tizblessedlife :)

Of ex-prisoners..

Met a few up for interviews already. They are surprisingly nice! (See see? Do you hear yourself in this? We always think that people who have gone to prison before are inherently bad, don't we?)

The last one I met today is considered dashing for his age of 52! Bespectacled and has a very mild, gentlemanly demeanour. He bought me a drink too (N0 worries, he didn't spike it. Cos it was a soft drink in an unopened can. SEE? Did you worry if he might have spiked my drink when I said he offered me a drink?) The other one whom I met at his void deck asked if I wanted a drink and offered to go back up to get me a can of coke. Such nice people. =)

Three of those whom I've met so far have been in and out of DRCs and prison between 7-10 times. They admit that they face many problems since they were released, they had been betrayed by friends, faced problems getting help, faced stigma.. caused much pain to their family.. have to take care of their elderly parents.. yet, they keep going. They are resilient. I almost couldn't believe my ears when they said they had been in and out 10 times. At that point, I really wondered what keeps them going when it seems that the prosperous capitalistic society doesn't leave them even a tiny share of the pie.

Then it hit me that the human spirit is a resilient one.. really, this is something that God must have placed in us when He breathed into us, we are resilient because a part of God lives in us whether we believe it or not. A part of us that has a survival instinct, that will come back up when knocked down. We may feel hopeless sometimes, but we will not give up without a fight.

I learnt so much from each of the 3 whom I've met already.. choosing friends carefully, cherishing familial relations, not giving up easily.. Can you imagine how it feels to be off drugs after a huge struggle and then be on it again and then be caught again? One shared with me today that it's not that they don't want to.. but the negative impact of drugs on the mind can still somehow lure them back.. even when the addiction is gone, they still have nightmares of being addicted.. and dreams of being on it.. He said it's alot in the mind.. that means that every day that they're off drugs, they're fighting against a daily temptation in their mind.

If we think they're at fault for going through the revolving doors of the prison, let's think about how much we are contributing to that. We blame them for being on drugs, and yet not accept them when they are off it - what then should they do?

It's time we look at them differently - they deserve more credit than we think.

posted by Ling @ 12:58 AM