Thanksgiving....it's long, but maybe worth reading. To all who ever worked, lived, visited PPL; good memories

I spent years living and working with convicts, criminals, and addicts with the intent of helping to lead people out of misery and pain. Not alone, but with others who found their way out. With all my heart, I believe that people lucky enough to overcome their misery and pain experience far greater extremes of bliss and joy than people who have no misery and pain

I have known -

• A woman who wrote in her autobiography in treatment “my nightmare as a child began the day I was born. My mother was addicted to heroin”.
• A daughter who begged her mother to come out of a “nod” to just talk to her
• A mother “nodded” out for 25 years, never considering the option of stopping – her grown son didn’t even know her without heroin.
• A man who has served 25 years for a murder in a drug deal gone bad; he has more character and goodness than most people I know.
• A 58 year old woman, who remembers a rage deep enough at age 17 to kill her stepfather; she stopped because of the tears welling in her baby brother’s eyes.
• A young man serving life for putting a gun to his crack dealer’s head; the crack dealer who pressed charges; the grandfatherly crack dealer who owns an apartment complex and sells crack to women and children.
• A woman robbed, attacked, raped by three ski-masked men; 25 years later, she cannot be in a house alone at night; the nights forever changed.
• A child with no childhood, born addicted to heroin – yet still innocent, naïve, later, so full of pain, taken out by five bullets in his chest.
• A bright young woman who mutilates herself with sharp objects; to erase another pain far worse.
• A man whose only dream was to have a television in his cell
• A woman out of prison 21 years, haunted still by the memories of the times she ‘sold out’ morally to ‘survive’.
• Men and women that lust desperately to ingest something into their noses, mouths, veins, eventually their souls– to escape the pain of their existence.

I have known men and women, who lived on the bottom, grew up on the bottom –and then rose above the bottom, never to return. My life work is about never going back to the bottom.

Thanksgiving – what a great holiday; it allows us a pause – to just be thankful!

Each of you has a story that brought you to this moment–stories of pain, trauma, betrayal, and destruction. If you are able to overcome your story, integrate and cherish it, you will find unbridled peace of mind, gratitude, and humility.

How can we give thanks without appreciating the bittersweet fact that somewhere, someone is worse off. Somewhere:

• A man is dying of AIDS – alone
• A grandmother spends thanksgiving alone; her children lives are too busy this year
• A child cowers in a corner, afraid of the beating to come
• A mother cowers in a shelter; her eyes blackened after the beating
• Unkind strangers avoid the hollow empty eyes of the homeless man who asks for a quarter
• A women is doing life without parole
• A child is convicted as an adult
• A man is doing life without parole

I am thankful for all I have learned, have yet to learn and for being able to share it with so many people

Most of all, I am thankful for the privilege of dreaming for people who cannot yet dream for themselves.

With all my heart – Happy Thanksgiving

"Wise People walk the road that leads upward towards life,
Not the road that leads downward towards death".

Proverbs 15:24

Excerpt - hope this one - leaves you wanting more

At number five stood a young girl with long, blond hair and an innocent-looking face. She had an anxious, deer-caught-in-the-headlights way about her.
“Hi,” she nearly whispered, “I’m Julie. I guess you are moving into my house.”
“Yeah, they said number five,” I replied.
Julie, I thought to myself, was the one called “Say Snitch.” I wasn’t sure, but I didn’t think it was the best thing to be her roommate, or cellie (another new word of the prison vocabulary I would learn). Her hands fidgeted nervously and her voice quivered.
“I think something is coming down in the dorm today,” she said.
“Like what?” I asked.
“I don’t know, I just have a bad feeling,” she replied. “You wouldn’t believe how scary it is in here. I’m so glad I get out in four months. What about you? How much time did you get?”
“Five years I guess, but I’m not sure ’cause the judge said five to fifteen,” I told her.
“Oh my God,” she said. “You poor thing… Uh, oh c’mon, it’s time to line up to go to chow.”
In the chow hall, I was the last in a line of over a hundred women. Julie asked me to sit with her and I declined, remembering those accusing voices calling her “Say Snitch.” My eyes dared not meet anyone’s and the whole lower half of my body was shaking under the table. I sat alone and tried to be invisible. No one talked to me, but I sensed hundreds of eyes watching every move I made. The stench of sweaty convicts’ bodies and unidentifiable food odors hung in the air. Nothing felt like it fit. Looking at the food nauseated me.
After count and lunch, I pulled weeds again, wondering about my dorm mates. I thought of the tension that Julie mentioned. Perhaps she was right. Something was coming down. Shit! Maybe they’re after me. My mind rioted. I pulled weeds faster.

An excerpt from Five to Fifteen

Arizona State Prison for Women. Beginning September 24th, 1975, I would be calling this place home for the next several years having been sentenced to a mimimum of five, maximum of fifteen years imprisonment.

Oddly, in the brutal, violent, bigoted place, I disovered an almost indescribable bond among the women. I think perhaps, prison is like going to war. You have to fight for your life, stand together and try to come out intact. But some didn't. One woman, a marked 'snitch,' cut her own tongue out. Knowing someone had been ordered to do it, she decided to do it herself instead. Others hanged themselves. Some had objects forced inside them by angry mobs of young, no longer innocent women. Others took sleeping pills and tranguilizers to numb themselves and sleep their time away. Some crossed over to insanity years before anyone knew about mental illness. Some got to do plenty of drugs almost every day, especially pot. Others didn't. Some were taken behind buildings every day and beaten. Other delivered the beatings. All were changed.

Book promotion-finally happening

As the time nears for Five to Fifteen to be submitted to a publisher (December), my soon to be agent says I have to start promoting my book. Seems so self serving, but then, that's what trying to get published is, right? Unaccustomed to self serving, but definately want to get this book published....so time to start self serving. An excerpt from the proposal she is sending to publishers seems the most logical...

"Falling, I keep on falling" is how the author describes herself as she became more and more dependent on drugs and dealing to support her hundreds of dollars per day habit. As she witnesses other dealers and junkies around her being killed or committing suicide, she begins to realize how her addiction has affected others around her....the pace of life in this part of Five to Fifteen is obviously rushing towards death or imprisonment. Perhaps fortunately for Denise, she is sentenced to prison, a new low in itself. But not before she is nearly killed in her own house by desperate thieves looking for money and drugs. Brutally raped by these strangers, her gripping account of that episode is mortifying. So begins a lifelong fear of spending the night anywhere by herself."

Funny - being called an author, I rather like the sound. More to come if this is one way to promote.

Apolitical? Maybe

Apolitical-perhaps a new party

Anymore, it’s very difficult to discern what ‘party’ to vote for- or whether to vote at all. I get emails from people I know, angry people, who appear to believe that Obama is the reason for every problem we now face; and believe me, I don’t think he’s done a great job, but I also think that no matter who is in office at they can’t fix what it took decades to create; it wasn’t just Bush, or Clinton, Reagan, or Obama; it goes far beyond anyone who happens to be president. My humble opinion- the entire political arena has become so corrupt and influenced by the bottom line; $$$$, greed, and lobbyists. My sister recently had to be hospitalized for an emergency gall bladder thing; she makes minimum wage and cannot afford the health insurance her employer offers. The last time she applied for state medical coverage she was denied because she made $6.00 over the amount allowed. Consequently, a few weeks after being released from the hospital, she got a bill for $32,000; while in the hospital, they automatically submitted a new application for state coverage, but the decision, as I write this, is pending. In the event they deny her, this, potentially could render her homeless, and more so, render my 83 year old mother who she takes care of, alone. It’s all too big for me to allow myself to get too worked up about; I’d surely drive myself more crazy than I am; but in my nearly 60 years on this earth, I don’t remember ever being this afraid, uncertain, and with visions of eventual poverty, homelessness or worse as I approach retirement age. Yes, I’m one of those baby boomers they talk about, stuck in the worst of this ‘economic downturn’. Own a house that probably couldn’t sell for what is still owed on it; terrified of retiring (even if I had enough of a cushion to do so) for fear of losing my health coverage, having just gone through cancer treatment…live and work in a state that is so broke that myself and my colleagues face layoffs every six months. Tea Party, Democrat, Republican, Libertarian, Independent – I don’t think it fucking matters; we all seem to be on a sinking ship, so the best I can do is become apolitical and play bingo.

Seriously, can't a girl get a break?

After 10 months, almost to the day of battling this cancer thing, I get this pain that I don’t think I’m supposed have, so I call my angel of a cancer advocate; she tells me to get in to see either my primary doctor or the surgeon who did the breast surgery. I go see both. As it turns out, there is something going on; the surgeon tells me that it could be an infection and gives me mega antibiotics, which if in two weeks they don’t work, then we’re looking at another kind of breast cancer; a more serious one. Talk about breast cancer awareness month; wow! Drat I say! I have learned more about cancer than I ever wanted to know this past year; I’ve learned that even when they say you’re in remission, that all your markers look good, that the chemo and radiation worked….it’s still with you all the time; that impending fear, that new awareness that your body is rebelling, or tainted now in some fashion. I’ve learned that so many more people have been touched by it than I ever thought. I’ve learned that I have this newfound, sort of morbid curiosity that compels me to read the obits in the paper every Sunday, and that every week countless women lose courageous and long battles with breast, and other cancers, and I wonder if I will be one of those, or not. I’ve said to myself over the past months that if I had to do chemo again, I wouldn’t, and then my stronger self says that no matter what comes my way, I will deal with it. So, now, I wait that two weeks, and wonder…..

Thank You - For my MHS family

To everyone at Mental Health Systems who has supported me in this journey:
Any attempt to articulate, with words, the depth of the gratitude that my heart is filled with –seems so trite, but I will attempt. Eight months ago, when I heard the word cancer – as I am sure everyone who has had that experience goes through, an emotional roller coaster ride began. There was fear, panic, reflection, confusion, a wide range of feelings that continue even now. But, while my emotions were in such chaos, out of all this came something else; something so rare and precious; most of all, so humbling. It was the response of the people I have had the privilege of working and hanging out with, and befriending over the past 12 years at Mental Health Systems; a response I neither anticipated, nor could have imagined would be so gracious and generous.
Generally, I am the eternal optimist, but like everyone, I suppose, I can go to those more cynical places. Something I wrote, and something I often talk, worry and think about; the potential for the loss of community-which I contend is, in large part, the reason for so much despair, confusion, and conflict in this world we share. When New Starts began, an excerpt of the program philosophy said “We must be careful as we go racing down this 24-hour information highway, lest we forget the names, the faces, and the humanness we share.” Any time spent in an airport these days, witnessing how many people aren’t talking, or making eye contact, is a vivid reminder of this ‘information highway at work’.
What I have experienced as a member of the MHS Community has invigorated my ‘optimist’ self and quelled my ‘cynic’ self, to be sure. When the company wide email went out requesting donations for me, little ‘ole me, I was moved to tears; the good kind, joyful tears. I, facing this arduous journey, could not have been in a better place in terms of the friendships that have formed for the past 12 years, and solidified even more so over the past eight months. The generosity of spirit; the extensions of shoulders to cry on, arms to be held in, places to say how I really felt, lunches, food deliveries to my house during chemo, and time off when I couldn’t keep going; countless gestures, toward me, little ‘ole me.
I can’t begin to express my how touched, moved, and grateful I am, starting with Kim, David, Orv, and Vicki, and everyone else of the MHS community, and what a wondrous, great community it is. This is a time that will remain in my heart forever.
With warmest regards,

Denise Sassoon