Now entering her second year in solitary confinement, Lanae Tipton has spent nearly five years incarcerated in Texas. Tipton describes herself as a proud mother of one and an aspiring author, and says that her writing strives to voice the struggles and barriers incarcerated people are faced with, providing readers with an inside look of Texas prisons. In a previous article published by The Appeal, she amplified the grief incarcerated mothers feel towards Mother’s Day by recounting her experience giving birth in a county jail. 

In the following piece, Tipton dives into the psychological trauma of solitary confinement both for those who are suicidal and the ones who must bear witness. Attempting to reconcile with the death of her friend Brooklyn, the second suicide she’d witnessed within six months, Tipton emphasizes that solitary constitutes a “physical and mental entrapment.” —Kilhah St Fort 

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On April 16, 2024, I snatched my headphones off as my neighbor screamed my name. In the same moment, I noticed the usually inactive hallway of solitary confinement swarming with officers. Frantically, my neighbor told me my friend Brooklyn hung herself. I hoped it was just a mistake, but it wasn’t. It was the second suicide I’ve witnessed in a six-month span.

Living in solitary confinement at the Texas Department of Criminal Justice is close to torture. Its draining environment and unforgivable treatment by staff visibly lingers amongst the population, ultimately causing mental health issues to skyrocket in isolation’s heartless grip.

A week prior to Brooklyn’s suicide, she was stripped of all personal property: books, activities, commissary purchased food and appliances, along with her tablet and materials for physical correspondence—all as a disciplinary punishment that greatly inhibited her positive distractions and family connections to center her mind while in isolation.

Sitting in her then-bare cell, Brooklyn was distraught. She confided to me, as we spoke from the threshold of our locked doors, that her mother acted as an anchor in her struggles with mental health. Not being able to contact her mother depressingly impacted and shook Brooklyn to the core.

After the incident, Brooklyn’s fuming and heartbroken mother testified: “If my baby could have called me, it wouldn’t have happened, she’d still be here.” With their tight-knit bond, her mother had diffused many similar situations for Brooklyn’s struggles in the past.

Isolation alone takes a serious toll on our minds, but isolation in a barren cell has proven to be devastating.

Being in solitary confinement, positive outlets are slim and few. Reading or listening to the commissary purchased radio are common pastimes until phones are available. Phones, for punishment, are limited as well, from 2 pm to 8 pm in contrast to the regular 5 am to 12 am hours.

Time out of our cells is rare. It consists of a daily, one-hour caged indoor recreation, with a bench and a broken TV, or a once-weekly outdoor option, encaged of course.

Unfortunately, due to staff shortages that plague TDCJ, we are lucky to even receive a once-daily shower, let alone recreation—making solitary confinement a 24/7 physical and mental entrapment.

A few days before Brooklyn’s devastating death, an officer saw fresh incisions on her inner wrist. Being aware of Brooklyn’s extensive self-harm history, Brooklyn was escorted to a  consultation with the counterproductive mental health staff. Asked the simple question: “Are you suicidal?” Brooklyn answered ”No,” and was returned minutes later, holding a packet of antibacterial ointment for her deep cuts.

Like many others incarcerated at TDCJ, Brooklyn dreaded the inhumane and unhelpful punishment for admitting suicidal thoughts. Anyone who vocalizes self-harm or shows signs of it are taken to crisis management, a building known better as the Ice House. They are placed in a hollow cell, forced to sleep on the floor and monitored every 15-minutes, all while butt naked. Temperatures are set to a chilly 65°F year-round, hence the nickname. You are only allowed a stiff and thin blanket, and depending on the severity of the suicide attempt made, some are even forced to live for days without one. The only food option is sandwiches. This or psychotropic medication is the extent of TDCJ’s mental health provisions.

The officer working that fatal night was unfamiliar with Brooklyn’s high-risk behavior and didn’t think twice about the door to her cell being covered up. When I called to check on her, Brooklyn responded glumly that she needed to vent and would write me some mail. After we spoke for a short time, nothing seemed amiss, but this was our last conversation before I put my headphones on to listen to music and wait for her mail.

By the time the officer became interested in the obstructed view into Brooklyn’s cell, it was already too late. I stood at my door with tears streaming down my face, listening to the panicked commotion of staff attempting resuscitation measures. I continuously murmured silent prayers as EMS rolled her draped body past my cell on a stretcher, my heart crumbling when I noticed my friend’s pale blue hand peeking out of the covering.

From January 1 to September 5, 2024, there had been 43 documented suicides in TDCJ, according to an ongoing investigation for a lawsuit. Brooklyn was number 14. How many before and after her could have been prevented as well?

Seeing Brooklyn get wheeled away, I instantly flashed back to November 2023. “Please! I’m suicidal!” screamed Summer, although no officers were responding. The one officer who was aware told Summer she’d have to wait, because “it was shift change.”

Three hours later, the same dismissive officer came around for count time rounds, but Summer was taken out sheet-clad on a stretcher shortly after, pronounced dead on arrival.

Thirty-minute checks or wellness checks aren’t in policy solely for security reasons, but for the incarcerated population’s well-being as well. Sadly, these checks aren’t conducted due to aforementioned staff shortages—which are, in simpler terms, an accepted excuse for staff to neglect their jobs. A wellness check could have saved both Brooklyn and Summer’s lives.

After losing Brooklyn, a charismatic beauty, close proximity suicide attempts spiked tremendously. Yet, TDCJ did little for the domino effect of Brooklyn’s death that stained the grieving people incarcerated, as they did for staff.

An officer present the night of Brooklyn’s death came to my door and asked if I was seen. Confused, I asked, “By who?”

“Some professional grief counselors and top dogs from Regional came to check on staff,” she disclosed. “I only assumed they would come see you guys too.” But they didn’t. We were never a thought.

Dehumanized is what we are—just “prisoners,” which is what we’re referred to as. Some staff actually take proactive measures to get to know us, our triggers and limits, while others treat us as dogs in a pound. But we are still people, humans with breaking points that get tested quickly while incarcerated. If only staff took mental health cries for help and self-harm signs more seriously or made note of high-risk individuals, suicides could be prevented as a whole and people’s loved ones won’t become the next number.