Sorry to hear that. Such a thing would ruin my life. But you seem to have the wherewithal to overcome your misfortune.
It did ruin my life. Apart from cops jumping on me every time they see me i have this mark on my record, im branded for life now, a former convict... These days an employer wants to know your criminal record which is unfair because iv done the time and wasn't in for a criminal offence...
What i find i have now is this prison PTSD... If i sit and recall my time in prison i will often cry... If i speak to someone about prison who has never been in i will often snap at something they say even though i know its not their intention to hurt me...
Havre u heard of the cognitive dissonance theory? It can get complex but it basically says that our beliefs and actions need to be in alignment other wise it creates a kind of mental stress, an innocuous torment... The firmer the belief the more stressful it is... Therefore the mind quickly tries to resolve this imbalance by changing either the belief or the action...
A great example is a teen who starts smoking despite knowing that it is bad for his health... He could stop smoking or he could justify it buy saying something like "i only have one a day so its ok" or "i exercise and eat well so its ok"...
It is usually easier to change the belief but sometimes its the action that needs to be changed...
Now... Being in prison i had the firm belief that only criminals belong there. I could of changed my belief and went along with what many people say to me "well you shouldn't have..."... Hearing that from my mum really hurt... But now i can see that she had no other choice... She couldn't change the action of me being in prison and so had to change her belief in order to get out of that painful mental state...
But i didn't change my belief... So there i was being forced to do something which i disagreed with, namely being in prison without having committed a crime... And so i kind of psychoanalyzed myself from this and developed a theory. Then I learnt about cognitive dissonance theory which confirmed my own observations and added even more insight...
It turns out that my situation has its own paradigm within the theory of cognitive dissonance called induced compliance... The reason i bring this up is because i am seeing the exact same thing happening in our society now...
8 months ago we all had the strong belief that we can go to mass or go to church when ever we wanted...
But when covid struck they told us we couldn't go to church... Our religion is one of our strongest beliefs... But the mental discomfort was so intense that many people altered their belief... Now they believe that not attending church is justified by covid... We all believed in our freedom, liberty and human rights but now many people have accepted that under the covid justification...
But then there are the people who will not move from their beliefs... They don't agree with being held from church, work, socializing. They don't agree with lockdowns, masks and social distancing... These people, like myself, are experiencing induced compliance. Its just like jail, even worse... At least in jail you socialize with others... The lack of human interaction is another cause for mental concern as well... And iv heard psychologists say that the effects of this won't become apparent until later on which is what i experienced as well... Its an insidious torment...
I find it difficult to explain so i hope that made some sense
