Charles's Story, Part 2: “I Saw a Man Lose His Life Over a Donut.”

“Prison is a whole different world,” Charles Says. “I damn near got beat to death in prison, but I’m here. God saw me through it.”

He describes prison as a brutal, survivalist environment. “The prison system is a dog-eat-dog world,” he explains. “If someone approaches you, they’re probably trying to take something from you.”

He shares a moment that still haunts him today. “I was sitting there playing cards with some elderly men. I watched a guy eating a donut and [drinking] instant coffee… He set his coffee and donut down on the bench. Stood up and said, ‘Don’t nobody mess with my shit now.’ He left. I’m playing cards and pin-ups. I happen to look up and see a guy reach over to cram the donut in his mouth and eat it. I didn’t say anything. The man comes back and sees the donut’s gone. ‘Who the hell ate my damn donut?’ Nobody said anything. He gets mad and storms out. Comes back to drink his coffee and another guy walks over. Whispers in his ear. He gets up and walks back to the bunk area. Comes back with a toothbrush shaved down. He walked right up to the guy that ate his donut, tilted his head to the left, and stabbed him 18 times in the neck. He bled out and died right in front of us. He hollered out, ‘It’s not about the damn donut. It’s about respect. I didn’t kill the man over the donut, I killed him over respect.’”

“That’s the way they live their life there. An inmate in the prison system has no value.”

One evening, Charles was randomly attacked by a group of men. “They walked up behind me and had padlocks in a sock. One caught me in the bridge of my nose, corner of my eye, and the temple. It messed me up and broke my jaw… Knocked me out. When I come to, I’m in the infirmary.”

His injuries went untreated for 30 days as he lay alone in the infirmary—no doctor came to see him. “You’re at their mercy. As I said before, an inmate has no value. I finally got medical treatment after they let me lay there for 30 days thinking I was going to die. They don’t give a damn. Cheaper for them to throw you in a line box (solitary confinement) than send you to the hospital to fix your jaw. They were hoping I’d get an infection there and just die.”

He begged for a soft-food diet. “They sent me hot dogs, hamburgers, chicken legs, knowing damn well I couldn’t eat that shit.”

Charles says most people have no idea how bad it really is in prison. “Even what I’m telling you doesn’t do it justice. Unless you’ve lived it, you can’t describe it. It’s about as close to hell as you can get. Just because you’re behind bars, you think they’re here to protect me. Them guards don’t do it. They sit back and watch. They bet money on who wins. The drugs that come into the prison system—hell, the guards bring them in.”

“Any kind of evil, vile, corrupt, perverted, horrific thing you can think of happens in prison on a daily basis.”

He reveals that he was sexually assaulted repeatedly during his sentence. “I survived it. God sent me through it and made me stronger and a better person. You bet I’d think twice before I do it again.”

“Some people become institutionalized, and when they come out [they] can’t make it in the real world.”

Now free, Charles reflects on what he carries with him. “Whether you’ve been in prison or not, we all have our scars. We all have our skeletons. I guess that’s why I can’t stand somebody that’s judgmental. You want to sit here and judge me for my past? Let’s open up your private door and see what’s in your past.”

Today, he credits his transformation to faith and treatment. “I am a new man. I am happy for myself and I am so grateful.”

"Hindsight’s 20/20. I wish to God I could go back and know what I know now and take that knowledge back with me. I’d set this world on fire. All I can do is what I do today. I try to love people, help people, make amends with my past every day, and that’s all I can do. Let the chips fall where they fall."

I ask Charles what advice he’d give to someone living with bipolar disorder.

He starts off with his number one piece of advice—to accept what you’re facing. “Realize there is nothing wrong with you. You have to take control, realize and accept the fact that you are sick, and then you have to learn how to deal with it.”

“Trust the medications... It’s trial and error. It sucks to go through it, but eventually there will be a right set of medications that will work for you.”

Charles now sees his experience with bipolar disorder much like the journey of addiction recovery. Just as someone in recovery has to show up, follow the program, and stay committed to staying clean, managing bipolar may require the same kind of discipline and persistence.

“God gives me tools to work with. Sometimes I get depressed and I sit back and think about a day I was on the shrimp boat. Absolutely beautiful. I will get upset, but God will bring a vision of me being on the boat again… There’s a lot in the world that can bring you peace and joy. You just have to take the moment to realize it. Took me 20-something years to learn that.”

He shares one of his favorite memories. “After prison, at my local McDonald’s, I was hungry one day, so I was gonna get me a fish sandwich, fries, and Coke. I pull up to pay for my meal. I’m told the person in front of me paid for it and God loves you. So I did the same thing. Told them to pay for their meal and that God loves them. 

“Did you know that it lasted more than a month? That’s when I fell in love with my community.”