Eldorado Brown

Eldorado: My name is Eldorado Fleetwood Cadillac Brown. You tend to get a sense of hopelessness. You tend to get lonely, depressed, sad, you know, full of anxieties and agitations, and there's a real psychological impact of incarceration from segregation alone. It tends to exacerbate the mental illness.

 

Being in the hole is what segregation is. That's what we call it. I've been in the hole off and on for a better part of my incarceration since 2006. They don't understand that placing me in the hole exacerbates my mental illness to a whole different degree. Doctors say that I suffer from non-suicidal self-injury, NSSI, and that means that I like to cut on myself without the thought of suicide and I engage in self-harm without the intention of actually dying. Me, not being able to see my daughter or me not being able to communicate with family, friends or loved ones, as I once did, it created a sense of severe depression that led me to find a release. I needed to find a release and, you know, non-suicidal self-injury, cutting on myself or things like that, it releases certain amounts of dopamine chemicals into my brain and made it feel good.

 

Out in general population, there's more counselors to talk to, there's more mental health staff to talk to, there's more interaction with custody staff or the people that actually get paid to care if they don't actually care, so, when I'm placed in here, all that help goes away. I don't, I tend not to have mental health when I need 'em. They're only here from certain hours. You know, I tend to lose a lot of the support or help that I would receive if I was in general population. A lot of people in this situation feel like they have no voice, they feel like they have nobody that would actually would understand them whether you're incarcerated or you're in segregation. February 28, an inmate committed suicide. So, it's all pretty sad, pretty um, what if it was me? What if I die? What would happen? Kinda upsetting.

 

Narrator: The AVID Prison Project, Amplifying Voices of Inmates with Disabilities, is a collaboration between the Arizona Center for Disability Law, Disability Law Colorado, the Advocacy Center of Louisiana, Disability Rights New York, Protection and Advocacy for People with Disabilities of South Carolina, Disability Rights Texas, Disability Rights Washington, and the National Disability Rights Network. This video was produced by Rooted in Rights.

 

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The AVID Prison Project is a collaboration between The Arizona Center for Disability Law, Disability Law Colorado, The Advocacy Center of Louisiana, Disability Rights New York, Protection and Advocacy for People with Disabilities of South Carolina, Disability Rights Texas, Disability Rights Washington and The National Disability Rights Network.