Can you imagine what is 43 years in a cage?
Me – not.
“Researchers have found that depriving someone of visual stimulation, human interaction, sunlight or physical activity can change their brain structure in a matter of days.” – well, this is utterly truth. On my opinion, after staying 43 years in prison, especially in solitary confinement, you will never be able to socialize and to become a mentally sane, harmonic person. You will carry this trauma until the end of your days.
I spend around 1,3 years in solitary confinement (6 month+6 month by once + around 3 month altogether by short terms in de seg) and I’d say that I have derived my own limits of how much I could stay like that without considerable mental changes. This term is 2 years.
Everything works against you. Humans are social animals, and absence of social communications, exchange of emotions and though affects you very badly. Lack of sunlight really matters also: you can recognize cell-type inmate and distinguish it from a colony inmate by a color of skin. The cell inmate is white as snow. Yes, and visual stimulations – something we got totally used being free – reminds about itself when you stay in a stone walls for 24 hours a day, month by month. Every day is the same. You know what you will see tomorrow, in a week and in a month. It reduces your quality of life, makes you deadly bored, literally fucks up your brain.
On my opinion, if you are introvertial kind of person, you will survive solitary confinement much easier. Books, yoga, mail, newspapers, magazines occupy your time and it goes really fast. Also the positive thing of solitary is that you do not need to contact people you do not like – cuz in prison there will be always a bunch of scum which would like to offend or dominate you.
But this is already another story.
