Morgan, 33

Morgan, 33

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Meet Morgan…

Prison has been a roller coaster of self exploration and a chance to see the world around me with a clear mind.

Morgan, 33
Incarcerated: 2.5 years
Housed: Wyoming Women’s Center, Lusk, WY

I never felt good enough for a good guy because of my abusive past relationships. I had little to no self-worth. I’m trying to break the patterns now and it’s deeper than my relationships with others, it’s finding out who I am and what good I can put back into the world. It seems like my first experience with loss and heartache threw me into a dangerous self-destructive whirlwind and I’ve never quite been able to reel myself back in. It was like only other broken people magnetized to me and I guess that’s part of the law of attraction. Love has changed so much over the years.

When I was young it was new, bright, and airy. Love now feels like an achy, empty dark hole in my heart. I am a broken person, but I’m not going to waste the time I am here, leaving the pieces on the ground. I am doing my best to piece it back together into a beautiful mosaic of different chapters of my life. I’ve been through some crazy stuff since being incarcerated… Finding out I was pregnant, realizing my family and I could not raise her, choosing an adopted family, going through the heartache of not keeping my child after birth, being handed down a life altering sentence, and finding myself again. It has been a roller coaster of self exploration and a chance to see the world around me with a clear mind. I’ve realized most of my so-called friends were not going to be by my side, and I’ve learned to be okay alone. I’m in a different state where I don’t have one familiar face, but I’m alive and I know I will come out better on the other side. Thank you for letting me share. And to you, our Humans of SQ audience – thank you for being here.

Brittany, 28

Brittany, 28

Meet Brittany…

Love is kind, patient, love is with pure intention. Love never gives up, it is our only hope for peace and it should be our mission in life.

Brittany, 28
Incarcerated: 3 years
Housed: Wyoming Women’s Center, Lusk

How do I see love? 

It took my desire to love and to be loved to reach a point of explosion. I decided to stop being that door mat, the person everyone could use and abuse however they pleased. Love was as strange to me as a foreign language. Love meant my parents fed us so we could focus on something other than survival. The circumstances of my unfortunate beginnings instilled in me a sense of low self-worth and created an ideal space for us to beg for every ounce of affection. It wasn’t long before I was an adult by law, but a struggling and scared child at heart. Having spent my entire life focused on the well being of my siblings and myself, I was convinced love was just a fairytale. What stood between me and my dream of being loved was the idea that I wasn’t worthy of such things. I have seen examples of love and have formed my own opinion on how people should be loved. I learned it doesn’t hurt, it is something we can and should give freely. Love is kind, patient, love is with pure intention. Love never gives up, it is our only hope for peace and it should be our mission in life. When judged, scorned, forgotten and abandoned, choose love. Love because you can, not because it’s beneficial or expected. This is how I see love.

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