Confession of a former prisoner and mother of five children: I will never get rid of the guilt and feel guilty again<

She wants to stay anonymous because her family has experienced enough for her, she says.Her conviction for thirteen years for property crime, corruption and embezzlement and eight -year prison together closed and now start with a clean shield.

Forty -eight -year -old Sandra, who worked in the state sector, came from prison in Světlá nad Sázavou in December last year and its biggest goal is to put together a family.He has five children, and when she was arrested, the youngest daughter was seven months old, his son two years, another daughter four years and the oldest sons fifteen and sixteen.Husband died in a car crash before she joined her sentence.The youngest two children therefore grew up in foster care like mom reach someone else.

What exactly did they arrange for you?

Taking bribes in large and credit fraud.

How do you feel when I ask you about this?

Honestly I don't want to remember that.When I think about it today, I don't understand myself.But at some point it was a carousel from which it was impossible to jump out and from which I did not even want to jump.

Why?

I could not justify it for some time before the sentence and in prison, but today I understand it.It was adrenaline.My husband worked on a high position, I too and we were security beyond.It wasn't because I would live in a studio and I had no money for my children's shoes.

What did you experience when the bribe was offered for the first time?

The first moment was shocking, surprising that anyone had ever come to me with something like that.Until then, I was an unsurgical person who didn't get a fine for parking, so I watched for a while.I was surprised as I could by signing something, to get so much money.We were organized group and the signatures were tens for tens of millions of crowns.Later it became auto and I did not realize what I was rushing into and what I do.

What did you do with the money?

You can't imagine that at all.By having a house and two cars, it wasn't so noticeable when I bought something.There car, there expensive shoes, it wasn't such a jump.But then I started to have such events where I bought the same kind of shoes for fifteen thousand in three different colors.I put those bags with shopping with signs in the closet and I went again.Maybe it was a disease that I treated my nerves.I was already afraid and expected it to ruffle it.Not even my husband did not know about it, and when I had a new car for two million every month, I justified it as a car for captivity.I am most sorry if I said it then my husband might give me a few decks and it would turn out otherwise.I actually have my family and children more bad than the whole custody.That I was accused for three years and I didn't tell anyone.They learned this only when the judge called my parents that I was in custody.

When you arrested you, what was going on with your head?

It's terribly strange but at first I felt relief.I thought to myself, so now it rups and now I will not do anything and I just have to arrange to handle my family outside, and I will start with a clean table.Those three years I was in constant tension.I was afraid to open a neighbor, and when there was an unknown car in front of the house, I thought they were going for me, while it was a visit to the neighbors.Or I went with the kids for three days to France to Disneyland to sleep.Those three years were worse than the entire execution of the sentence.

Why didn't you tell anyone?

Until the last moment I have not admitted to close me.I thought that I didn't, that it is not possible.So I watched how fast it is possible.

I lived from visiting to visit

What was with your children?

Two oldest boys had fifteen and eighteen and went to their dad, my previous man.A four -year -old girl took my mom.Two smallest children, who were two years old and seven months old, married a foster family.

Did you say goodbye to them?

Before the court took me to a custody prison, I saw just the eldest son who was supposed to come for my belongings ... It just can't be forgotten, at the age of eighteen, and it was terrible.I wouldn't wish anyone.We worked on the letter as a family, even though they were boys from a previous marriage, so their dad went to Christmas and birthday, we were bound to each other.

What was the first visit to prison?

Horrible.I had to have an injection injecting because I was wrong to tolerate that I would see them and then have to leave.There, of course, I told them everything but I didn't talk about the length of the punishment.If I told them I was thirteen years old, they wouldn't have done it, I missed it with the fact that I don't know yet.I was afraid everyone would condemn me but that didn't happen.They came to me every month with foster parents who have been carrying me every three months.I already had it thrown so that I lived from a visit to visit, I thought "two more weeks, a week".That was so bad for me.

Girlfriend from the house of sadness

Did you feel that you belong to prison?

Certainly not the team, but to the prison itself as yes.I was fully aware of what I did.I didn't go like some women in the corridors and didn't say I was innocent and that I did it for the old.

You say you lived beyond.How did you suddenly manage to be in completely different conditions and live with eight women alone?

At the beginning I was at the bottom and experienced total apathy.Although I am a type that cares about myself at all times, suddenly I didn't care.I combed myself, depicted, I didn't care what a shirt I had, I didn't get out of bed and didn't answer the questions to the questions.They fortunately they met me and let me lie in bed.I slept for 14 days at a time as I was exhausted.When my son saw me in this state, he said, "Mom, look at yourself as you look, it's not you.We can do this together now, but you have to be fine when you come out."Since then, I haven't regretted and go to visit untreated.

How did you get along with other women?Was there any female community?

You have to take those women as they are, otherwise it is not possible, 85 percent of them are Roma and now I do not want to offend anyone at all, but they are often without any habits.You can't scold them that they stink, but say, "Hey, Maru, here's your shower and see, okay?"Throw it in joke.I think I haven't had a problem with this approach all the time, while there are battles and quarrels on a daily basis.You will also survive by showing that you are not afraid of.Trying different practices and you must not stand in the corner, but to respond in style: "So come to tell me."Then they start to prevent you because they want to have a peace too.

What did you do to get crazy there?

I think I was a little crazy, and I have to be careful about how I speak and gesticulate.It was hard.You have no place to crawl, you have no space for yourself.But I was lucky to have had a female room with whom we always agreed.When one wanted one to sleep, the others were quiet and read.Helped me that I started going to apprentice.Those were two perfect years when I broke off from that stereotype and the same space and learned new things.

I don't remember a few hours after my release

What was the first day at freedom?

I was released to fax, which means you run out of announcement and you pack up in two hours and you are released.It was December, the governess called me to the office and tells me to sit first and let go of emotions, so I asked her with fear if anything happened in the family, and she wasn't going out.And then I don't remember anything until my son brought me to my parents.They say the whole building said goodbye to me, applauding, whistling, but I don't know it.

Will you actually miss the prison in any way?

Although it sounds strange, even in the prison one experiences things that laughs, for example, when we did St. Nicholas for the department of mothers with children.But only one person has grown to my heart during that time.She was a professor who started her business, got into debt and released her five years before me.Yet we still wrote and he's the only person I am in contact with now.Nobody did anything to me there and not that I didn't want to see them, but it's just an era I've already closed.

You say that you have closed it.Why do you want to stay in anonymity?

My family experienced their own when my sons' friends asked if mom was in jail.Over time we worked it out, we started to take it as it is, and now we are going from the beginning.I don't want it to open it again, because of my kids to say someone again, "Oh, I read about your mom."If it was just about me, I am ashamed of it, but I have no problem talking about it because maybe I affect someone in not stinging to see what it can cost him.

I will not forgive what I did to my children

Do you think that shame and guilt will ever pass?

No.And I don't care too much of being condemned by others, but I'm ashamed internally.Not for doing as a terrible thing as for taking it to my kids.I have been out for two months and I appreciate the things I have that I have a great friend I have known from before and who came to my custody after two years and took care of me for six years and waited for me.I appreciate that we have an apartment that I can work, I can buy new pants.But what I have done to my children is a trouble and I will have it in me for the rest of my life.

What is your relationship with the children now?

The boys are twenty -eight and twenty -one and of course they gave me a lens when they told me about my first visit to Christmas, "Mom, don't overdo it, you play on my mom, but ...".But every day they call me and ask if I'm fine and what I'm doing.Thirteen -year -old daughter is still with my mom and I see her on weekends.She got fastened at me and I am very happy for that because I didn't expect it at all.In a way, however, he also abuses it because he is a teenager and a child and I can not set up the cushions yet.

Are you wondering what to tell her when you were in prison for eight years?

Yes.And it's a terrible clash because I swallow it and tell myself what I can give them for advice, but on the other hand I'm their mom.I step on the tips, I'm not myself and it's a great mental strain for me.I want my daughter to feel that her mom is here for her, but that it has a boundary too.

I have it in me now that I will do everything to make the kids come to me, and when my daughter persuades me: "Grandma won't allow me, buy me and I will keep it with you," I say, "Sure, but you must not reveal it, it will be our secret."And this is a clash in how I raised my sons.Once I got my daughter because of something, she inflated and crawled into the room and first thought, "So, and now she won't come to you anymore."

The smallest two, which are now nine and ten years old, are they still in foster care?

Yes, a bude to běh na dlouhou trať. Nojmladší dcera mě vůbec nezná, zná mě jen z návštěv ve vězení, ten druhý nejmladší syn si mě pamatuje jen trochu.My daughter knows that I am her mother who wore her in her tummy but a foster mother is a mother who cares for her.I couldn't have bite before telling her Mom, but then I turned it out.She has the need to tell someone, and if she also told her in front of others "aunt", they would ask where Mom is.And to have to say in front of my classmates that my mom is in jail, and then she would catch it, I wouldn't bear that.But with other siblings, they regularly saw each other during my stay in prison and spent their birthday and Christmas.

Do you have a plan to get them back?

When I talked with a social worker, she told me that eighty percent of women want their children immediately as soon as they come out of prison.If I did this, I would have hurt them mentally.Much more than when they closed me.I hurt them once and I don't want a second time.At the same time, I am also not sure that I could do it mentally, so far we see each other every fourteen days for three hours in the social center.

Noumím přiznat, že mám zápis v rejstříku

Did prison change you somehow?

I would definitely not do anything like that today and I organized the priorities.I thought the prison had taken my confidence, but as I gradually blink, I find out that there is still there.I have two universities, two state exams and I thought I would no longer be able to work in managing positions, deal with people because of the shame I have in me.But within two months I was at several interviews in the management positions and accepted me everywhere.But the problem occurred when I was supposed to bring an extract from the criminal record to sign the contract.I have excused I have a health problem because I can't tell these people that I was in prison.Although it is up to their decision and can employ me, given the competences in these positions it is usually unrealistic.

How do you deal with your debts?

Of course I have debts, and the great.I have to repay them and in cooperation with Rubikon I am preparing insolvency, but it is a vicious circle.You have to work on insolvency for three months and employers do not want to employ you in many cases because you have execution.

What is it like to be out after eight years, do you experience the time loop?

Noprožívám, ani jsem z toho neměla strach, jsem spíš člověk, který si z ničeho nedělá nervy a jede.When they closed me, I had an iPhone three and now I just have eleven.I was just a little scared if I could go among the people.The first days I felt like everyone was looking at me that everyone knows that they have released me today, and they say "Hey, that's her", which is nonsense because now I live in a different city than before the sentence.The only thing that throws me down is that I can't do because of the register what I want.I started to understand the girls who are returning to prison.Without family, background and help have no chance to start living normally.Fortunately, at least I translate at home now.

So there was no shock after release, drop?

I said to my psychotherapist now that others told me it would be terrible to me, that I wouldn't give it but that nothing like that didn't come.She reassured me that it wouldn't even come in my case, but I have other tendencies again.For example, I will clean twice a day, every day Peru.But it is also because I am happy to be in my.The psychotherapist, however, gave me advice not to clean up, so I will follow it.Although there are times when everything comes back, in most cases I feel that I was not even anywhere, I have it isolated and I don't think about it.

Maybe it's a natural process?After the punishment comes retribution, it is reset…

The penalty of thirteen and a half was a shock to me, but I take it by serving it, I have a clean table and I don't have to have nerves of who rings.I have sighed, now I have a happy life and I feel better.

Do you never think about lost eight years of life?

Nopřemýšlím.I consider myself a strong person in general, and when my husband died, I held the whole family and collapsed until two months.After my first visit to my family, I threw the penalty so I did it, I am in prison now, but my family is out and I have to work for them when I go out.They took it more than me.I had no other worries except worries about them.I had food, washed, I could lie down on Sunday after lunch.And now I want to put our family together so we can work together.I will adapt to them but they have to get used to me.