Thank you
Mark Crawford
2-18-19
Thank You
I'm not institutionalized by any stretch of the imagination. I mean if they offered to let me out, I'd be happy to oblige, but the truth is that prison, especially long term incarceration, does have a profound affect on the human mind, one that all prisoners must fight hard to resist. The best example I can give would be to tell you that, even though I am not Institutionalized, and even though I have fought hard to maintain my sanity, I no longer think about what it would be like to have a life outside these bars. That world out there is so far removed from the one I live in, that it no longer seems real, it's like a television program ... I don't really know how to describe what I'm trying to illustrate, but, to a prisoner like me, one who has been locked up for over 20 years, the world outside this prison is surreal event ... it's like a story in a Romance Novel, one that I sometimes imagine myself being in ... but deep inside me I am mindful that this fantasy of the outside world doesn't include me.
This is why it's so important for prisoners to have contact with normal people on the outside, people like you, it helps to keep them grounded to reality. My children, God Bless them, have never waned in there contact with me, and my skinny daughter keeps me flooded with pictures of not only her and her little family, but of my sons and their families as well. If a prisoner doesn't have this contact with the outside world they become completely immersed in the drama of prison life, a prison sociopath, and this is exponentially true the more time you do. The harsh truth is that most people you meet inside are the undesirables, the hustlers, the deceivers, the predators, the violence, the degradation ... the dishonesty of the entire Prison System, to include the guards who themselves, over time, fall prey to the brainwashing of constant negativity. Yeah, it's an ugly system filled with ugly broken people on both ends of the keys. That's why we need to believe that someone on the outside still cares, some feeling of being loved, something to connect to other than the ugliness of this judicial holocaust. So to those of you out there who give of your time, who take time away from your own lives to throw a kind word over these walls, I can only say from the inner most part of my heart, thank you.
Mark Crawford # 76603-079
F.C.I Three Rivers
P.O. Box 4200
Three Rivers, Texas - 78071
U.S.A
Please send all note paper and the envelope in white and only photos are allowed.
