From an old lag...

When you're looking at a long stretch, you can't afford to dwell on life outside. You have no life outside. There is no life outside. You have to live within mental limits every bit as restrictive as the physical constraints that now bound your life. I learnt all this the hard way. You don't have to go through what I have gone through. Listen to me. Listen to me...

Don't think in terms of friends. You have no friends. People you think are your friends will screw you over. Way to stop this? Don't let them in. Me? I'm not your friend, get that idea out of your head right now. I will screw you over worse than any of them. I've just decided to take a liking to you - take you under my wing. For now. I might easily change my mind tomorrow.

Dreams? Hopes? Plans? Forget them all. Yeah, pick them up again when you are outside - if they still mean anything to you then. You will be a different person when you get out. In the meantime; no dreams, no hopes, no plans. You have to be a robot, a machine. Only robots survive this place.

So, yeah. Live small. Live controlled. Don't let yourself see what you have become. And, maybe, you will get through this.

In the meantime, can you tell me why my bars seem to be horizontal when everyone else's are vertical?