• Thing about prison, is that sleep becomes like a chore you do each day. You're never really tired, so you never really want to sleep, it just breaks up the time. I felt like I didn't want to sleep ever again. Next morning I decided to go for a drive, and thought I'd rent a car - but my driver's licence had expired. I went to get a new one, but because I'd been inside they needed me to get a letter from my parole officer. So I just wandered around for a day. Felt like everyone was staring at me. You just feel completely lost.
  
• Well I'm on parole for the next year - but it seems downright impossible to find a job. I've got some money saved up and my plan is to get out of the States, head to Europe and find bar work. I haven't seen a soul I knew before since I got back, and I'm almost scared of seeing them now.
  
• Basic human decency becomes the thing you miss the most. Saying 'please' and 'thank you' and 'you're welcome' just simple crap like that reminds you you're human, that you're a part of society.
  
• That last thing you should never take for granted is this - your mental health. Every day I woke up sober inside (at some points, they were rare) I'd stare at the ceiling and talk to myself. Sometime's out loud. I'd take stock of my own level of madness. How justified was my paranoia today. What did I dream of last night. What kind of bad things will float through my head if I don't control it. I'd literally have to take stock of my own psychological well being. No one should have to do that. Because questioning your sanity is like picking at a scab - once you start it bleeding you can't help but keep picking. And by virtue of your questioning, you make it true.

• But sooner or later I got asked how come I could write, and so I told them I'd been to University, thinking I'd just get put upon for a while - convicts will pick on you for anything. But instead everyone just seemed really disappointed. Instead of cracking jokes about it, they seemed genuinely upset that a white kid, with a college degree, would be so stupid as to get himself locked up inside. So I was made to feel kind of embarrased, and ashamed at having an education - a shame that I still haven't kicked having got out.

Quote:me visiting him twice a week for many many years i can give my own perspective.

(07-26-2010, 04:57 AM)DAMINK™ Wrote: Dunno. But given my dad has been inside for the last 23 years or so for killing multiple and me visiting him twice a week for many many years i can give my own perspective.
Interesting read none the less.