So only a few people know this, but a few years ago, I got arrested, I spent a whole year in jail fighting for my case since my public pretender decided she wasn't going to work for me and be little more than a middle man for the A.D.A. who was prosecuting me, there is so much to unpack here and I wont go into everything, but I will say that my year in Jail was the worst of my life, I have seen gang bangers grievously injure and even kill others over the most petty of reasons, I have seen a guy hopped up on Fentanyl laced meth literally dig another guys eyes out just because the victim had owed him money.

But aside from that, my own suffering was continual, From the moment I arrived to Oklahoma County jail, I was handcuffed to a bench for eight hours of a process that took maybe fifteen minutes total, then they sent me to suicide watch on the thirteenth floor (or twelfth, I forget exactly) where I was given what inmates refer to as a Turtle suit, this is a smock that covers only the front half of your body and is essentially a trash back lined with cheap toilette paper, I was given no actual toilette paper, no mat to sleep on, no blanket or sheet, just my naked self and a hard steel bunk in a concrete cell that was covered with feces and rust.

Two weeks later the therapist finally came to see me and asked me if I was still feeling suicidal.
Why yes, I've been suicidal since I was twelve, and shoving me into a cell covered in human excrement while but ass naked and checking on me every half hour is not going to do me any favors, but hey, I'm a criminal, so I deserve this treatment, right?

After talking to the counselor, I finally get a set of oranges, Class A Jail clothes you see in any T.V. show or movie, these are basically nursing scrubs that say "County Sherrif" or "Inmate" on the back of the shirt, but what I wasn't given was a shower, two weeks without a shower and they shove me into a cell with two other people, both of them gang members and vocal about everything, I had to wait two more days before they let us off of lock down to take a shower, and even then, I couldn't stand it, the water in county jail has one temperature, boiling hot, and at home I take luke warm showers at best, so I was in and out in under two minutes each time because the water was blistering hot, aside from that however, it felt good to finally be able to take a shower.

The showers in jail are not the massive community showers you see in prison movies, they have two rows of single showers lined against one wall, one set of four individual showers on the bottom run, and a second set of four right on top of them on the top run, a shower curtain stops 80 something people from seeing you naked, but by in large, only one of the showers per run is in use at any given time.

After getting used to my new living situation, I found that everything on the canteen, a store that you can buy hygiene, food, and some other items, like a small am/fm radio, has everything listed at three times the street price, A single pack of ramen was 96 cents, a dollar for a pack of ramen, this alone was outrageous, but then you realize that county jail doesn't try to feed you properly, every day we had either bland beans, white rice, a combination of the two, or bologna sandwiches, sometimes flavorless spaghetti or something equally as bad and in such small proportions that even if you ate everything they gave you )which was not much) you were still hungry all day.

Because I had no help at all from the outside, no family or friends to support me, I had only what the county jail gave to me, working on a county diet I lost 140 pounds and went from a 6x (county sizes) to a 3x, which is a 2x in regular size shirts, all this happened in the year that I had spent in county jail, fighting for myself, here is some advice on this front for anyone who has a friend or family member in jail,
DO NOT LET THEM FIGHT THEIR CASE ALONE!
By taking on the county by yourself, it shows them that they can fuck you over in every way possible, and because of this, they will fuck you over as much as they can, simply because they will get away with it because no one but you is calling them out on their bullshit, this is unfortunate, but is the truth, the two best things you can do if you're arrested is.
1. Hire a lawyer, the more pricy, the better.
even if you can't afford the insane prices of a good lawyer, he/she will not let the county screw you over and will fight for your case to get the best possible outcome .

2. Find a family member to bond you out.
Bonding out is paying money to the county to have you released into the world again, this usually lets people get back to their jobs so they can pay bills, you still have to show up to court on their dates, but being bonded out means you are working on your time, not the counties.

While not bonded out, the county will let you sit for months in a cell with two other people, doing everything you can to fight off black mold, bed bugs, insane heat 130+ during the summer, because the county jail has the heater on in the summer with no ventilation, and the AC on in the winter, cockroaches and too hot water, all of this is designed to either make you spend money you likely don't have, or suffer in a Russian Gulag that is Oklahoma county jail, since I had absolutely no support at all, I suffered in jail for a whole year, starving and avoiding fights with gang members, even if that gang member is in the wrong, if you start shit with him, he will bring his homeboys with him and they will "Take you to court" which pretty much means you're fighting a six or more on one fight.

Most days in county are lock down days, they let you out into the pod from your cell only three times a week, and even then, only for two hours for "Rec time" where you can get cigarettes, drugs, pay bills, take showers, and move about in a larger windowless room where the lights are always on, what fun to hear people shouting, playing cards or dominoes, and having all that sound reverberate off the walls and amplify, each time I went out only gave me a headache.

Four months into my incarceration at county, something happened with my feet, this had begun before I got arrested, and both the hospital and a foot doctor couldn't find out what was wrong with me, but I woke up one morning screaming my head off, it happened again while I was in jail, I have gout, and have had gout since I was twenty five years old, thanks to my copious drinking of mountain dew, but this was not a gout attack, I still don't know what it was, but it was a constant pain that prevented me from walking for seven months straight. I had to have help getting to the toilette and help to the other end of the pod just to take a shower.

While suffering from whatever it was, I filled out medical requests twice a day, every day for seven months straight just to see the doctor, who only once sent someone down to collect me to medical, but through some bullshit, they were not allowed to bring a wheelchair into the pod, keep in mind that I can't walk at all, and there were many a night that I cried myself to sleep because the pain was terrible, it was so bad that my foot started to turn grey, necrosis was starting to set in, whatever it was, was putting my life in jeopardy, and still they ignored me for months, my cellies, (cell mates) even used our in cell wall phone to call up to medical to tell them to come and get me, and because I was literally unable to walk out of my cell, they left me in there, they fucking turned around and left me in the cell to suffer, it wasn't until an attorney that was also on the pod had filled out a letter on my behalf to the A.C.L.U. that they did anything, seven months of ignoring me, they decided it was time to put me on an anti-depressant, not pain meds, not take an x-ray, not diagnose why my feet (both at this point) are in such constant, not chronic, but constant pain, they decide to put me on an anti-depressant.

Finally, after a year of fighting my own case by myself, suffering a crippling medical condition, and learning the inmate behavior, I finally signed, and was sentenced to four years in prison, they were not comming down off of four, even though I could have had probation if I had an actual attorney on my pay roll.

Two weeks later, I "pulled chain" which means I transferred from jail, to prison, where I spent the first few months at a medium security prison, big chain fences, lots of razor wire, patrol cars, cameras, the works, then I had to pull chain again to go to a minimum yard where the only thing keeping the inmates in was a sign posted every fifty feet saying "Inmates not allowed beyond this point" where I spent the next three years of my time, getting to know a few good guys, and many, many assholes.

I had no respect for gang members before I went to prison, but after seeing the endless list of stupid and petty things they get violent for, I lost even more that I didn't know I had, maybe it was the expectation that they could earn my respect by actions, but no, the overwhelming vast majority of gang members are psychologically still in their early teens, while chronologically, they are 30-40 years old and still think that holding their junk while talking about the women they supposedly love and referring to them as "My bitch" is somehow cool.

Every day I saw things that are so stupid, so petty, and so outright bad that it left me losing what little faith I had in humanity, racism is more prevalent in prison than it is anywhere else in the U.S. and that's because outside of prison, no one is racist any more, but you put these morons behind bars and you'll get "Yeah I'm white, and I'll fight."

SO all I really did in prison was keep my head down, read a ton of books, write several that eventually I will put to digital and edit the hell out of, and play D&D with some nerds.