Latest / Inspiring Stories / From Abuse to Prison to become a Premiere Fashion Designer Elizabeth Mikotowicz

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From Abuse to Prison to become a Premiere Fashion Designer Elizabeth Mikotowicz · Inspiring Stories

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Thank you for listening to De Pictures Media Radio. You rat you readything to
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me? Oh well, jus well not a bad solong. I just see
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so away lashion along an welcome back everybody. Many of us are going to
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experience many, many things on our road to success. We're going to have
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to overcome obstacles, some of them large, some of those small. But
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not many of us are going to find our route to success as traumatic as
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Elizabeth Mckinnowitz. She her journey starts with a story of abuse and then leads
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into a story of how a system left her behind and she found protection from
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an abusive husband from a drug dealer, in which case she did eventually become
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arrested for dealing drugs or selling drugs on the street. She'd spent time in
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prison where she found more abuses, and through all that she was able to
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find her art and she has a voice of advocacy and wants the world to
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know what is it really going on inside of the prison systems in which she
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was incarcerated, And she also wants to share with the world a focus of
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beauty with her artwork and her clothing designs that our of course, were available
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on her own website. So why don't we welcome Elizabeth to the show and
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let's hear her story and how she has overcome great adversity. So let's welcome
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Elizabeth McCatty, which to our show as she tells her story about how her
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art got born and the struggle it took to actually get to where she is
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right now. So welcome to the show, Elizabeth. Thank you for having
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me. Good to be here. Yeah, So what I mean, there
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were there was the life you have now. But what was life like before
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your art really started getting moving and everything? Well, I mean in high
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school, I was always kind of artsy, Like I was in chamber choir
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and I took all the art classes and I you know, I really enjoyed
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it, but I wasn't that serious about it. But my life kind of
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took a rough turn once I got out on my own. I dated some
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really abusive men. My son's father ended up, you know, almost killing
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me. He beat me with a wooden dow and you know, my skull
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was showing like they had to sew the muscle back and so the skin back,
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and I found out I was pregnant that day, So that was that
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was great. News the second time I had gotten pregnant on birth control.
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Someone then it just the pills don't work for us, and I don't know,
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but yeah, I started getting seizures after that too, and the amount
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of pain I was in, like I was a chronic pain patient now,
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and you know, at first I took the opioids that they gave me.
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But when they sent me to the pain clinic and it was clear they were
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I was going to be, you know, on this prescription you know,
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every day, that was when I was like, yeah, I don't I
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don't want to take that stuff. I don't want to get addicted. I
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don't want my baby to get addicted. Like I watched my whole community,
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you know, go down the toilet basically, you know, the last ten
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to fifteen years because of these pills. And they said, well, you're
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on too small of a dose to get addicted, and you know, and
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I was now on state insurance, you know, main care, you know,
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for you know, the four people, and I wasn't on my parents'
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private insurance anymore. And I noticed I was treated a lot differently, and
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they literally threatened me with child Protective Services and said that I was endangering my
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baby by you know, not wanting to take these pills. And you know,
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all opioids do is make the pain receptors in your brain more sensitive,
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so you know, when it wears off, you're in twice the amount of
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pain you would have been and if you had just not taken it. And
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yes, I was in an excruciating amount of pain, like I was having
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a seizure. It was, it was awful, but you know, these
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opioids weren't going to help me, and so obviously I took it, you
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know, because I didn't want to call the Child Protective Services and you know
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them to look in too, you know further, you know, into my
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injuries. This is the second time I'd been hospitalized, and you know a
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month and like a month prior to him doing that gash on my head.
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He ragged all me around the room and I hit the back of my head
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on a radiator. They needed stitches again, So it was like two head
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injuries, you know, right back to back. And like the abuse got
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worse. I mean when I tried to leave, I got held hostage in
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my own house for three days and you know the things he did to me,
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you know, I wouldn't wish on my worst enemy. And you know,
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I finally went to Spruce run the battered women's shelter in Bangor, Maine,
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and they turned me away with two beds open. They said that my
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injuries were too extensive and it put the other women in the shelter in danger.
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I had just lost my public housing because of him, because the cops
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showed up because he was attacking me, and I lost my public housing because
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of that. I didn't do anything like that. And you know, then
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all these other places I gave out vouchers said well, you messed up your
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public housing, so we're not going to help you. So I was like
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homeless, you know, like couldn't take care of my children properly because I
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was going into seizures and I was waking up on the ground unconscious, not
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knowing how long I was out for. And you know, my daughter was
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like fourteen months old, so you know, after this head injury, like
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she had to start staying with my dad because I'm like, I'm gonna wake
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up to a tragedy, you know, and there's nothing I can do about
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it. I can't you know, take a medicine to make this go away,
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you know, it's it's brain damage. And so this really like altered
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my life. And yeah, so the battered Women's shelter turned me away.
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And this is a problem with victim based shelters. A friend of mine was
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trying to get into the human trafficking shelter and they turned her away because she
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wouldn't snitch out her pimp. Like these pimps know where these girls' parents are,
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their kids are everything. They take their social Security cards, their ideas,
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they take everything from them and get them cornered. So you know,
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you want these women to risk their lives, their children's lives, their famili's
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lives so they can get to safety, like you're extorting them. And you
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know, it's just it just discussed me because you know at that after that,
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you know, drug dealers helped me. Drug dealers, you know,
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we're like, hey, we'll give you a place, you know, we'll
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give you drugs sell you know, you'll be okay, we'll protect you,
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you know all that stuff. And you know I had never sold drugs.
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I had never never like you know, I dabbled here and there, but
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you know, like that's not the life I wanted. I was in college
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before this. You know, I had plans of what I wanted to do
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with my life, and it did not involve you know, running with gangsters
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and you know, selling drugs and breaking the law. It did not involve
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that. But you know, as you know, the carpet just kept getting
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ripped out from underneath me, and you know, you get more and more
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desperate, and you know, seventy percent of women in this country that go
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to prison have some sort of domestic violence or sexual assault in their past before
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they even go to prison. And it's like like victims just fall through the
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cracks and then you know, we get thrown away, go to prison,
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and you know, hm basically dehumanized. I mean, by the time I
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got out, I had conservative women and telling me if you don't want to
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get raped by cops and you shouldn't break the law and go to prison,
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Like just say you're okay with cops being predators. I mean, that's that's
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what you mean. Wow. Wow too. It's nice to know that that
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you're you're trying to be the a good upstanding citizen and those because you have
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have a record all that, they're like, oh, well, you're just
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one of those let's just throw you away. That's yeah. Wow, So
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okay, so all so all that happened to you, you wound up in
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prison, and while you were in prison, you started developing your art,
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right, well, I started getting back into it, you know. I
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when I was pregnant with my kids, and you know, when I have
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time, I would paint here and there. But but yeah, once I
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went to jail, I they asked me to paint murals because I was always
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drawing and I was always doing stuff. So I got to paint murals in
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some of the facilities at Danberry. I got to paint what I wanted,
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and I was so excited about that. I called it my blue period because
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they only they only let me paint with this beautiful, bright, you know,
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royal type blue, and then they let me use you know, black
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and white for shading obviously. But yeah, and as a side hustle,
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I would paint cups for the inmates and then seal it with floor wax,
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or I do a portrait, you know, And like art was my hustle
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in there. That's how I survived because you know, they make you work
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forty hours a week and they only pay you five dollars into twenty five cents
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a month, so, I mean, and then everything on the commissary,
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like the package Ramen noodles that costed back then, it was like ten cents
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out here. It costs a dollar fifty in there. So they're extorting these
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people every which way they can, and yeah, it's really quite awful.
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Yeah. I got in trouble with some of my art because I you know,
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I you know, do some political pieces. I mean, my first
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week at Somerset County, I witness an entire pot of women get stripped out
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because they signed up for a razor and a male sergeant wanted a list of
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who shaved their vaginas and who didn't. Those that did were punished, like
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this is the PG stuff going on in there. And you know, they
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forced me to strip in front of cameras, you know, under duress of
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being extracted in May. And when they extract you, they come twelve deep,
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all suited up. For those of you thinking that you just say no
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to these people, that this is how they respond to that. They'll show
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up, you know, in tactical gear, electric shock shields that zap you
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if you touch them. I mean, they have batons, they have mace,
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they have these canisters that they throw in your cell, and that it's
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chemicals that are designed to take the oxygen out of your throat. Basically,
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it is terrible, fine, like you feel like you're dying. And I
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was never even in one of those cells that got directly hit, but I
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was upstairs. And it all comes through the events. So everybody that's not
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doing anything wrong gets hit with this, with these chemicals, and it's absolutely
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terrifying, you know. And I would try to write while I was in
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there too. My book's almost done, I'm in the editing process. I
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wrote a lot of poems, and when I got out, I actually won
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two years in a row and got two of my poems published. But writing
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was like really, how you know? Because when you're in jail, the
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lack of stimulation literally slows your brain down, like your brain starts shutting parts
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of itself off, like in solitary because it's not being used. And then
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the only stimulation you do get is violence and chaos. So it makes normal
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everyday situations like people talking. When I got out of solitary, people talking
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over each other would make me panic, and I my first instinct was like,
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who do I gotta fight? Like your first instinct is violent, because
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this is what they condition you for. And so I was like determined,
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like, you are not gonna turn me into some mental vegetable that just explodes,
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you know, from you know, not being able to handle normal stuff.
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So I constantly was trying to like educate myself in there, like I'd
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read books about you know, people in history like Queen Elizabeth or you know,
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even the Terrible Like I'd read all these books and you know, try
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to you know, work my mind because I didn't want them to take that
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from me too. Right, Yeah, well, I think that's the one
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thing that that that some of the prison systems they tried to take from you.
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But it's the one thing that if you center yourself in your own self
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belief, that they can't take it from you. Right, And it sounds
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like that's what you were doing, is center yourself in your own self belief,
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in your own education so that yes, you protect your mind, yes,
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but it still damages you, like every time I go to Walmart.
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Like for the first six months, when I went to Walmart, it was
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so much stuff and my brain was like, oh my god, I can't
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deal it. I would get physically ill. Like I'd literally throw up because
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it would stress my system out so much, like it rewires your brain,
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Like you're not going to get out of that, depending on how long you're
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in there. And you know the horrible things you see, Like I watched
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so many women die of very treatable things and it never should have happened.
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You know, they genuinely do not care. I watched a woman go into
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labor and they the only reason they brought her to the hospital is because the
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rest of us flipped out threatened to riot. Then they told her if this
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is a false alarm like Braxton Hicks or something, and you don't have this
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baby, we're going to put you in solitary. They threaten a woman with
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the hole if she had a false labor. I mean this that's barbaric,
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Like every woman out there like once you don't imagine like being told you're gonna
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be put locked in a room if it's a false labor. Like a friend
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of mine was shoveling snow and she broke her leg and this was the job
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the prison had her doing. By the time they brought her to the hospital,
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they had to rebreak her leg because the bone had fees back together.
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You know, I love listening to people that think that inmates get free healthcare,
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because no, they don't. I've watched my people, you know,
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inmates performing minor surgeries on themselves because you know, they can't get medical health
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medical sent them away and then threatened them with, you know, a disciplinary
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action if they didn't leave. And I mean unless if an inmate hits the
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ground, they're not going to take them to the hospital. I mean,
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it's awful. Wow it it sounds like as a slice of help. It
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is. And you know, I filed a prea complaint against Somerset County for
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making me in front of cameras. I waited till I got to Alderson.
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Well, when Alderson got the complaint back, they wouldn't even allow me to
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hold it to read it myself. They read me the response from Somerset County,
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and Somerset County admitted to everything I was complaining about, and then they
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deemed it unfounded. So if they deem it unfounded, it won't go to
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an outside source and it just gets buried. And uh PRIYA stands for a
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prison Rape Elimination Act, So anything sexual, you know, whether it's you
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know, saying something inappropriate or doing something inappropriate, whether it's copborn inmate,
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it's going to go on to PRIA. So this is how they bury the
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abuse. They'll simply deem it unfounded. And by law, an outside source
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is supposed to come in or read the inmate. This has never happened.
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I filed like three prea complaints. I think when I was at Somerset County,
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I had an officer pulling my pants open, asking me if I had
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underwear on, like exposing me to other inmates, like you don't touch me,
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like get off your high horse, like that would never happen, Like
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if you had done that in the workplace, like well it was her workplace
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technically, like you would be arrested, Like you don't do that. And
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so after I got out, I found out that an outside source is supposed
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to come interview me, and you know all the other inmates she did this
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too. That never happened. But Alderson literally told me we can't give you
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a copy of that. I go, it's my complaint. I filed it,
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like you have like give me my paperwork, and they said, no,
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we don't do that. We don't want it floating around the compound.
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Okay, I'll send it home. No, we can't let you do that
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either. So when you get out, you have one hundred days to file
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a complaint. But the first thing they asked for is was there an outcry
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at the time? Is there a paperwork? Did you file a PREA complaint?
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Well, yes I did, but they didn't give it to me.
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And so when I got out, the captain at Alderson, the PREA coordinator,
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and a bunch of their subordinates all got charged with raping and stalking inmates.
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So I wasn't even the only one. They did it too, and
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they were covering for other facilities as well. But this is how it happens.
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Facilities will cover for each other. I mean, and when we came
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into orientation, this lady literally said, well, you know, you're way
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worse than you know the charges you've got. You know, you've you've broken
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the law way more than you know what you're here for. Like she basically
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said that we deserve way more time than you know we got. And she
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said, and when it comes to you know, PREA complaints, I protect
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my boys, you know, from these vindictive inmates that just want a free
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paycheck. Like that's how she viewed it like, we already know we're not
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going to be believed, And predators flocked to these institutions to you know,
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because they know women like us they won't be believed. And on top of
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that, people don't care. Like I said, conservative women told me when
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I got out, like if you don't want to get raped by cops,
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then don't go to jail. That that is the rape culture and misogyny that
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it is that that in this country that people think that certain groups of women
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it's okay if you abuse them. Who cares? They're they're lucky to be
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to get that type of attention from that kind of man. Like that is
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literally how it's looked at. And you know, the juvenile centers, like
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I get so worked up talking about this because you know, the juvenile centers
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are even worse credit Like like I said, predators flock to these institutions for
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employment and they are not checked. They're not you know, even their background.
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You know, ninety eight percent of predators aren't on the sex offender registry
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because ninety eight percent never see a courtroom. And you know, or no,
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ninety six percent never see a courtroom. Ninety eight percent never see a
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jail cell. Sorry got my statistics, But when I was at Cumberland County,
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they would bring juveniles from you know, first of all, they're dehumanizing
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them by calling them juveniles. They're children like people, forget, those are
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children. Maybe they messed up, maybe they did something wrong, but those
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are children. They would bring the children from a long Creek to be held
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with us when they got to be too much of a problem. And long
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creaks in the paper every couple months every few years for sexual assault, choking
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children out to the point they're unconscious, breaking children's arms, and you know,
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then they have you know, whoever's at the top saying well, these
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are the worst of the worst kids and you're grown ass people. You shouldn't
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be breaking kids arms because they're they're not listening to you. Yes, I'm
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sure they are the worst of the worst. I'm sure they've had the worst
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trauma, the worst treatment, the worst lives like these are children that need
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help and you are destroying them. So they brought this one little seventeen year
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old girl and she had been repeatedly raped by high ranking officers while she finally
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snapped and stabbed one of these officers. So they brought her with us on
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Christmas just to mess with her and you know, make her mentally breakdown.
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On Christmas, they told her she was going back there for her last two
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weeks. She slit her throat that night. That was better than going back
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there. Like you know, and like, I get so upset when I
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keep seeing you know, people say, oh, we need armed guards in
22:15
every school to stop school shootings. You did that, and you didn't prevent
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a single school shooting. But what you did do is send a bunch of
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black and brown children to juvenile facilities, you know, cash for kids.
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And I'm sure your listeners are wondering why there are so many people in prison.
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I mean, we make up twenty five percent of the global incarceration rate
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and we're only five percent of the world. Like, they make money.
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They make over one hundred dollars a day per inmate for that institution, and
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then they contract out our cheap labor. For instance, a hospital saves three
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hundred and fifty thousand dollars a year contracting their linen to be washed by inmates
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instead of paying regular Americans. This is all about money. Inmates are profit
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and they've been demonized enough so that society goes, oh, okay, yeah,
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put them in prison, put them to work. Yeah. So to
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get back to your art though, how how has all that helped your art?
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Because you you have a website full of your artwork that you've turned into
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into fashion. And for those who are are actually going to be watching this
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on Rumble, you have you have a painting sitting right next to you.
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Yes, I do. I haven't turned that one into address yet, but
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I do have some clothes to show you. So when I got out,
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I was like institutionalized and I really couldn't leave my house. And then the
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pandemic hit, so nobody could really leave their house, and I just I
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started painting a lot, and I had set up with some of the local
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shops in Bangor to do like art shows during the pandemic. And then I
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found this company called the Galleries, and they turn your art into an environmentally
24:03
friendly clothing brand. Here I'll show you, like, this is one of
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my little bags. So I painted the fish and it matches like all of
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my colors perfectly, and it's like really well made. Like the stuff is
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very very well made, and it comes in plus sizes too, so like
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it's very inclusive to everybody, and I was like really happy about that.
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So I got a grant, and I started off small because I just wanted
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to put like, you know, like scarves and you know, some of
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my other stuff into the stores. I figured that would be a good way
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to start instead of going with dresses and and you know, I'm kind of
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a weirdo. Like one day I'll be like gothic and dark them like you
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can kind of see with this painting. Oh, and then the next yeah,
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and then the next day I'll be like butterflies and rainbows and you know,
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so I there's something for everybody on here. I also have like a
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couple of political pieces because I'm an activist, gotten a few bills passed,
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you know, for the good of the people. This is called a feruski.
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I don't actually know what a feruski is, but it's kind of like
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a handkerchief. I had never heard of that before though. Yeah. This
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is one of my more gothic dark fem pieces. You can also see the
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painting on the tag, right all right, yeah, more, and like
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there's like one painting will be on like ten different pieces, so you can
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like match a whole outfit. Yeah, here's one of my bags with a
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horse on my abstract horse. Beautiful, thank you. Yeah, see butterflies
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and flowers opposite end of this. Yeah, great use of color and everything.
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Okay, so you said that you that you got a grant, right
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now, I want to and let's see the importance to this question is that
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a lot of business owners they think that, oh, if I don't bootstrap
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the whole thing, if I don't find investors, that my business is just
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flat out gonna fail. But you're proving that because you went and got a
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grant to help you, that there is government money out there to help you
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operate your business and and so you can develop new and cooler things, right
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yep. Yeah, that's what got me like my first set of inventory.
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Yeah, Like I got like a couple grand worth of inventory, and then
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I was able to go around to the stores and be like, hey,
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here's my product, you know, would you sell it? And yeah,
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so definitely it's definitely worth, you know, trying to get grants, especially
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like if you have a cool story behind it. You know, like my
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story is a little bit different, and I've had every business advisor like tell
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your story, because you know that's part of you know, the art and
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the message behind it. And yeah, because like you said, you're also
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an activist, right, you know, Yes, I'm working to expose the
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prison system, you know, for what it is. We just got to
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build past and Maine mandating all jails provide tampons and pads free of charge for
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women, and yes, that is a problem. Women will be so desperate
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they will make their own tampons and then give themselves infections. And then well,
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like I said, you don't really get medical treatment in there, so
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wow, how do you should I ask the question? How so when we
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make a tampon, Oh, there's a few different ways, usually taking the
28:07
inside of a pad out and looking for string and you know, tying it
28:11
up and you know, or if you can get your hands on the really
28:15
thin pads, you can roll them up with a string in the middle of
28:18
Don't try this. Don't nobody try this. It gets people get sick doing
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this. Don't do it. Yeah, I mean, yeah, so we
28:27
won't go into too much detail, but that's yeah. Well, inmates are
28:37
very very clever. I mean I learned how to pour water through a locked
28:41
door when I was in there. Didn't even spill poor water through a locked
28:48
door. Well, yeah, because when when you're in like county jail,
28:52
like some some places, some cells don't have running water. They won't fix
28:56
them, it'll take them week. So there will be inmates and there with
29:00
no water, and you know the guards don't care, so they're not going
29:04
to open the door for you even if so what so, what we'd have
29:07
to do is get somebody that we were cool with and they'd bring water up.
29:12
And you take a piece of paper and you fold it a long way
29:15
and you shove it in through the door and it doesn't last very long.
29:18
Sometimes you have to get like more than one piece of paper, but the
29:22
paper acts like a funnel and so you pour it down the end and they
29:26
catch it with their cup and yeah, h now it makes sense. Yes,
29:36
I have you use paper as a as a funnel in order to redirect
29:41
from one container to another. Yes, that makes sense. So all these
29:48
all these innovations in innovative things from out of need because the prison wouldn't provide
29:56
have helped you giving you the confidence and know how to uh to be able
30:03
to run your business. Yeah. Well, honestly, I didn't really know
30:07
anything about like writing a business plan or writing a grant. But for those
30:11
of you out there who you know are like me, maybe you have a
30:15
mental diagnosis, maybe you have PTSD or a physical you know, thing that
30:19
makes you technically disabled. There's something called vocational rehab and they helped me a
30:26
lot. So I signed up with them, and they have them in all
30:30
fifty states, like the one in Maine. They gave me a business advisor.
30:33
They gave me the one down south in a red state. Really isn't
30:37
you know that helpful? So I'm kind of trying to figure out what I'm
30:41
what I'm doing. But like they gave me a business advisor, they taught
30:45
gave me this list of or this direction sheet of like how to write a
30:49
business plan. And so I did everything they told me to do, and
30:53
you know then, yeah, I ended up getting the grant. So that
30:57
was that was really cool. Yeah, very cool. So let me ask
31:04
you this because because you're you're your it sounds like also you found a manufacturing
31:12
partner to help you develop product and everything. Turn your paintings into into the
31:18
prints, then then it gets imprinted on onto the fabric and then turned into
31:23
the bags, the different garments and stuff like that, which which is also
31:30
very cool. But how do you how did you because in the prison system
31:37
which you were talking about about being the anxieties and things like that to the
31:45
cause, how did how did you relearn to to build these relationships? I'm
31:52
still learning, you know, I kind of in order to not go back
31:56
to prison, I had cut a lot of people out of my life that
32:00
were still involved in that world. And you know, honestly, the only
32:05
reason I did this well the last five years is because Janet Mills took over
32:09
for Paula Page and she expanded main care so I was able to get health
32:13
insurance and I was able to get trauma counseling. I was able to get
32:16
matt treatment when I needed it, and I got off of it when you
32:20
know, I was, you know done, and you know, and I
32:23
used to like before I went and you know, talked to state representatives and
32:30
was like getting bills you know, put on the table and passed. You
32:34
know, I was really like, why would they listen to me? I'm
32:36
just like a domestic violence you know, poster child, you know, a
32:42
traumatized mess and a recovering drug addict, Like why would they listen to me?
32:45
Like and then I was like, well, why wouldn't they listen to
32:49
me? Like I'm their failed statistic, Like I've seen what needs to be
32:53
changed, and you know, and so I just started showing up at their
32:58
meetings and like speeding and you know, saying things from my point of view
33:02
and things I had seen and you know, statistics and like what needed to
33:07
be changed, and you know, they actually took me seriously, and you
33:12
know that that was really cool. So I mean, don't ever think like
33:16
people out there like you, if you have a different perspective, you know,
33:21
you you should share it because you know, people don't necessarily know.
33:24
It's not that they don't necessarily want to help, it's that they don't know
33:28
about it. Right, Well do you as a society, we can't fix
33:34
something that we don't know about, right right? So, and hey,
33:39
that's the whole point of activism. It's like, see, here's the problem,
33:45
help me fix it, right right. I'm making making light of it,
33:53
but but it is really that serious because well you and I are both
33:59
active in that respect, right yes? So yeah, but you have do
34:09
you still get seizures? Oh yeah? And how severe are you seizures?
34:15
Well? I got back in the sabox program like nine months ago because I
34:22
started having like PTSD like nightmares really bad. Because yeah, law enforcement led
34:30
a certain serial predator out like early. So it kind of like really triggered
34:36
me. And so when I moved down South, I had to switch my
34:39
sposen doctor. Now, this is what addicts deal with. This is the
34:44
stigma and like the hell addicts deal with. So when I came down to
34:50
a red state, I got I couldn't find any place affordable, so I
34:53
signed up with WMD. They require you to get a drug test every month.
34:59
Fine, So I went and I got one through a dependable and they
35:05
get they go through a med Talks laboratory. I told them what it was
35:10
for. I told them what would be in my system and like exactly what
35:15
I needed this for. So I paid sixty five dollars and then they decided
35:21
to withhold my results because the medication was in my system. So I literally
35:28
detoked cold turkey for five days straight. I was hallucinating, I was hearing
35:34
things, I had seizures, and you know, this is when people go
35:38
back to prison, this is when they relapsed, this is when they die.
35:43
And this company med Talks and they say, oh, well, we
35:47
do this with every test that has a substance in it. Yes, I
35:52
told you it would have a substance in it, and I told you what
35:54
it was for, and I told you that my medication was running out,
35:58
and the whole reason why this was to get this for my doctor. And
36:01
they withheld it anyway. And you know, by the time they'd given me
36:07
their they didn't even give me the results. They tried to call me and
36:09
I was like, you know, I don't even need the results anymore.
36:12
I signed up with a different doctor and you're not supposed to do that.
36:15
But like it was literally to the point where I was getting chest pains,
36:19
like I could feel it going down my arm, like and people think,
36:22
like when you withdraw, like you just get sick or you know, it's
36:24
like the flute. No, it's it's not. It can kill you.
36:28
And Big Pharma just finally admitted that it can kill you. And so this
36:32
is this is what addicts, you know, And this is when you completely
36:36
go and you know, have a breakdown and relapse new drugs because you're literally
36:43
in full blown detox. Like I was on the ground, like I was
36:46
seizing on the ground because like I did not have this medication, and you
36:51
know they don't care. They don't care. So I mean, if any
36:53
of you addicts out there, like have to get a drug test, do
36:57
not go through anybody that you as med talks because they will discriminate against you
37:02
and withhold your results and put you in harm's way. Wow. I do
37:12
know this from experience when when I was a teenager that I worked in a
37:20
drug and alcohol detox Now I worked in the drugon aule detalks because I decided
37:25
I wanted to go to private school and I needed tuition money, so I
37:30
had to pay my own tuition because my parents weren't were able to pay it.
37:37
But so I got this job and I watched this guy the detoxing from
37:43
PCP and I didn't know that, I didn't know to do that. He's
37:51
been a bed in half because that's how I is the seizures got right,
37:59
Yeah, it isn't they think that, Oh, it's it's like they have
38:00
this superhuman strength because because of the drug. It's not because the drugs in
38:05
him. It's because the drugs leaving them that they get that that that strength
38:09
in everything and it turns off the pain receptors that because normal pain receptors,
38:15
you're bending a steel bed in half, it would say yeah, your pain
38:21
and stop you right, you couldn't do it. But so I've seen firsthand
38:28
what what detoxing can actually do do to people, and it isn't pretty and
38:35
it's not something that I would want you to actually live through. It'say,
38:40
it's like there's some substances that it's better to sedate the person while the drug
38:49
leaves and then deal with the with whatever the dependence of the sedation drug is,
38:55
right, And you know, the game is a legal in America,
39:01
But for any of you addicts out there, I want to try it honestly,
39:06
because what it does is it completely resets the brain like back before you
39:12
were ever addicted. So you know you're not gonna be dealing if you have
39:15
trauma and you know, physical chronic pain like I do, like you're gonna
39:19
be battling addiction for the rest of your life because every time you have a
39:22
PTSD trigger or like chronic pain, your brain's gonna be throwing that drug in
39:28
your face, like you need this to survive, you need this to be
39:30
better. Like your brain literally works against you and you know that that's just
39:36
what happens. It rewires your brain to make that substance more vital than water.
39:39
And in Sweden they're having a ninety seven percent you know, success rate,
39:44
but they're not gonna make it legal in America because Big Pharma is making
39:47
too much money off of the boxin and methadone and all these other pharmaceutical drugs
39:54
that slowly kill you. Yeah, well, we can have a whole whole
40:00
another conversation about about the pharmaceuticals that are that are out there to to help
40:07
us get off of of the addiction of the dreaded opium. So because we
40:19
do need to, I really want when it's to stay focused on how your
40:23
life is is shaping up because because of your art, it's good. You
40:31
know, I've been going on podcasts, I've been meeting all these cool people,
40:36
and you know, they're all just so supportive. Like I mean,
40:38
I wish I'd found this support, like you know, earlier on and I
40:44
probably would have believed in myself a little bit more. But you know,
40:46
I'm going to do vendor shows down here, and I'm seeing what stores I
40:52
can get my brand into, and yeah, I'm really excited these are going
40:57
good and my books about to come out, Like I just I'm almost done
41:00
editing it. The editing is so hard for me. But it's called No
41:05
Justice Justice, and it's in detail, you know, my journey through the
41:09
federal prisons system, like up to now, and it's going to explain all
41:15
the laws that I've you know, bills that I've helped gotten passed, and
41:19
what I'm still trying to pass. And you know, I'm also creating an
41:23
adult coloring book because there was this style of art called zenangle art. It's
41:30
like meditative doodling and it really helped me in jail, like when I wasn't
41:35
painting and when I didn't have access to pain, I was doing this and
41:37
it really helped me with you know, PTSD triggers, and you know everyone's
41:43
like, oh, talk about it, and it's like, no talking about
41:45
your trauma. Only you know, your brain doesn't know the difference between a
41:49
memory and what's actually happening, so you know, you're literally just retraumatizing your
41:52
brain, and you know it doesn't really help distracting yourself, you know,
41:59
from focusing on the trauma. That's what you know got me through it,
42:02
and you know. And so I'm creating an adult coloring zen tangle book and
42:08
I'm putting like tips in, you know, things that I learned about PTSD
42:13
and trauma and addiction and you know, stuff that helped me get through it.
42:17
So like I want, I want to help others. And you know,
42:21
it's not an overwrite fix for anything. It's just something to help you.
42:27
What other tools do you use to get through the the the the trauma
42:30
and the seizures and everything. What the other tools you use? Well,
42:37
so there's this thing you can do, Like you can name everything in the
42:39
room, like oh, coffee maker that's black, and you like associate the
42:44
color with it. Well, that's how you destruct yourself. And that's what
42:47
the counselor told me to do. And so in jail, when you're in
42:51
a cell with nothing but what's in the cell, like I would literally be
42:57
saying the stuff and my trauma would be like on repeat because there's just not
43:01
enough in there for you know, you to distract yourself with. So what
43:05
I would do is I name Slipknot songs and I'd sing the first lyric of
43:09
every song and then I'd go to the next one and I'd listed off and
43:13
i'd you know, yeah, I just go through that. Like music always
43:15
helped me too. And Slipknot, you know, was my favorite. I
43:19
left prison with two matching crocheted slip knot bags. That's another great art.
43:30
Like like you will find so many women and they're crocheting stuff and the stuff
43:34
they create it's just beautiful. Like they had reversible stuffed animals like one then
43:39
was a dinosaur. On the other end was like a fish. Like it
43:45
was just the coolest, like most beautiful stuff that was, you know,
43:47
being created. You know, yeah, very cool. Not so cool that
43:54
that because it's locked away in the prison, but it's cool that that that
44:04
that you find creativity as as an outlet. The I'm gonna ask you a
44:13
political question on that on top of that one, because do you it's the
44:20
prison system trying to start in stifle that, uh, that creative, that
44:27
creative process. Some places are I mean they love to say, oh,
44:32
we have programs for the inmates and it's so good for them and blah blah
44:37
blah, like they love to you know, gas their own you go up.
44:42
But it's I mean it's just kind of uses something they can take away
44:46
from you. So, yeah, they do stifle it. They I mean
44:51
I had paints in my locker, you know, for my own like side
44:53
hustle, and they would come through raid my locker and take it from me
44:58
because I wasn't going through their class and I wasn't supposed to have it in
45:01
my locker. Like I'm not doing anything to hurt anybody. I'm not you
45:05
know, selling drugs or anything like that. I'm sitting or painting and you're
45:07
going to come raid my locker like, so yeah, I do think it's
45:14
you know, bottom line, they're they're looking to lock us all up.
45:19
I mean during the pandemic, before the pandemic started, there were three empty
45:22
properties for every homeless man, woman, and child. Now there's twenty nine.
45:28
And prisons across America were taking out PPP loans to expand their prisons and
45:34
get more wings at it on and the corporation said, we'll buy all the
45:37
prisons as long as they stay at ninety percent fall. So this is all
45:42
about money. This is all about you know, extorting people's free labor and
45:47
you know, destroying it, you know, taking their name away and giving
45:52
them an innate number like oh no, we let them paint, just not
45:55
in their own you know cube where they're you know, my mean their business.
46:01
Yeah, so we are gonna going around a time soon. So what
46:10
one final thought? What if we with your art? What do you what
46:20
are you really trying to trying to tell the world. I don't know I
46:27
will with my brand, you know, anybody that embodies the divine feminine.
46:32
You know, this world just you know, still oppresses women and you know,
46:37
trans women and you know, anything that has to do with women,
46:43
it's it's gonna be dehumanized and kind of beat down. And you know,
46:46
I just want anybody that you know, puts this brand on to like feel
46:52
stunning and empowered and beautiful and confident about themselves. Like I mean, this
46:59
world comes for women in every way possible, and it's just's you see it
47:04
now, especially like with you know, the laws that are being passed,
47:07
you know, and just femininity is defined for us, not by us,
47:13
and I think it's time we take that back. But you know, with
47:16
my art, it's it's different because like one day I'll be doing a political
47:20
piece and the other days it'll be you know, just something beautiful for you
47:23
know, my brand, And you know, I like to tell stories and
47:27
I like to expose things for what they are with my art as well,
47:30
Like with my piece Freedom and Justice for All, it's that one with all
47:40
the it's basically everyone that was ever oppressed by white men in America. Yeah,
47:49
there's a lot of people on there. That one took me like forty
47:51
plus hours. Yeah, and I have a couple of prison pieces and yeah,
47:59
I haven't been painted as much because I've been working on my book,
48:01
but yeah, I I need to get back into it. We're gonna have
48:07
you come back with with your book when it when it's ready, so we'll
48:13
have to plan some kind of book launch from from our show. That would
48:17
be great and I think that would be pretty cool for you. Best ways
48:23
to do to find you You can find me on Instagram and TikTok. I
48:31
have a Twitter account, but I never go on there because I hate it
48:37
and I end up arguing with people that aren't worth my time. But my
48:40
handles are all the same. It's E p M Underscore Art Underscore eleven eleven,
48:46
and my clothing website is Legalleries dot com, slash e n slash Elizabeth
48:54
dot mccadowits. You have to put the e n Elizabeth mccaddowitz at the end,
49:00
or it will just take you to the gallery's main website, and they
49:02
have tons of artists doing what I'm doing, so it will not be myself.
49:07
Very cool, So thank you for joining us today, and thank you
49:13
everybody for listening in, and go to Elizabeth's website, buy her art,
49:19
buyer fashion, and help fund her her cause to to in the oppression in
49:25
women's prisons and maybe help get get a couple of laws changed to make life
49:32
a little easier for uh, for women and for those of us who find
49:38
oppression men too. Men get oppressed in prison too, but it's just a
49:45
little worse women. Yeah, all right, thanks everybody, we'll talk to
49:50
you later. Help us. That's bad. So I don't know, so
50:22
I wish you won action. So why say this? He says, I
50:38
reason should be a choice. We can't t wait, so ye go to
51:37
s she I know cho stream. The show has been produced by Depictions Media.
52:21
Please contact us at Depictions dot media for more information.