The Urge to Hurt

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The urge to hurt women could come over me at any time, at any place. Powerful, sometimes irresistible desires would well up for no apparent reason and with no warning. Even after my arrest -- while I was facing capital charges -- these urges continued. I remember one day being transported back to the county jail from a court appearance just prior to my trial. I was in the back of a sheriff' s van in full restraints -- handcuffs, leg irons, belly chain -- when we passed a young woman walking along the road. I cannot begin to describe the intensity of feeling that enveloped me that day. I wanted . no, I had to get out of that van and go after her. The situation was ludicrous. (And later, back in my cell, I masturbated to a fantasy of what would have happened had I gotten hold of her.)

Even after I was sentenced to death, the urges persisted. One day, after seeing my psychiatrist, I was being escorted, without restraints, back to my cell by a young female correctional officer. When we got to a secluded stairwell, I suddenly felt this overwhelming desire to hurt her. I knew that I had to get out of that stairwell, and I ran out into the hallway. I' ll never forget how she shouted at me and threatened to write a disciplinary report; she didn't have a clue. She never knew how close I came to attacking her, and possibly even killing her.

You would think that being sentenced to death and living in a maximum-security prison would curb such urges, but this illness defies rationality. I eventually found some relief. Almost three years after I came to death row, I started to receive weekly injections of an anti-androgen medication called Depo-Provera. Three years later, after some liver function trouble, I was switched to monthly Depo-Lupron injections, which I still receive. What these drugs did was significantly reduce my body' s natural production of the male sex hormone -- testosterone. For some reason, testosterone affects my mind differently than it does the average male. A few months after I started the treatment, my blood serum testosterone dropped below prepubescent levels. (It' s currently 20; the normal range is 260 to 1,250.) As this happened, nothing less than a miracle occurred. My obsessive thoughts and fantasies began to diminish.

Having those thoughts is a lot like living with an obnoxious roommate. You can' t get away because they' re always there. What the Depo-Lupron does for me is to move that roommate down the hall to his own apartment. The problem is still there, but it' s easier to deal with because it isn' t always intruding into my everyday life. The medication has rendered the 'monster within' impotent and banished him to the back of my mind. And while he can still mock me on occasion, he no longer controls me.

You cannot begin to imagine what a milestone this was in my life. A whole new world opened up to me. I had my mind back -- a clear mind free of malevolent thoughts and urges. It sounds strange for a condemned man to speak of being free on death row, but that is the only word I can think of to describe the transformation I have undergone. That' s not to say all is well. One result of all this was that I was forced to look at myself. I' m not talking the cursory, superficial manner in which most people look at themselves, but rather the painful, unrelenting search into the depths of my soul.

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