A Utah man being held in Venezuela on weapons charges described living a “horrible nightmare” of police harassment and recurrent illnesses in his first communication from jail.

“It feels like the pressure of the world is weighing down upon my chest. My heart feels like it is swollen and about to burst,” Joshua Holt wrote in a handwritten letter made public Tuesday by his mother. “Since I arrived at this horrible place where demons stroll the hallways … my life has been in utter destruction.”