Transition
There are no psychiatric evaluations, or mental counseling services offered when you leave prison. I was never placed on a callout to speak to a mental health provider. What is going on in my head right now?
The demons never leave, instead of being on my shoulder, they trail me like wild dogs.
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I saw a documentary on Kalief Browder. A young brother who fell victim to an unjust system of racist incarceration, that destroyed him because he had no one to give him the mental support needed to navigate the same oppressive system that created his confusion. In the end, he took his life. In the documentary, Mr. Browder speaks of those demons at sixteen years of age. When I encounter people who were in prison for long periods of time, they talk and act as if everything in their lives is Gucci. They don’t talk about their prison experiences and how it affected them, but I do.
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I get nothing back from them to assist me during my transition. What are they running from?
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What I find amazing is the fact that I can feel again. I cry watching cartoons, movies, even Tik Tok. I had long ago prepared myself to die in prison, and the type of man that I am, I would not have allowed myself to die without a fight. That warrior inside loses himself when misdirected.
I am beyond livid. My blood has been boiling in my veins for 37 years. I have been tortured and tormented, starved and brutalized. I have been the victim of racism from all ethnicities. I have been discriminated against and ignored by society. I wrote a million letters and received no responses.
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I think that people are overwhelmed with guilt when they see me. The looks on their faces are priceless. They are surprised and shocked to see me. They look at me as if they were expecting to see someone else. I’m not supposed to be here, I’m an anomaly. The immediate change.
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When you are first arrested, that instant adaptation to imprisonment is crucial to your survival, it makes or breaks you as a human being. I had to adjust instantly to a world within a world.
Look at me again, adjusting to a world within a world, only this time there are no shackles, no handcuffs, no leg irons. I’m free to walk down the street, use a Metrocard, meet with attorneys, and go to a grocery store. Holding onto my sanity after living a life of insanity is insane.
Being in prison kept me in a dark cloud. Though I have seen the world from a million different perspectives, and believed myself to be free mentally and psychologically, I was wrong. I was never free, but making oneself believe in things even when delusional, is once again crucial to your survival in prison.
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Why am I able to think rationally and reasonably? Why haven’t I had that moment that everyone is talking about?
It’s been thirteen days since my release. I have accomplished a lot.
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My name is Eric Odome, and I am fifty-eight years old. I spent thirty-seven and a half years in prison, for crimes that I did not commit.
In 1987, at the age of 20, I was arrested with two other individuals and charged with two counts of murder in the second degree, criminal possession of a weapon in the second and third degree, and attempted robbery in the first degree. In addition to the murder charge, I was given an additional two charges...two separate counts of robbery in the first degree. In one year, I went to four trials. One trial resulted in a hung jury. I was retried, and convicted; I was convicted on the remaining charges and given a death sentence of fifty years to life.
In March 2024, I lost my mother and was allowed a one hour visitation at her wake. In August 2024, I was finally released from prison. Two weeks after being home, I had to rush my father to the emergency room, where he was later admitted. My father is now in a nursing home.
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My first six months since parole is a bittersweet journey that I have been forced to endure. I am unable to define it in a perfect sequential order, because that would be confusing to me.
Bittersweet is that Mom never got to see me walk out of that damn prison. The tears that I saw running down her face when they dragged me from the courtroom is something that I will never forget. I just wanted to see and hear Mom smile, laugh and cry with happiness. That was taken from me. I visit her grave site every chance I get, and I talk to her every day. And I always ask, “Mom, show me what it is that I’m not seeing."
It’s been six months, and I’m still alive. I haven’t been shot in the back by the cops or taken into custody and falsely accused of committing a crime because I’m Black, 6’4,” and over two hundred pounds.
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The most difficult part of my transition into society is connecting and reconnecting with people, past and present. People remember me, but I don’t remember them. And most of them, I do not want to remember.
Thanks to my wife, and our family, I’m relearning societal social skills all over again. For thirty-seven and a half years, I lived in a society with a different set of social skills, where every part of your life is forced. You were forced to socialize. When I’m out, I don’t initiate conversations with people, I just watch and observe how they interact with one another. The very few conversations that I did engage in reminded me of how far apart we really are. I spent decades in prison reading, writing, studying, and strategizing.
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When you are in prison you are nobody. The world is no longer your home. I feel like a stranger to the earth. This is the disconnect that prison creates.
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Whatever you get your hands on, you digest at an alarming rate of speed, because anything educational they take away from you. This is how my mind is digesting the world now. Every single day is a different experience for me, and I love it. I wouldn’t change the people in my life, or the course that my life is on now.
The way I see the world is so different than I could’ve ever imagined it being. Everything is about numbers, passcodes and passwords. It’s like some futuristic film to me, and everybody’s face is planted in an electronic device, as they unconsciously move in order. I find myself admiring trees, birds, and airplanes.
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My life is just beginning, and I need to know if I’m ten thousand years ahead of everybody, or ten thousand years behind. When I first came home, the sidewalks were unbalanced, and the curbs were too high. I walked like a baby finding his first steps. In prison, all you have is that flat smooth surface. I walked a million miles in a circle. Didn’t go anywhere, but been everywhere.
