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I posted the following on Saturday, December 29, 2018, and received the most upvotes (22 to date) and 1.8k views.
Read the original post at Quora https://www.quora.com/How-does-serving-time-in-federal-prison-compare-to-state-prison
How did you feel when you found out you were going to prison?
On August 18, 1988, after my arrest, I knew I was going to prison and planned to avoid that by escaping, and if that didn’t work and I was killed during the attempt, then suicide by cop would be okay. I felt miserable and hated life. I felt an exaggerated sense of hopelessness, despair, disappointment, all associated with the intense hate and anger that scorched my soul.
Today, I’m glad things didn’t work according to my plans and that I changed my thinking and my life.
At thirty-one years old, I didn’t have hope of ever seeing another day as a free man. Months later, I sat inside a jail cell with a man facing the death penalty (I was disruptive and creating havoc in the jail, so the jailers put me in the cell block with the killers).
Once inside that jail cell, I continued to look for an opportunity to escape. To get away I would have done whatever it took. The thought of spending the rest of my days inside a box made me want to get it over with, to spare myself the agony of a miserable existence.
Suicide seemed the solution: For a Samurai Warrior, wasn’t that the honorable way out, death before dishonor?
That’s how I felt, alone, angry, desperate, disappointed, and in fear on spending the rest of my life in prison, with no hope of getting out, unless I escaped.
I changed my mind about committing suicide because I didn’t want to put my family through having to deal with me dying that way.
Today, as a man who walked out the prison doors, even though it was thirty-years later, I am glad I changed my mind about suicide, escape, and all other aspects of my self-destructive mindset and associated behaviors.