What they don’t tell you about solitary confinement is how it shape-shifts, morphing into forms you never expected, slipping through the cracks of places supposedly designed for healing. I learned this lesson in the most bitter way possible at the prison hospital in Galveston, Texas, where care became just another word for control, and medical necessity became the perfect excuse for psychological torture. 

Still reeling from nearly nine years in solitary, I thought I understood isolation in all its cruel variations. I had survived the concrete boxes, the steel doors, the endless hours of nothingness that stretch time into an unbearable elastic band. After almost a decade of that hell, I figured a few days in a hospital cell would be manageable, maybe even a relief. But this wasn’t just a few days. This was 11 days of something far worse than anything I’d endured before. This was even more insidious than traditional solitary because in this medical masquerade, torture wore the mask of healthcare. At least in my previous cells, I had fragments of humanity: a radio to connect me to the outside world, books to transport my mind beyond these walls, a window to remind me that sky still existed. I had heating vents through which whispered conversations with neighbors became lifelines. 

Here, in this supposed place of healing, they stripped away even these basic comforts, leaving me with nothing but the sound of my own breathing and the echo of my thoughts bouncing off invisible walls. Drowning in pitch-black darkness for hours on end, I became intimately familiar with the geography of my tomb. The light switch, my connection to the visual world, lived in the hallway, completely beyond my reach, a cruel reminder of how little control I possessed over my own basic needs. The guards controlled not just my freedom, but my very ability to see, flicking the lights on and off during their rounds like I was some specimen to be briefly examined before being returned to the darkness. Only during mealtimes did light grace my cell, as if my humanity was only worth acknowledging when it was time to keep my body functioning. 

Burning with rage at the twisted logic that landed me here, I couldn’t escape the bitter irony of my situation. They called me “High Profile: Media,” not because of any violent crime or behavioral issues, but because I dare to write, because I refuse to let my voice be silenced behind these walls. My words have reached major media outlets, and for this crime of communication, they’ve branded me too dangerous for normal hospital treatment. They’ve banned me from all in-person media interviews, terrified that my truth might leak beyond their carefully constructed narrative. 

Wrestling with the absurdity of their second justification made my blood boil even hotter. Because most hospital patients are men—a natural consequence of women comprising only seven percent of the incarcerated population—they claimed my isolation was for my “safety.” Meanwhile, these same men enjoyed privileges I was denied: television in common areas, janitorial duties that provided purpose and movement, access to phones that connected them to loved ones. I was forced to wrap my blanket around my waist when using the toilet, knowing that men could peek through the viewing window, violating what little dignity remained. 

Confronting this reality revealed the sickening pattern I’d witnessed throughout my incarceration: when men misbehave, women pay the price through isolation. Rather than addressing the root problem of male misconduct, the system’s solution is always to remove women from the equation, to make us invisible, to punish us for existing in spaces where our presence apparently threatens the natural order. This isn’t protection, it’s elimination. 

Clinging to my sanity in that suffocating darkness, I found myself returning to old survival tactics I’d hoped never to need again. I summoned images from my memory like photographs from a forgotten album: sunlight streaming through windows, the faces of people I love, the texture of grass beneath bare feet. My mind became both my prison and my sanctuary, the only space they couldn’t steal from me, even as they tried to drive me mad in that concrete womb. 

Fighting back tears of fury and frustration, the cruel mathematics of my situation became crystal clear. The same air conditioning that provided my only comfort—a blessed relief from the triple-digit Texas heat that would have melted me alive—served as a reminder of how they’d weaponized even basic human needs. My hot flashes, a natural part of my body’s changes, found temporary relief in the artificial cold, but at what cost? They’d turned comfort into another form of control. What haunts me most is not just the eleven days I lost to that darkness but the realization that this is the price of seeking medical care in a system designed to dehumanize us at every turn. 

Unfortunately, I must endure torture to receive care, and that truth should shame every person who allows this system to continue operating in the shadows of our so-called civilized society.

Featured photo: Heidi di Marco / KHN