The Hurt I Tried to Outrun

~by Ryan

I used to think I had a cravings problem.

Nah. What I really had was an I-don’t-know-what-the-hell-to-do-with-all-this-pain problem.

Nobody taught me how to hold heavy feelings. Nobody showed me how to sit with hurt without disappearing inside it. I learned early that when life gets loud, you either numb it, fight it, or destroy yourself trying to outrun it. And I’ve done all three.

So when the weight started piling up?
I reached for whatever shut the world up the fastest.

The meth.
The fentanyl.
The black.
The shots.
The bottles.
Hell—anything I could put between me and the storm inside my chest.

People see that from the outside and call it reckless. They call it self-destructive. They call it stupid.

But inside?
It was strategy.

You ever hurt so bad you’d rather disappear than feel one more inch of it?
Yeah. That was me.
Every damn day.

My mind worked like this:
“If I can’t fix this right now, at least I don’t have to FEEL it right now.”

It wasn’t weakness.
It wasn’t ignorance.
It was straight-up survival mode.

Here’s the part I didn’t understand until recently:

I wasn’t just escaping.
I was buying time.

I was trying to stay alive long enough to maybe figure my shit out later.
But “later” never came.
Because later got buried under the next high…
the next binge…
the next blackout…
the next lie I told myself.

The substances weren’t the addiction.
Not really.
I was addicted to not having to meet my own hurt face-to-face.

It wasn’t the dope.
It wasn’t the needle.
It wasn’t the line or the pill or the bottle.
It was the RELIEF.

The silence.
The numbness.
The pause button on a life that always felt one second away from exploding.

And I know this now:
That doesn’t make me broken.
It makes me unpracticed.

Nobody ever taught me that you can sit with pain without letting it swallow you whole.
Nobody showed me that you can survive a feeling by feeling it.

So this is the shift I’m making — right here, from inside these walls:

Not
“I’ll muscle through every craving.”
Not
“I’ll fight every urge.”

No.
The new shift is:

“I’m willing to learn how to sit with my pain without handing it off to something that keeps me small.”

Because every craving I’ve ever had was never a command…
it was a message.

A message saying:
“Something in you hurts.
Something needs attention.
Something you buried is trying to make its way back home.”

You can’t heal what you won’t feel.
And avoiding the pain only chains you to it longer.

So yeah, I’m finally facing myself.
Finally listening.
Finally learning how to hold the weight without trying to disappear under it.

And I’m doing it because I want a life after this.
I want my freedom.
I want my wife.
I want the future I never thought I’d be allowed to have.

I’m done abandoning myself to the nearest fix.
It’s time to learn how to stay.

Comments

Exposing the Deadly Reality at La Palma Correctional Facility: How Many More Have to Die?

For years, La Palma Correctional Facility in Eloy, Arizona, has been a hotspot for controversy, yet little has been done to address the rampant corruption, officer misconduct, and systemic failures that have turned it into a living hell for those incarcerated within its walls. Most recently, another inmate has died—one of many whose deaths could have been prevented if those in charge had taken real action instead of covering up their negligence. On January 2, 2025, I fought to have my husband moved out of La Palma due to the sheer volume of drugs flooding the yard, which were being brought in by correctional officers. I reported specific names to the Special Security Unit (SSU), thinking that doing the right thing would bring change. Instead, my concerns fell on deaf ears. Now, here we are, with more inmates losing their lives—many of these deaths are suspected overdoses, yet little to no investigation ever seems to result in actual change. A History of Negligence and Deaths This lates...

Another FBOP Failure: Tammy's Story — When “Funding” Becomes a Death Sentence

Here we go again. Another woman, another broken promise behind razor wire. Another excuse that starts with “funding” and ends with neglect. Tammy’s story is not new. It’s not unique. And that’s the biggest tragedy of all. Because her life—and her vision—matter. And so does every other person sitting in a Federal Bureau of Prisons (FBOP) facility, hoping for even the most basic human care. Recently, Tammy reached out to share what’s been going on at her facility, and I think it speaks for itself: "Recently I wrote about how the BOP seems to be broke. They took away several items at food service due to funding—like the salad bar (which, by the way, was just plain lettuce mix and generic dressing), they’ve limited eggs (maybe understandable with the bird flu), and removed extra items like beans and rice. What I didn’t mention, but probably should have, is that my prison doesn’t even repurpose leftovers. They literally throw away pounds and pounds of food daily from our kitche...

Until You’ve Walked Through Those Gates, Sit Down and Be Quiet

-By DeAnna You see memes like this floating around all the time — the ones that crack jokes about how “good” inmates supposedly have it. You know the ones: they talk about sex three times a day, reading books, working out, and then “complaining” about prison life. People laugh, hit share, and feel smug because they think they know something about what it’s like inside. I used to be one of them. I used to think prison was “right.” I believed it was what people deserved if they broke the law. I repeated the clichés: “Don’t do the crime if you can’t do the time.” “Three hots and a cot.” “They’ve got it easy in there.” And then… I worked there. Let me tell you something: until you’ve walked through those locking gates — hearing that buzzer, watching that steel door slam behind you, feeling the air shift from free to suffocating — you don’t know a damn thing about prison. Until you’ve seen the reality — the mace, the gas grenades, the cell extractions that leave blood on the floor, the...

From Guard to Wife: My Journey in the Shadows of the Justice System

Search This Blog