Clear My Name by Daly Paula

Author:Daly, Paula [Daly, Paula]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781473543485
Publisher: Transworld
Published: 2019-08-07T16:00:00+00:00

Now

CARRIE HAS BEEN tasked with spending time with a vulnerable prisoner today. The officers do this: pair them up for a time, and Carrie’s not criticizing the programme, she can see how beneficial it is for the younger girls, the girls who come in here without hope and will most likely return to a hopeless situation. What Carrie has to offer other than a sympathetic ear, though, she’s not sure. But apparently it’s enough. Certainly, the girls seem to act as though it’s enough, often thanking Carrie profusely after they’ve aired their life stories, when really all she does is sit in a chair and refrain from speaking for a couple of hours. If she’s allowed to, she prefers to get the girls busy. She likes to get them working in the gardens or helping out with food preparation. They seem to talk more easily when their hands are busy. It’s as if the very act of purposeful movement allows them to forget themselves for a while and they’re able to get out of their own way. Able to talk freely without overthinking things.

Carrie sometimes wishes there’d been a Carrie to listen to her when she first arrived at Styal. Someone to help her see her life wasn’t over. Someone to help find a way through the despair.

Today Carrie’s working with Abi. Abi is a 23-year-old chronic self-harmer, who’s in Styal for the second time on drugs charges. She was brought up in foster care – ‘Nice people, they were very good to me,’ she’s always quick to point out to Carrie, or to anyone else for that matter – and she has five months left to serve of her sentence. In Carrie’s previous life she’d have been eager to know how the disconnect happened: how did Abi go from a loving home, with decent parents, to long-term substance abuse? But after three years of listening to girls like Abi, she doesn’t ask. What does it matter? They’re here because they’re here.

Carrie is waiting for Abi in the television room of C wing. C wing is where the vulnerable girls are housed and where there are systems in place to keep them ‘healthy’. Read healthy as: not dead.

They are all suicide risks and so are required to be in groups a lot of the time so they can be observed. But this comes with its own set of stresses: girls with mental health issues can find their mental health compromised by being in the constant company of girls with mental health issues. This is where the mentoring programme comes in. Pair up a vulnerable girl with an experienced prisoner like Carrie and it’s a win-win. Abi benefits from Carrie’s sympathetic ear, her understanding, her calmness; and Carrie’s day is broken up nicely by ministering to a girl in need. Because, as everyone knows, if you want to feel better about your own shitty situation, help someone out with their shitty situation. Yes, thinks Carrie, a win-win.

Carrie wishes she knew what she knows now back when Mia was struggling with anxiety, during her mid-teens.

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