12 Years Hostage: The Hidden Truth of Solitary Confinement in Texas
Xandan Gulley on the mental, physical, and emotional torture of life in solitary.
I’ve been held in isolation since 2012. Twelve years of captivity. Twelve years of hopelessness. Twelve years of defeat. Twelve years in the hole.
Twelve years of a prison inside a prison.
I am in solitary confinement (“ad-seg,” aka administrative segregation, or restrictive housing) as a punishment for utilizing my First Amendment rights, through which I am adamantly outspoken. I am in solitary confinement because I publish the truth about conditions in prison. I am a whistleblower of dissemination and promulgation, exposing the corruption and venality within the Texas Department of Criminal Justice. The TDCJ officials consider me an “antagonistic menace” and hate that I “talk too much” (their words, not mine). Basically, I’m in here because they don’t like that I tell the world what they do. But I refuse to be silenced and suppressed, so I suffer not in vain, but as a martyr for justice.
The four walls of a steel and cement caged 6’ x 9’ cell1 incessantly close in on me. The sensation of being sealed in a cave and shut off from the world in complete blackness. The feeling of seclusion like being trapped alive in the trunk of a car underwater. The feeling of soundless isolation like bungee jumping with no cord off a bridge, bound with my hands behind my back and free falling to the abyss.
The only light is the daylight from the window. But once the sun sets I’m engulfed in absolute darkness. There is no mirror in my cell. I don’t remember what I look like. I don’t know who I am anymore. All I know is that at the time of this writing, this cell has taken 4,097 days of my life.
The only light is the daylight from the window. But once the sun sets I’m engulfed in absolute darkness. There is no mirror in my cell. I don’t remember what I look like. I don’t know who I am anymore. All I know is that at the time of this writing, this cell has taken 4,097 days of my life.
As of now, I have a 75-year sentence not eligible for parole until 2038. But I am in high hopes that in 2025, Texas legislation will pass House Bill 1064, which allows those with aggravated sentences who have to serve half their sentence before being eligible for parole to receive good time credit (good behavior time credits) towards their sentence. This HB has been brought before the House and Senate the past two legislative sessions and has been making headlines and has many supporters. If this House Bill is passed I am eligible for parole now, considering I have over a decade of good time credits accumulated. Upon release I would like to pursue a career in journalism, maybe working for a newspaper or doing investigative work, something where I can continue to work as an advocate and activist seeking reform and exposing corruption within the criminal justice system.
But that’s all in the possible future. Now, I suffer from anxiety attacks. Although I love books, I have difficulty focusing on simple tasks such as reading. I have to read the same page three or four times to thoroughly comprehend what I just read. No matter how much I exercise, my body feels like it’s deteriorating. Lack of sunlight and lack of nutrition have taken their toll. PTSD is my only friend. Paranoia is my only companion. Depression is my only visitor. Sadness my only confidant.
My enhanced mental health dilemmas started about two years into my captivity. I started noticing I was having complications with sleeping. When I could sleep, I had trouble staying asleep. I’d get maybe a total of four hours of sleep on a good night. I couldn’t write without forgetting what I wanted to say. I couldn’t read without forgetting what I just read. I was paranoid that people were poisoning me, putting stuff in my food on the trays I was served, so I wouldn’t eat. I would sometimes lose touch with reality. I would sit and talk to myself in the corner of my cell, curled up in a ball, telling myself that I’m not going to die. I attempted suicide four times. I felt like dying. I wanted to die. I cried for help. No one came.
I was paranoid that people were poisoning me, putting stuff in my food on the trays I was served, so I wouldn’t eat. I would sometimes lose touch with reality. I would sit and talk to myself in the corner of my cell, curled up in a ball, telling myself that I’m not going to die. I attempted suicide four times. I felt like dying. I wanted to die. I cried for help. No one came.
In 2017, after a nearly successful suicide attempt via self asphyxiation—I tried to hang myself with a discarded torn sheet that I tied to the light fixture on the ceiling—I was admitted to Skyview, a mental health facility that treats prisoners. At Skyview, I received an evaluation from a psychiatrist, treatment with a psychologist and therapy twice a week with a clinician. I was diagnosed with what is known as “Ad-Seg Syndrome,” a mental illness contracted from long term solitary confinement. I consider myself lucky because I was one of few prisoners who was able to recover from complete mental destruction. I was rescued from the brink of insanity.
I still have some distracted moments where I lose focus on simple tasks, but overall I am functionally coherent. I suffer from depression periodically. I still have random episodes of anxiety attacks. And I still get paranoid from time to time. But as time goes on, I’m getting better at learning to use what has been used to break me to my benefit, as a survival mechanism. I read books, newspapers, and magazines to keep in touch with reality, anything to educate myself and stay aware of the world and current news. I listen to NPR and BBC on the radio, watch the news and sports on TV. Simple things that remind me of life. I listen to music. I write. I exercise daily. I meditate. These practices help alleviate my disassociation. Keeping my mind busy ameliorates my despondency. Staying productive improves my psychological stability. But I am still suffering, and there are others who aren’t as lucky. Many have mental health problems worse than mine. Many are suffering hardships more grotesque than mine.
Perhaps death is a token of life to those who are hostages. I sometimes feel as though solitary confinement was made for that very purpose—to make us look forward to dying. But against all odds, I am sane. Against all odds I am still alive.
The transition from general population to continuous isolation was drastic with detrimental effects that affect me to this day. Delayed comprehension, difficulty concentrating, paranoia, inexplicable sadness and anxiety are the main defects, but the biggest shift was not being able to go outside for recreation. I never feel the sun. I never get fresh air. We’re allowed one shower a day, which is the only time we get to leave the cell. And that’s only if the facility has the staff/manpower. Recreation is every blue moon. The last time I felt the sun was in May, when I was able to leave solitary confinement because I had a visit from Damascus James (editor of Texas Letters volumes 1 and 2) who flew from Canada to visit with me before the book’s release. And before that was my birthday, in 2023. The distance in time between the experiences of feeling the sun’s warmth and fresh air is overwhelming.
And there’s no relief in sight. Even though the United Nations deemed solitary confinement cruel and unusual, declaring it torture—Nelson Mandela was one of the biggest advocates for the abolishment of solitary confinement—Texas still widely uses it as punishment. Prolonged solitary confinement is the norm in Texas prisons. There are many who have been captive longer than me.
What’s worse, there is no policy, rule, or court order that restricts or limits the time capacity of how long Texas prisons can keep a prisoner held in solitary. This cruel treatment of prisoners is a victory for the Texas Department of Criminal Justice because it gives them the power to mutilate, pulverize, and demolish prisoners physically, emotionally, and psychologically, 100% legally. It’s been researched and well-established that solitary confinement is cruel, inhumane, and permanently damaging. When will these perennial injustices be addressed in the perverse prison industrial complex? When will modifications be made to this system of depravity?
Perhaps death is a token of life to those who are hostages. I sometimes feel as though solitary confinement was made for that very purpose—to make us look forward to dying. But against all odds, I am sane. Against all odds I am still alive. I am still suffering hardships and adversity, but I feel fortunate to be able to voice my testimony. Twelve years as a hostage in solitary confinement has not been easy, but it is my right and responsibility to share my truth. The truths hidden about solitary confinement are astronomical. Texas stole more than my freedom. Texas stole my soul.
Xandan Gulley (he/him) is a trans person and writer incarcerated under his legal name, Britney Gulley, in a Texas state prison. Xandan has been held in solitary confinement for over twelve years due to his gender identity and as retribution for his published exposés unveiling the inhumane conditions that transgender prisoners face daily.
Some of his work can be found in the San Francisco Bayview, Texas Letters Project, Southern Cultures Journal, Prison Insider, The Advocate and LGBTQ Nation.
You can write to Xandan through Securus: Britney Gulley / ID #01601283 / Texas Department of Criminal Justice / Murray Unit.
