I had found myself incarcerated for the first time in a mess of confusion, alcohol and drug addiction, self-loathing and undiagnosed mental illness.

I blamed myself and my moral failings, and deeply internalised this experience to add to the brokenness and dysfunction that had been with me since childhood.

“Of course you ended up here,” I told myself. “This is where the bad kids go. This is where people like YOU belong.”

I made bad choices, selfish choices, and I cared about nobody, and nothing. I could not participate in “normal” life – I didn’t have the resources, willingness or ability to be part of the human race.

This was the end of the road. I had previously made a pathetic attempt to end my life, and I couldn’t even get that right.

This was the mindset I was in when I was alone in my cell at Silverwater Mulawa centre, awaiting “classo” (classification) – with a broken TV, no pen and paper, nothing to do except think. I noticed that the previous inmate had left a couple of library books on the table.

I picked up an abandoned copy of Oscar Wilde’s The Ballad of Reading Gaol and began to read. I didn’t know the impact that poem would have on me, and how it would play a part in changing my world view and my life direction.

Wilde wrote the masterpiece in 1897, after being sentenced to two year’s hard labour for the “crime” of being homosexual.

After his release and while in exile in France, the poem was released under the name C.3.3, which stood for cell block C, landing 3, cell 3. Wilde could not risk having his name published on the front cover.

In the poem Wilde spoke of redemption, and love, and how wistfully a prisoner would look at the sky – and how he “drank the morning air … as though it had been wine”.

He spoke of a freedom I knew – it was in his spirit. The freedom you find when you truly reach the end of the road, and are out of options.

This poem spoke straight to my heart and ignited something within me. I felt true freedom, in a six by nine cell.

I had to ask myself: am I really a terrible person beyond redemption? Is there still a purpose to my life? If Wilde could write something so beautiful, from such pain, and turn his experience into art – can I do the same?

It was as if Wilde was reaching through time and space, to sit with me, to comfort me, in my little cell, as I read his words and felt his pain, all those years ago.

Working in juvenile justice

This and a few other key moments during my incarceration led to me making the decision to do whatever it took to turn my experience into a lesson – for myself, but, more importantly, for others.

As an artist, I knew the powerful healing that could happen during creative expression and I knew this would have a role to play in my future, somehow.

Fourteen months later I was released and entered into a course of rehabilitation and study.

Through Women’s Justice Network, a not-for-profit that supports women and girls in prison and in the community, I was given the opportunity to run an art group with the girls in youth prison as part of the Healing from Within program.

I had little experience working with teens and I thought these kids would eat me alive.

I was not prepared to meet some of the most soulful, respectful, kind and thoughtful young people, who would inspire me to continue this work. These kids were just like I was when I was younger. They had been told since the day they were born that something was wrong with them. “You’re naughty, you’re bad, sit down, be quiet, you’ll speak when spoken to.”

Some of them are utterly, utterly broken. It was a difficult to hear about how the trauma they had already experienced had manifested in their lives.

I have met some girls as young as 12, who have become street-wise and hard in order to survive. I have met girls who will likely spend the next 10 years in custody and become part of the great recidivism revolving door. I have met girls who will reoffend on purpose because “at least I get fed in jail”. And I have heard stories, about their lives and upbringing, that made me feel sick to my stomach.

These kids are not criminals, they are children. They are children who have been let down by grown-ups, and the system, since the day they were born.

They were never shown respect – how can we ask them to be respectful? They weren’t taught boundaries – how can we expect them to follow rules? They were never shown love –how can we expect them to be loving?

How reading can help break the cycle

It’s accepted knowledge among inmates within prisons that the system is broken. As a community our policy is rehabilitation but there is very little of that happening. The system is overwhelmed and compassion and individualised support is scarce.

In my experience, access to creativity and reading materials is an excellent way for incarcerated people to get access to that compassion that we all seek. Without compassion and understanding we cannot heal. Without believing that we deserve redemption, there is no hope for change.

We all just want to be heard and to see ourselves in others, and have our experiences reflected back to us. It allows us to feel human, and like we belong somewhere.

Stories can do that for us. Books can be an escape, a reprieve from the drudgery of the day in prison, or to light a fire of hope inside us, just like Oscar Wilde did for me. Educational, inspirational, even silliness – it’s all part of the healing that books can bring in a place as desperate as prison.

• Ally Colquitt is a visual artist, tattoo artist and youth worker based in Sydney’s inner west

• Women’s Justice Network is supporting fREADom Inside with Gleebooks Bookshop. When you buy a book, you can choose to donate one directly to a woman in prison in New South Wales

• Crisis support services can be reached 24 hours a day: Lifeline 13 11 14; Suicide Call Back Service 1300 659 467; Kids Helpline 1800 55 1800; MensLine Australia 1300 78 99 78; Beyond Blue 1300 22 4636