situation, Victim’s Services refused to talk to us or help us find support. It got so bad my mom reached out to a friend who happens to work with Dr. Phil (yeah, I know) to see if the show’s connections could put us in contact with the psychologist they use regularly. The price for access to that resource was to share our story on the show. To exploit our situation for a daytime talk show.

Hard pass.

It was bad enough that as a first-year teacher, the first conversation I had with my principal was me explaining my dad’s charges to him in case a nosey parent happened to google their child’s new teacher’s name. This was the first and last time my principal talked to me about this. My uncle, the one who called me to tell me about the arrest, soon stopped talking to me or my mom. He realized “what a piece of shit” my dad was and couldn’t understand why my mom was still willing to be a friend to my dad, even though all of his friends, except one, have abandoned him and refuse to acknowledge him. The ironic part of this aspect of the story is that on most days, I agree with my uncle. I have a very limited relationship with my dad and have only spoken to him a handful of times and seen him twice.

In the 6 years since the arrest, my cousin has asked me one time how I am doing. Slowly family members just stopped talking to us, in general. It’s been over two years since I spoke to anyone in my family, besides my mom.

This isn’t a pity party. I understand why people don’t talk about it. People are afraid to talk about hard things; they are afraid to reopen a wound. But the wound never heals. It is always fresh and always finds a way to remain open. It was open when I got engaged. It will be open when I walk down the aisle when my first child is born. People get so caught up in being angry at my dad for what he did that they focus on the anger and the disgust instead of the person standing right in front of them. It’s like I’ve been dirtied by my dad’s crimes, and all some people can see when they look at me is the mud. People not talking about it only helps them. It lets them forget about what my dad did. They forget that my dad being sent to prison for 15 years has a ripple effect. They forget that despite what we were told, WE ARE VICTIMS, TOO. In 2001, Kevin McCarthy, an assistant professor at LSU and investigator for research into offender’s families, identified one of the major struggles for this group of people:

"In no way do we wish to minimize the victims of crime and their families… But it's equally important to understand the offending family suffers and people in criminal justice [work] suffer. It may not be the same level or in the same phases as that of the victims, but nevertheless, it's there and it impacts the level of community cohesion."

It is not the same type of pain, but it is valid nonetheless.

In 2013, I joined 215,000 other families in having someone they love be incarcerated in the Federal Prison System. I became another forgotten victim of a crime. We are often forgotten about, except in extreme cases where our fathers are famous killers, our sons murder their classmates, or a Netflix show decides to dive into our brother’s case. These are obviously just three examples of when a family member of a criminal has been given the opportunity to discuss the impact their incarcerated family member had on their life. But these are the famous cases. What about the rest of us?

We are forgotten. Our narratives ignored.

This is my personal experience. Everyone placed in this situation has a different story and all are equally upsetting and difficult. It should be noted that Victim’s Services is a tremendously helpful and needed group for ALL victims of crimes – not just those traditionally labeled as victims.