You Only Love Me When I’m Angry

-by Ryan 

I’m tired of fake family love.
The kind that only shows up when I’m pissed off.
The kind that only wants to check in when I’ve finally had enough and let the anger spill out.

Where were you when I was silently breaking?
Where were you when I wrote long messages trying to be honest, trying to tell the truth about how I feel—about my pain, my past, about being locked in a system that’s designed to chew people up and spit out what’s left?

You ignored it. Or worse—you filtered it.
Didn’t share it. Didn’t want to “stir the pot.”
You didn’t protect me. You silenced me.

And then, when the weight gets too heavy and I finally speak up in anger?
Suddenly, everyone wants to care.
Everyone wants to talk.
Everyone wants to remind me how much they “still love me.”

Stop.
That’s not love.
That’s guilt.
That’s convenience.

You want to say I’m angry? Damn right I am.
Because every time I open up, somebody decides my truth is too much—too raw, too messy, too inconvenient.
And guess what? I’m still left picking up the pieces.
Correction—my wife is left picking up the pieces.
She’s the one who’s there when the phone hangs up. When the mail doesn’t come. When the silence from my “loved ones” hits harder than any prison wall.

You think you know me because you’ve known me since I was a kid?
Nah. You knew the version of me that was still trying to survive the chaos.
You didn’t check in when I was using.
You didn’t speak up when I was spiraling.
You didn’t offer help when I was falling.
But now you want to pop up and critique my healing? My honesty? My anger?

Let me say this loud enough for every fake seat at the family table to hear:
I don’t need people who only see me when I’m breaking.
I need people who show up when I’m trying.
When I’m quiet.
When I’m fighting demons silently in a 6x8 cell and trying not to lose my mind.

You say you love me.
Prove it.
Not with empty words or messages sent once every blue moon.
Not by “protecting” others from my feelings.
Prove it with presence.
With action.
With consistency.

Until then?
Keep your guilt.
Keep your sugar-coated apologies.
Keep your filtered responses.
Because I’d rather have no family than fake family.

Trying to Stay Clean in a Dirty System

 

-by Ryan 

Let’s talk about what it really means to be a recovering addict inside a prison system that runs on contradiction, corruption, and control.

You’d think this would be the safest place to get clean, right?
No drugs. No temptation. No street.
Just time to think, get right, and prepare for something better.

Wrong.

Let me break it to you straight:
Prison is one of the worst places to try to get clean.
Because in here, drugs don’t just exist—they thrive.
And 9 times outta 10? They’re not coming in through inmates.
They’re coming in through the people wearing the keys.

Yep. The officers.
The ones paid to protect and rehabilitate? They’re the ones flooding these yards with poison.
Daily.

I'm not talking once a week or a rare drop here and there.
I'm talking daily drops, daily sales, and drugs flying off the shelves like it's a damn commissary item.
Crank, K2, strips, pills—you name it, someone’s pushing it, and someone’s profiting off it.
And those “someones” ain’t always wearing state blues.
They’re wearing badges.

Meanwhile, I’m over here white-knuckling it through every damn day.
Holding on to sobriety with both hands.
Not because I’m scared of using.
But because I remember who I was when I did.

I remember the chaos.
The lies.
The pain I caused people who loved me.
The wreckage I left behind every time I said, “I got this,” when I damn sure didn’t.

And now, I’m trying to be better.
I am being better.
But this place? It don’t make it easy.

How do you focus on recovery when your cellie is getting high right next to you?
How do you stay clean when your neighbor is overdosing two doors down?
How do you fight to be different in a place that wants you to stay the same?

You can’t sign up for an NA meeting without a CO making a joke about how “you’ll be high again by next week.”
You can’t request therapy without being labeled soft, or a liability.
You can’t protect your sobriety without them twisting it into suspicion, like you’re the problem.

Let me be clear:
Addiction is a disease, not a moral failure.
But the way this system works? It punishes you for trying to heal.

They don’t want us clean.
They want us compliant.
They want us strung out, docile, easy to control.
Because a man in recovery? He sees clearly.
And clear eyes see the game.

But I'm not going back.
I’ve been that man. The one crawling through withdrawal. The one lying, stealing, manipulating—whatever it took to get the next fix.

Not anymore.

Now I’m the one who wakes up every day and chooses something better—even when everything around me is broken.
Even when the smell of smoke is in the air and the whispers of “it’s good sh*t” creep under the door.
Even when no one claps for me.
Even when nobody believes I’ll make it.

Because I believe it.
And because she believes it—my wife, my angel, my reason.
She’s seen me at my lowest. And she still looks at me like I’m worth something more.
So now I fight. For her. For me. For the version of myself I almost never became.

If you’re reading this and you’re struggling with addiction—inside or out—let me say this:

You’re not weak for wanting to change.
You’re not crazy for wanting something better.
And you’re not alone in feeling like the world is built to keep you stuck.

But even in here, where the air’s thick with corruption and temptation, I’m still clean.
Still choosing life.
Still walking through hell with my head up.

Because recovery is rebellion in a place that profits off your destruction.

And I’ve never been more ready to fight back.

—
#BehindBarsUnfiltered #RecoveryInPrison #AddictionAwareness #CorruptButClean #StillFighting #PrisonReformNow

If You Can’t See Him, You Can’t See Me

 

When my mugshot hit the news, I found out exactly who my friends and family really were. Spoiler alert: most of them weren’t who I thought they were.

Instead of picking up the phone and asking, “DeAnna, what really happened?” they ran with whatever the news threw out. Overnight I went from being “the one who had her life together” to “DeAnna screwed up her life. DeAnna married a convict. DeAnna’s a drug addict. A dealer. We told her so.”

No one wanted the truth. They wanted gossip. And they fed on it.

---

The Betrayal Hits Different

I can live with strangers talking. What gutted me were the people I loved—the ones who claimed to love me.

I had a man I carried on an off-and-on affair with. A man who couldn’t come clean to save his soul, but still had the nerve to call himself my “best friend.” He was buddy-buddy with my ex-husband, even called him “family.” And then he turned around and told me I was a fool.

Why? Because I chose to marry someone incarcerated. Because according to him, “all inmates are manipulative fuck-ups.” He said he was disappointed in me. That I was “smarter than that.”

Here’s the difference between me and him: I was big enough to own my dirt, to come clean about what I did. But was he? No. He stayed hiding in the shadows, pretending to be loyal while throwing daggers at me for being honest about my choices. That’s not friendship. That’s cowardice wrapped in self-righteousness.

---

Family, Fear, and Fake Concern

And then there was family. People who told me to my face they were “scared” of my husband. Scared because “inmates are violent, evil.” Scared because the man I love has a record, while conveniently forgetting that plenty of “free men” sitting in their church pews on Sunday are just as violent, abusive, or broken—but that doesn’t scare them.

Then there were the ones who didn’t say a word. They just walked away. Silent. But not really silent, because they had plenty to say behind my back. They whispered. They gossiped. They built their own little narrative of my life without ever once coming to me.

---

The Stalkers and the Informants

Three years later, some of these same people still watch me. They stalk my every post, my every move, just so they can gossip about me. They run back to my ex-husband to play little informant, his loyal minions feeding him “updates” on me like I’m some reality show they can’t stop tuning into.

For what? What do they gain? Do they think tearing me down makes their own sins smaller? Do they think stalking my life somehow validates theirs?

Here’s the truth: if you still hate me but can’t stop watching me, you don’t hate me—you envy the fact that I had the guts to live my life out loud while you keep hiding in shadows.

---

The Difference Between Me and Them

The difference between me and them is simple: I can own my choices. I can admit when I’ve fallen. I can stand up and say, “Yes, I screwed up here. Yes, I’ve loved wrong. Yes, I’ve sinned. But I also chose love. I chose loyalty. I chose truth.”

They, on the other hand? They hide. They condemn. They gossip. They call themselves “good Christians” while living in a way Christ wouldn’t recognize.

John 8:7 says, “Let any one of you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone.” And let me tell you—those stones flew fast when my name hit the news. Not because they were sinless, but because throwing stones at me meant no one was looking at them.

---

My Loyalty Stands

So here I stand, three years later. Without the friends I thought I had. Without the family who promised to love me. With empty holiday tables and silent nights. But I also stand with my husband—the one who loves me unconditionally, flaws and all. The one who shows me daily what loyalty looks like. The one who owns his past and is fighting for his future.

And if that means I lost everyone else? So be it.

Because if you can’t see him for more than an inmate, you can’t see me for who I am either. And I’d rather sit at an empty table with my integrity than at a full one with people who only ever loved me halfway.