In The White Room

The color white...the color symbol for purity and goodness. In the color spectrum white is all the colors as one. White light refracted from a cut piece of glass, or a diamond the way it sparkles. Crystals can bend that pure white light and you'll see all kinds of colors reflecting off that surface. How ironic it is that the color white, the very representation of peace and goodness, can be the most cruel of all colors. I can try my best to tell you why I believe this to be so. It is not a story for the faint of heart of that I must warn you before you continue.

I guess I will begin by telling you something you already know, and that is prisons have solitary confinement cells. Now, a few facts you may or may not know. There is a program called MKUltra. You can follow this link to read about it if you don't know about it because I really don't want to go into the explanation of it. I have PTSD and I'll be brie https://search.yahoo.com/search?fr=mcafee&type=E211US1441G0&p=mkultra

Sidney Gottlieb was an American Chemist that was recruited by the CIA to head up a project on mind control using LSD developed by what is now Novartis. The LSD projects were just one of many in which American and Canadian citizens were subjected to sometimes willingly, sometimes unwillingly. All in a search for a way to control the human mind. Project MKUltra was ultimately ended and made illegal by the 1970's we the American people are told, but as anyone knows the CIA operates above and outside the law. They do things the government needs done, but can claim no knowledge or participation of. No one tells the CIA what to do except for the CIA and whoever directs it. Many, many torture techniques were developed by MKUltra using people as experimental guinea pigs whether they were willing or unwilling. You know people just disappear without a trace every single day in the United States. I'm sure a large number are killed by serial killers et al, but I am willing to bet my life that many are snatched by the CIA to be used for new techniques. As this world changes, so do the techniques used to extract information and exert mind control. a lot of people were driven mad, many died, and others were simply executed. Believe it or not, the government of the United States does not mind a few necessary deaths of its citizens. All in the name of the greater good. Now no President or anyone in the government can admit MKUltra still exists, but the fact is a lot of beneficial practical applications have come out of these experiments, and there is simply no way any official would actually put a stop to it. besides that, they don't want it to end.

I want to tell you about an application developed by MKUltra that are used today, that I myself have personally been exposed to, and have been victimized by. The application I am referring to is sensory overload. Have you ever heard of sensory deprivation? There are people who use sensory deprivation chambers as a way of meditating and relaxing. Sensory deprivation is severely limiting any input from any of the body's senses. An example would be a sound proof box with no lighting that a person can climb into and shut the door and be in total silence and darkness. No smells, nothing really to touch. Nothing to taste but stale air. Sensory overload as you may have guessed is just the opposite. It can be auditory, visual, a combination of different ones, but the point in sensory overload is to actually overload your senses in order to break down your mind. Make you more programmable and controllable. Extreme use of sensory overload, which is a form of torture, is used as a way to punish and torture.

Now that I have given you a background on all this, I will tell you how I became a victim of sensory overload , and how it has affected my mind. Now I will give you a truth about myself. I do suffer from mental illness, even from before the sensory overload I was objected to. I have what is referred to as schizoaffective disorder. It has symptoms of schizophrenia and bipolar (formerly known as manic-depressive). I lean more to the bipolar side with times of extreme mania. It's during these manic episodes that I buy of lot of high dollar items I do not need and end up going broke just days after receiving my benefits. I have also been in trouble with the law and institutionalized in prison 4 separate times on two different convictions. In 2013 I was in a state of unmedicated mania and drank some alcohol. Not enough to be intoxicated, but enough to let my mania spin out of control. I decided after a few rounds of Jack Daniels mixed with Sprite that I wanted a pizza. I lived too far out of town for a delivery so I made a carry out order and proceeded to drive to town. I lived on a very old highway out in the country, the highway itself being barely ever travelled by anyone except for the people who lived somewhere down it so there are hardly ever any law enforcement watching this road for speeders and other misdemeanor traffic violators. I would always take that road to town, and once in town I could take quiet city backstreets all the way to Pizza Hut. Well on this particular day I passed a particular State Trooper who I knew from high school, and we had hated each other just as long. He whipped around and turned on his lights. He was going to use his authority to hassle me and give me a hard time. Well I was just manic enough and had just enough alcohol in me to think "fuck him" and I refused to stop. It was a low speed chase down a back street with many, many stop signs. I had been stopping at every one of them, but I was so caught up with looking at him in the rear view mirror that I missed one, ran through it, and hit a car driving through the intersection at about 20 mph. No one was hurt thank God, but I was caught and my little mania-alcohol fueled flee was over. I was charged with felony fleeing and failure to stop resulting in an accident. Both were felonies. I plead guilty to both charges and the judge gave me 3 years for each, but he ran them consecutively instead of concurrently which gave me a total of 6 years. Needless to say I was very irate to have those petty felonies stacked like that just to lengthen my sentence, so once I left the courtroom and taken to the jail, that is when my tirade began and did not end day or night for two weeks and I was transported to prison where I was immediately introduced to the world of sensory overload.

I guess it's best to start off with describing the room itself. It's about nine feet long by seven feet wide. A big part of that is taken up by the concrete bed that runs from wall to wall at the back of the room. It is about two feet high and three feet wide. Then there's the toilet-sink combo. That good old stainless steel version you've all seen a million times. There is a door with a small window in it, but it has a door covering it on the outside. It is for the guards to peek in from time to time, not for looking out. There is also a tray slot in the door that they pass meals in through but it also has a door that locks on the outside. There is not even enough room to pace in this hell. Mostly you just lay there and stare at the wall or ceiling, or just try to stay asleep as much as possible. The walls and ceiling are painted an unnaturally bright white. It is the whitest white you can imagine. I wouldn't doubt that shade was made specifically for prisons. There is a light on the ceiling. It is a huge thing. It takes up most of the space on the ceiling! And I swear they are the brightest bulbs I have ever come across. I believe they had to be 200 or 300 watt bulbs at least. And that bright white light bouncing off that bright white room, let's say imagine you are in a snowstorm and you are snow blind. If you've ever been snow blind before you know what I mean.

That is why I told you about MKUltra earlier. These type of things, these extra bright white rooms with extra bright lights cause sensory overload. The CIA developed the technique and some prisons put it to use. I know Arkansas prisons do. It is meant to break you down mentally. I never broke. Not once did I beat on the door or scream. I guess that's why they left me in there for three months.

I can remember it was an experience unlike any other I have ever known. You were not allowed to have anything. You could not even have your own mail. My poor mother had been writing letters all those months and had no idea why I was not writing her back. I gave her a call once I was out of solitary and they gave me all my mail. The only thing you can have in your cell in solitary is a pair of boxers you have on, a matt to lay on about one quarter of an inch thick, and one thin blanket. That's it. No mail, nothing to read or look at. Nothing with any color. You aren't even allowed to have toilet paper. If you needed to go to the bathroom you'd have to wait till a guard made a round and opened the door to your little window. It was really kind of pointless though. All you could have at a time were six little one ply squares. If you want your ass clean you have to be creative. I'll leave it at that.

I remember never knowing if it was day or night. You have no way to know. There is no clock and the guard won't give you the time. So you fall asleep and wake up you have no idea if you slept fifteen minutes, or five hours. Could be 2 am, could be 2pm. Your whole entire concept of time is twisted and warped. Now, the best way I figured out to see what time of day it was is when they brought breakfast. If you had the powdered eggs and grits or oatmeal, you knew it was sometimes in the morning! Sometimes just that little something was enough of a victory inside to keep me going. My sense of time was so warped I thought I had been in there a couple weeks, not three solid months.

I remember hearing prayers whispered aloud. Begging God to deliver them from that cell. I remember hearing sobbing. I remember when someone would flip out and start beating the door or they would stomp the door by putting their back to the door and stomping the door with the bottom of their foot. Much louder and using your hand and it doesn't make you sore like using your hand would. Beating and stomping the door and screaming at the top of their lungs. Sometimes vile words yelled at the guards and sometimes just yelling begging God to help them. Sometimes I would giggle at some of the things these guys would say or do. They would make up a thousand different things to say to the guard in order to get taken out of that cell. It never worked. I never broke down and screamed or tried to bargain my way out. I just remained silent. One thing I can tell you, being in that tiny room no external stimuli, it's just you and that white. And it's some bad things that live in that bright white. You eventually start to see them.

I'm not talking about creatures or ghosts, at least not real ghosts. No the creature you fear the most in that brighter than normal white is yourself. You sit there staring into that white and become almost hypnotized. Memories start coming up to the surface, and in that place mostly it's just the bad memories that taunt you. Things you've said and done to loved ones or even to strangers. All your sins come back to haunt you and that is all that you have to dwell on in that white monster. I was forced to do a lot of soul searching in there. Forced to come to terms with myself and the things I've done.

I wasn't the same when I left that room. I remember the day the guards asked me if I was about ready to join population. I was so happy I was telling them "Yes sir! Yes sir! No problems out of me!" When I got to the population barracks is when I learned how much time had actually gone by and you could have knocked me over with a feather. In one way it felt like just a couple weeks, in another way it felt like I had been in that white hell for ten years. I have never been the same since my time in the white room. I was in there with myself and no one else for so long I had to come to terms with a lot of things I didn't want to admit. But believe me, that white monster will get confession after confession and admission after admission out of you.

I have had a lot of bad things happen to me in my life. Twice divorced. My first wife attacked me with a knife when I told her I wanted a divorce. I still carry the long scar on my neck where she tried to swipe at my throat. A little deeper and she would've done the deed. I been shot twice, once through the shoulder. The bullet went all the way through and the hole had to be packed full of medicated gauze from the front and the back daily. There is no other feeling quit like the feeling of an extra long q-tip pushing gauze inside a raw wound deep into your body. I can tell you it doesn't feel good. My only brother that was five years younger than me vanished off the face of the planet in January of 2015. Went hunting and hasn't been seen since. I remember the day that boy was born. Back then I was not allowed back to my mother's room because of my age, hospital policy. My daddy took me around to the back of the hospital and my momma held him up to the window. That little red headed baby grew up to be quite a mess and a handful. Both my parents worked. They left at 6 am every morning and it was up to me to get that boy up and ready. Many a morning battle took place over getting up and getting ready for school. That boy made every step I made for eighteen years. For God's sake I taught him how to fish, and he had me baiting his hook and taking his fish off for him till he was 13 years old. I grew up in a home with a violent father. He was and is the very definition of narcissist. He didn't like me very much for some reason. He was always telling me I wasn't his son and when my momma would not comply with his demands it was my hide put on the line to get her to cooperate. My dad used to stick a loaded shotgun to my head until my mother complied, and that started happening before I was old enough to store long term memory of it.

I like to tell stories to people about things I've experienced. Some things funnier than hell, some things are gut wrenching. Someone told me a few days ago that I have lived a very colorful life and experienced so very many things the average person doesn't experience. They told me I should start writing them down and sharing them so I am giving it a try, although I must admit I haven't done much writing since high school, and that was nearly 30 years ago. I believe I will mostly tell the true tales of prison life on here. Some of the things you read will fascinate you, some of the things will disgust you, but the things I have to tell about will leave you wanting more. There are a lot of truths, and a lot of myths about prison and I will tell it all to you straight. You'd be amazed. One thing I must comment about our society: the prison and justice system is completely fucked. If you get in it, if you don't have a lot of money you are fucked. In Arkansas there is not much industry other than farming, working in the woods cutting timber for the mills, and the mills. Unless you can deal with the public and in that case there is always Wal-Mart, fast food joints, and gas stations. Needless to say most people in Arkansas that go to jail are the poor. The ones that get appointed a public pretender that basically goes along with whatever the prosecutor says. Many an innocent man and woman sits in these festering cesspools of crumbling rotting prisons. You see in Arkansas, one of the biggest industries is the legal system. That's why it is so crooked in this state. From police officers and jailers, to guards at the prison, there are a lot of jobs dealing with the legal system in this state, so they send as many people to prison for whatever reason they can and it all boils down to money. You can take that or leave it.

Yes there have been many things happen to me during the course of my life. Many tragedies many comedies. I will be writing stories probably mostly of prison here, but I do have a blog I just started and I'll be telling stories of all kinds there about my life. One thing I have left to say is, I missed the deadline on the "how a color makes me feel". This story was going to be entered, but for some reason all the writing didn't save. Oh well. I think you know what color I am talking about in this little essay don't you? Yeah. It's white, the most cruelest of colors. You can be broken down and reduced to a heap of sorry sagging weeping bones by the use of white. It's all in the intensity of it. I can't stand having many lights on in the house now. I guess that overly bright white light caused some deep subconscious damage. The white and light themselves, but also what I say in it. I saw me. Many of you will think that is a stupid statement because you think you see yourself every day. No. You see your reflection in the mirror every day. You see yourself through rose colored glasses that hide all the truth from you. No what I am talking about goes much deeper. I saw inside my own soul, what was really in it.

I finish this off now with this: stay clear of the law especially in Arkansas. Pray you never have to go into the white room to see the things it has to show you. Friend, that white room has teeth, really big sharp teeth, and it can tear you to pieces any time it wants. I now have been diagnosed with PTSD. The white room is but one of the things that have happened over the course of my life. My counselor said my PTSD got started in childhood. I pray I never remember everything. Until next time my friend, thank you for reading. I hope I have entertained and informed. That was my intention.