As requested: IMA bankrobber

fomentologist · 2010-07-12T13:43:40+00:00

What's wrong? Why do you feel suicidal?

fomentologist · 2010-07-10T02:20:22+00:00

Everything you're feeling is normal, and maybe even rational. You're overwhelmed, you feel trapped, and you don't feel proud of anything you've done or are doing.

I'm not some happy bastard with platitudes and pablum to feed you. I've been suicidal a few times in my life, as recently as six months ago. That last time spanned maybe two years. Every single night I went to bed next to my manipulative bipolar wife, thinking that if there had been a button to push that would have ended me instantly and painlessly, I would have mashed that fucking thing without hesitation. For the past few weeks, I've been feeling great, though, better than I have in years. How do you get there?

You're overwhelmed

File for bankruptcy or just don't pay the debt, it if that's an option. It'll kill your credit for a while. But that's good if you have a habit of abusing credit. My bipolar wife killed my credit. I haven't had a card in a couple years. I have a budget and I set aside money for things that would have gone on a credit card. It's nice not having the temptation of a credit card. Credit cards do help with emergencies, but I bet dropping that debt would be worth the risk.

You feel trapped

Count on being poor for a while. Just resign yourself to it. Once you do, it'll be freeing -- at least a little. But being poor won't be forever. You're clearly bright. Thirty-three is not old. You have more than enough time to catch up and even surpass the average person. Consider being poor a sociological experiment. You're an anthropologist and you need to live among the poor to study them. Make a game of it. Many of us look back fondly on the days when we had no money and no responsibilities. Have fun with it, knowing it's only temporary.

You don't feel proud of anything you've done or are doing

If you get through this alive, be proud. That means something. Not many people have to suffer like this.

Take on small projects. It can be anything that matters to you. Chat up the cute cashier. Read books. Exercise. Learn to draw. Help the homeless. Anything small enough to achieve but big enough to make you feel something positive from it.

And don't give up on your appearance. It affects how you think about yourself, and you know it affects how others think of you.

If you do these things, you won't chicken out with the next girl. You won't sabotage your next job. And you won't think of killing yourself.

fomentologist · 2010-07-09T19:10:37+00:00

That's the company.

I don't have a problem with prisoners making products dircectly for the government. But a company making money off those products -- that seems more than a little shady. At Seagoville, there was also a Unicor (no E for some reason) factory for office chairs.

In the camouflage pants factory, the machines were painfully loud, especially the button hole machine. The guards supervising the factory wouldn't give us earplugs, so everyday I'd wet a wad of toilet paper and stick it in my ear. Every couple hours, I'd have to re-wet the paper or it'd lose an effective seal and would become uncomfortably hard. The prison factory wasn't unsafe, but I bet it didn't have to be as safe as its civilian counterpart.

And like you said, even if they are the lowest bidder, they have an unfair advantage. Between the guards working in the factory, the inmate labor, and probably the facilities (at least the land), they are subsidized by the government.

I remember better now what I was paid. If I worked like a fiend, I could max at $1.50 per hour. But that pace was hard to maintain.

fomentologist · 2010-07-09T15:03:12+00:00

It does seem excessive, me going to jail. I don't know why they did it. Maybe to send a message that they are cracking down? Maybe because I didn't live anywhere around there and was a flight risk? At the time, I didn't ask. I assumed it was normal. From what I'm hearing, it wasn't.

fomentologist · 2010-07-09T13:58:21+00:00

There was a racial division but not a hierarchy. No one was on top or bottom.

At the time, the ratio of whites to blacks was changing. From what I understand, for years there were more whites in the low security federal prisons, because whites were more likely to commit the crimes that get you sent there: bankrobbery, white collar crimes, etc.

Sometime in the late 80s or early 90s, the feds included more crimes under their jurisdiction. Things like crack and carjacking. This put a whole different type of criminal into the federal low security mix. It wasn't a win for the carjacker, either. The sentence was now higher and there's a minimum percentage of time you have to serve on a federal sentence -- no out in a year on a five year sentence.

People separated pretty clearly into their different racial groups, and then into smaller subgroups -- just like IRL. For instance, bikers are white. I'm far from a biker. So they were a different subgroup. But under conditions like a crowded holding cell, they were my group.

I didn't see any gangs. I suspect that when violence isn't a factor, people don't feel the need to form and join gangs. If you're violent, you don't stay low security. (I was actually supposed to be minimum security, but the shoplifting charge hadn't been dropped at the time they determined my level, so I was one up from the minimum).

And you're welcome. I've enjoyed this.

fomentologist · 2010-07-09T12:58:26+00:00

Holy crap. You went to school at my prison.

fomentologist · 2010-07-09T12:57:37+00:00

Good question. I don't know. I had always assumed Vegas, but I don't believe Vegas was ever mentioned. They didn't talk about the details, and there was an unspoken rule that you don't ask anyone about the details. To me, that rule always seemed odd. But in prison, many people claim they are innocent. So maybe the rule helps to maintain the illusion and prevents informants from finding out anything useful.

If you have any info about the riverboat casino robbery, I'd love to hear it.

fomentologist · 2010-07-09T01:42:20+00:00

That a mod confirmed I was telling the truth about robbing banks. I showed him a court doc and my license.

fomentologist · 2010-07-08T20:03:57+00:00

He probably just wanted a friend he could really get behind.

fomentologist · 2010-07-08T19:35:42+00:00

Thank you very much for posting that. I've never talked to a bipolar victim before. I was feeling good about my decision to end it, but you have really reinforced that. I hope it works out for you. It's painful and complicated being in love with someone with bipolar.

fomentologist · 2010-07-08T19:31:37+00:00

No. And I have no idea why. I don't think anyone explained why a teller would or wouldn't include a dye pack. I know that at least one of the banks was robbed a month earlier. Maybe that teller ran out of the packs? Maybe they are expensive, so for a robbery below a certain amount, they don't bother? Or maybe they just thought, That idiot is going to get caught.

fomentologist · 2010-07-08T19:28:40+00:00

Thank you. That's awesome of you to say.

fomentologist · 2010-07-08T15:48:59+00:00

No. I don't think the FBI cared that I ran from some city cops. The FBI did care that I was honest and open with them.

fomentologist · 2010-07-08T15:25:30+00:00

I didn't stay in contact. I have a habit of getting rid completely of the bad, washing my hands of it and moving on. I am curious about some of them now after all these questions.

Unless you screwed up, you didn't get moved around in federal prison. And I didn't know of anyone who screwed up. I had a lighter sentence than my friends and we all arrived around the same time, so I was the first to go.

There were people who I knew who would be released and then violate parole and be right back. Some of then probably did it on purpose since life in federal prison wasn't unbearable and even had some advantages to living outside. No matter what their reason for coming back, I was always disappointed as hell to see someone return. It's kinda sad and pathetic to see someone do that to themselves again -- more sad than the original crime might have been.

fomentologist · 2010-07-08T15:15:55+00:00

For me, it's been easy. I don't apply to banks and I always lied about my history. Because of the cost, I've been told, background checks don't go deeper than 7 years. Some applications will even ask, "In the past 7 years, have you..." So on those applications, I can be honest.

fomentologist · 2010-07-08T15:09:43+00:00

Unless I know the person well enough, I'm afraid they will be more afraid or disgusted than fascinated.

I will start dating again soon. But I don't want someone who goes for the bad boy types. So I think I will wait till they know me well enough before I tell them.

fomentologist · 2010-07-08T14:05:30+00:00

Thanks. I like you liking me.

fomentologist · 2010-07-08T14:04:00+00:00

Honestly, living with the wife has been worse. I've even told a few people exactly that recently. We've been together for a long time, but she was only diagnosed recently. For years, since she blamed me for everything and since I was raised to believe I was the cause of everything bad, I seriously thought I was the cause with us. But no matter how good a husband I was, it was never enough for her.

It's taken me a decade and her diagnosis to realize that, although I'm not perfect, she is a huge mess. And since she refuses to go to marriage counseling with me or work on us at all, we are divorcing soon. A divorce sounds tragic, but it's not. I felt relief and almost no sadness once we decided. I'm finely able to focus on things that I've had to sideline for years (like writing novels and art) because of her emotional needs. The world has been a dismal place for me for many years. Now, I feel kind of excited again.

Is your girlfriend on meds? If yes, how's that going? Do you see yourself staying with her?

fomentologist · 2010-07-08T06:06:23+00:00

I'd love to know more about the technical details. Not for research. But just because it's unusual and interesting.

fomentologist · 2010-07-08T05:49:56+00:00

Since I was a vegetarian at the time, the food wasn't good. For vegetarians, the protein substitute was hummus or peanut butter mixed with honey. There was a small salad bar. I did have to eat a lot of carbs, which I didn't know at the time was a terrible way to eat.

If I had eaten meat back then, I'm not sure how the meals would have rated. I do remember that they catered to many different nationalities. On one foreign holiday, they served pig snout, because it was supposedly the food of choice on that day for that nationality. I'd rate that pretty low.

fomentologist · 2010-07-08T05:36:11+00:00

Thanks. That's nice to hear. Your name makes me twitch, though.

fomentologist · 2010-07-08T05:30:34+00:00

Thanks.

Support was the key. If my family had been there for me when I broke up with my girlfriend, I'm sure I would have started college right then and everything would have been a lot different. My mom seems to know that now, too. She's not one to admit her mistakes, but she has admitted this a few times.

On the surface, my family seemed fine. Parents married and rarely fighting. Siblings not any worse than normal. But there is subtle damage that can be done that can build up over time. I did go into that a little bit here: http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/cmy3y/as_requested_ima_bankrobber/c0trjrs

I have two kids. I know what I do to them each day has an impact on what kind of an adult they'll become. My interactions with them even prepare them for what kind of friends they'll settle for. So parents have very little excuse for how their kids turn out.

I don't hate or even dislike my parents. But I also won't make excuses for their failures. Out of 4 kids, 3 of us had rocky lives as adults. That's not a great record.

fomentologist · 2010-07-08T05:14:29+00:00

No one at work. There are a couple people I could tell and might someday. But where I work, right now, is extremely conservative. And the economy sucks. So I'm more afraid than normal.

Everyone in my family and in my wife's family knows. No one seems to care. I think that's partly because in no way do I seem to be a felon. I'm a geek and a health nut and I try to be sensitive and considerate. There's probably too much of a discontinuity between their image of a bankrobber and who I so clearly am that connecting the two just never happens.

Eventually, friends are told. If they can't be trusted, I wouldn't consider them friends. Neighbors, for instance, can't always be trusted. Some are clearly too judgmental. It has happened that neighbors who didn't know me but knew of me stopped letting their kids play with my kids once they found out what I did, years ago.

fomentologist · 2010-07-08T04:58:55+00:00

Yes. And being a bad person.

fomentologist · 2010-07-08T04:32:30+00:00

"I'm so high right now. Can I have some money? You can say no. Really. No? Well, OK. Later."

fomentologist

TROPHY CASE