Special Report Transcript Episode 68, Section 3, Time 24:06

As the months went by I realized I really don’t have anyone to talk to. I have only myself. And OK letters don’t help in the end, and the silence in the cell, I can hear it. You know it’s loud, I can hear the silence. My spirit and my body used to get so depressed that I would cry not because I want to cry, but my body would just go into spasms. I’d throw myself on the bed, like a child and I’d writhe and writhe. I’d be crying and screaming against this loneliness. And I thought why, why can’t I endure it? I will be out in the next, I had a year to go, I can endure a year of this. Just one day at a time, but every day I couldn’t. Some days it used to be so bad, even my parents don’t know this. I used to fill the bath with boiling hot water and I used to throw myself in, because the pain of getting burnt was easy to handle. It distracted me from the psychological pain. Or I’d fill a sink with hot water and I’d plunge my hands in. Because at certain times of the day the loneliness was more painful. The sound of nobody but myself. And then that physical distraction used to help. I had a yard like this and I’d sit on the stoep and there would be a bird there. And because I’m there the bird flies away and I’d cry immediately. How can even the bird abandon me? I was so damaged that even the bird leaving me was painful. I was damaged, I was completely finished. But every morning when the Lieutenant came in and said ‘môre, klagtes?’ [Morning, complaints?] No. I would refuse to tell her that you have succeeded. You have damaged me beyond repair.

Notes: Zharah Narkedien

References: there are no references for this transcript