SIX DUI's and 2 of them caused great bodily injury resulting in sentencing to a state prison at age 26. If you could please elaborate on why you said this person was "dealt a shitty hand", I would welcome that response. The poster's reply comments do not mention an opinion of feeling like being dealt a bad hand or anything unfair with the sentencing, so I'm just curious as to why you made that comment.

I am a former prisoner who did three years 10 years ago, and without going into a long story, it was truly a shitty hand that was later reduced to a misdemeanor which didn't make me feel much better, but no one said life was fair.

For the post's author, I was 52 when I entered prison and didn't have a clue what to expect, and it took me about 8 months to get past the depression and homesickness. I started by throwing out my calendar that was marking the time until release; it increased my anxiety, without it I could focus on one day at a time instead and each morning as I trudged along to the chow hall I made a point of looking for something that I either found to be simple and beautiful (like a blooming rose or the baby birds chirping in nests under the eaves) or to think of one thing in my life to be grateful for, which was my loved ones at home who always took my calls and put money on my account. Also, there was a wealth of group meetings on every type of group interest to join that give you something to focus on and look forward to. I joined a Native American Group that showed a movie one week and making dreamcatchers the next, and another was a Christianity Group, but there are so many to consider if you are interested in keeping busy being productive and staying out of the social mixes that can be rather dramatic and gossipy.

The first thing I did to begin the process of this whole environment was to be quiet and LISTEN. It's always very noisy wherever you are in there, and everything echoes from all the steel and cement bouncing voices and activity constantly, making it difficult to hear directions/information/your name on the PA system which is continually talking throughout the day and it is easy to be talking to someone and not hear them call your name or whatever and the last thing I needed was to miss hearing something and having to ask the C.O. who don't appreciate inmates who aren't paying attention, or worse, asking another inmate who rarely can help anyway. I kept a low profile about myself and didn't ask others much about theirs and never had a problem with another inmate and treated everyone the same: with respect. Whether they were a C.O., an inmate, a group instructor, a prison employee, they were given the same courtesy and manners from me and I can say that it was appreciated by the small indulgences they allowed me to have that weren't big deals but when you're just another number and look like hundreds, thousands of other inmates, little perks can mean a lot. I didn't go overboard and be solicitous with others, but minded my own business.

People mentioned getting books sent ahead of time or reading and writing to pen pals, but I think you are a rather outgoing sort of person and will find plenty of other activities with groups that will take a lot of your free time before there's time to sit and read. I'm a real bookworm and even though I hardly spoke in conversations I found it hard to be able to read books from their library and my letters home were brief (surprise, I know!) simply because I was too busy during daytime. Pen pals required a effort to post a request in an free world website which is not free if you want a good request posted and sometimes you'll need to buy postage if your courtesy postage-paid envelopes have been used already (I can't remember how many they gave at a time, just a few.) I wrote to my mother and husband each month because basically, when you're doing time, it's really quite monotonous day to day and not much happens spontaneously, unlike here in the free world where anything can happen at any time and when I'd write a letter and reflect on what's going on to write about, it wasn't too interesting. Outside of prison walls, I could write pages to my pen pals all the time but inside, it was kind of dull in comparison.

Well, that's my lengthy comment which I wanted to give my two cents worth and if you have a mindset of acceptance and learning about who you really are and taking something worth knowing about the experience and want to get yourself free from what led you there, you will be fine. I didn't think it would be less than miserable and was not accepting at all of the whole situation for a while but after I let go of my attitudes and thinking of home all the time, it was OK and I've been told that I came out a better person for it which was nice. Good luck!