What Happens When You Spend Weeks, Months, or Years in Solitary Confinement

The lone­li­ness and iso­la­tion of quar­an­tine is noth­ing to laugh about, though we might have heard grim jokes about soli­tary con­fine­ment in the last few months. We’ve also seen over­wrought com­par­isons of social dis­tanc­ing to prison. These are, I think, release valves for real pain. One hopes the har­row­ing expe­ri­ence of the pan­dem­ic will give Amer­i­cans some com­pas­sion for the lives of pris­on­ers, a shock­ing num­ber of whom spend years, even decades, in soli­tary, most­ly deprived of nat­ur­al light, human con­tact, enter­tain­ment, edu­ca­tion, or a change of scenery. It seems, inar­guably, like a form of tor­ture.

Unsur­pris­ing­ly, soli­tary con­fine­ment does real harm to the body and brain. Even inmates placed in soli­tary for a few days expe­ri­ence symp­toms of acute anx­i­ety and depres­sion. “Iso­lat­ed inmates often report symp­toms sim­i­lar to those of hyper­ten­sion, such as chron­ic headaches, trem­bling sweaty palms, extreme dizzi­ness and heart pal­pi­ta­tions,” Mary Mur­phy Cor­co­ran writes at NYU’s Applied Psy­chol­o­gy Opus. “Inmates in iso­la­tion may also have dif­fi­cul­ty sleep­ing, and some may expe­ri­ence insom­nia…. Con­se­quent­ly, inmates report feel­ings of chron­ic lethar­gy.” Over the years, this stress exacts its long-term toll.

In the Slate video at the top, for­mer inmate Five Mual­imm-Ak describes the five years he spent in soli­tary dur­ing a 12-year prison sen­tence. His account and those of oth­ers were recent­ly col­lect­ed in a book with the grim­ly evoca­tive title Hell is a Very Small Place. For­mer soli­tary inmate Ter­rence Slater describes a kind of fur­ther soli­tary of the mind: how impor­tant it is to lim­it the amount of time one thinks about loved ones dur­ing a 23-hour day alone in a cell, or “you’re going to lose your mind in there.” It’s esti­mat­ed that rough­ly 80,000 inmates in the U.S. are placed in such con­di­tions every year.

Giv­en enough time, one may lit­er­al­ly lose one’s mind, as Robert King dis­cov­ered. King was “con­fined in a 6x9-foot cell for almost 30 years,” Elana Blan­co-Suarez writes at Psy­chol­o­gy Today. “King knew that soli­tary con­fine­ment was chang­ing the way his brain worked. When he final­ly left his cell, he real­ized he had trou­ble rec­og­niz­ing faces and had to retrain his eyes to learn what a face was like.” He could no longer fol­low sim­ple direc­tions. “It was as if his brain had erased all those capa­bil­i­ties that were no longer nec­es­sary for sur­vival in a cell no big­ger than the back of a pick-up truck.”

Pro­longed peri­ods of sen­so­ry depri­va­tion can be espe­cial­ly inju­ri­ous for pris­on­ers who go into soli­tary with pre-exist­ing men­tal health issues, and “men­tal­ly impaired pris­on­ers are dis­pro­por­tion­ate­ly rep­re­sent­ed in soli­tary con­fine­ment,” Kirsten Weir notes at the Amer­i­can Psy­cho­log­i­cal Asso­ci­a­tion. One 2005 study found that the “preva­lence of men­tal ill­ness in admin­is­tra­tive seg­re­ga­tion” in Col­orado “was greater than 35 per­cent, com­pared with a men­tal ill­ness rate of less than 25 per­cent among the gen­er­al prison pop­u­la­tion.”

Clin­i­cal pro­fes­sor of psy­chi­a­try at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Col­orado Jef­frey Met­zn­er argues that the “cor­rec­tion­al sys­tem has become our men­tal health care sys­tem for too many peo­ple,” using abu­sive, bar­bar­ic prac­tices that haven’t exist­ed in men­tal health wards for decades. The effects of soli­tary con­fine­ment sug­gest that “it doesn’t make facil­i­ties safer, doesn’t make our com­mu­ni­ties safer, and that peo­ple are devel­op­ing men­tal and phys­i­cal ail­ments because of this prac­tice.”

So says James Burns, a for­mer­ly incar­cer­at­ed film­mak­er who vol­un­tar­i­ly entered soli­tary con­fine­ment for 30 days in 2016 and livestreamed the whole expe­ri­ence. See his last four hours above and read at Vice about his rea­sons for sub­mit­ting him­self to hell—not a “dark dun­geon,” he writes, but “a very ster­ile, bright hell” which is, “more than any­thing… a mind fuck.”

Relat­ed Con­tent: 

Pris­ons Around the U.S. Are Ban­ning and Restrict­ing Access to Books

Inmates in New York Prison Defeat Harvard’s Debate Team: A Look Inside the Bard Prison Ini­tia­tive

Art Class Instead Of Jail: New Pro­gram Lets Young Offend­ers Take Free Art Class­es Rather Than Spend Time in the Crim­i­nal Sys­tem

Josh Jones is a writer and musi­cian based in Durham, NC. Fol­low him at @jdmagness.


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Comments (9)
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  • Jeremy says:

    You get real­ly bored. Only escape is imag­i­na­tion. Time pass­es by you’ll begin to not care for time itself. This should be a sim­ple out­come. All oppor­tu­ni­ty cut off. Hope you got a strong willpow­er. Then you’ll adapt. You will plan every oppor­tu­ni­ty to make sure escap­ing is a hun­dred per­cent pos­si­ble. Your basic sens­es will go into over­drive a sim­ple scent that’s for­eign will be like a train. Ect. Vibra­tions in the air around you. It’ll be suf­fo­cat­ing unable to ignore them. Most would turn vio­lent or self harm­ing instead of assess­ment of the sit­u­a­tion to make the best of it entire­ly. Depend­ing on how long you’ll ignore emo­tions
    Focus will be entire­ly on move­ments inter­ac­tions it real­ly depends on the per­son­’s per­son­al­i­ty. The hard­est part would be no com­pan­ion­ship as a pos­si­bil­i­ty.

  • Jeremy says:

    Just Read the rest 30days is a joke. That’s noth­ing. Try total iso­la­tion no friends fam­i­ly no vis­i­tors no one to talk to noth­ing. Food water shel­ter. Phys­i­cal activ­i­ty is key to sur­vival espe­cial­ly in such a lim­it­ed space with noth­ing to dri­ve your adren­a­line. Who would will­ing­ly do that for 2 years with noth­ing to look for­ward to after it’s over just the escape.

  • WW says:

    I enjoyed my time in soli­tary; I’m my own best com­pa­ny, and it allowed me to think about things in peace! It was the PERFECT oppor­tu­ni­ty to med­i­tate, and prac­tice mind­ful­ness exer­cis­es.

  • ENGLISH EX CON says:

    I AM 43. I AM LONDON BORN & BRED. I HAVE BEEN BEING LOCKED UP SINCE AGE 15.
    SECURE UNITS, YOUNG OFFENDERS & LOTS OF JAILS.OVER 30 ESTABLISHMENTS. I HAVE SERVED 17 YRS ALL IN ALL. I WAS A REAL LIVEWIRE. I WENT AGAINST THE SYSTEM AT EVERY TWIST & TURN. GUYS FROM MY AREA WITH A VERY HIGH CRIME RATE SAW IT AS A BADGE OF HONOUR NOT JUST TO GET LOCKED UP BUT TO BE AS DISRUPTIVE AS POSSIBLE IN THE SYSTEM WHILE HELD IN CUSTODY.ATTACKING OTHER INMATES & SCREWS (GUARDS), DRUG DEALING, HOOCH, EXTORTION.
    AS A RESULT I WOULD SPEND LONG PERIODS OF TIME IN ISOLATION, THE LONGEST 17 MONTHS, I WAS RELEASED BACK INTO THE COMMUNITY AFTER NOT MIXING WITH ANOTHER HUMAN EXCEPT GUARDS IN RIOT EQUIPMENT.
    IT CAN BREAK YOU OR MAKE YOU STRONGER.
    ROUTINE, ROUTINE, ROUTINE.
    START A STRICT ROUTINE & STICK TO IT LIKE CLOCKWORK EVERYDAY.
    PHYSICAL EXERCISE. EDUCATION. LETTER WRITING.IN UK YOU CAN HAVE A RADIO AFTER 6 MTHS OR SO, THAT HELPED ALOT, GAVE ME A CONNECTION TO THE OUTSIDE.IN UK YOU ARE ENTITLED TO A DAILY SHOWER, PHONECALL, 1 HOUR EXERCISE OUTSIDE ON YOUR OWN.YOU ALSO SEE A DR ONCE A DAY.
    I SPENT NEARLY 5YRS IN SOLITARY ALL IN & IT MADE ME A MUCH STRONGER GUY, PHYSICALLY & MENTALLY. YOU JUST HAVE TO SHUT OF THE OUTSIDE WORLD, ACCEPT THE SITUATION YOU PUT YOURSELF IN & MAKE THE MOST OF IT LOL. ONCE YOU ACCEPT YOUR SITUATION & DON’T JUST THINK ABOUT GETTING OUT EVERY WAKING HOUR IT GETS ALOT EASIER. IN FACT I USED TO ALWAYS HAVE A SMILE ON MY FACE, ALWAYS HAPPY, POLITE & UPBEAT & ACTUALLY USED TO TELL THE GUARDS I ACTUALLY PREFERRED TO BE ON MY OWN! ( BIT OF REVERSE PSYCHOLOGY) IT SOMETIMES GOT ME BACK TO THE MAIN PRISON QUICKER BECAUSE THEY SAW IT DIDN’T HAVE THE DESIRED EFFECT ON ME.
    ALSO & THIS IS THE HARDEST THING. YOU HAVE TO ACCEPT YOU CANNOT HELP YOUR LOVED ONES ON THE OUTSIDE, THEY WILL HAVE TO FEND FOR THEMSELVES JUST AS YOU HAVE. POWERLESSNESS. IT’S HARD TO OVERCOME BUT OVERCOME IT YOU MUST.

  • ENGLISH EX CON says:

    YEAH AFTER ALL THE HUSTLE & BUSTLE OF THE WING IT’S NICE TO GET A BIT OF PEACE & QUIET LOL. AS LONG AS YOU AINT GOT PEOPLE TALKING FROM THEIR WINDOWS ALL NIGHT.

  • ENGLISH EX CON says:

    YEAH AFTER ALL THE HUSTLE & BUSTLE OF THE WING IT’S NICE TO GET A BIT OF PEACE & QUIET LOL. AS LONG AS YOU AINT GOT PEOPLE TALKING FROM THEIR WINDOWS ALL NIGHT.

  • Stirling says:

    Hey, I can imag­ine that real iso­la­tion from God in hell will make this only frac­tion­sl, and all the while God is with out­stretched arms say­ing: “Come, be rec­on­ciled in’re­la­tion­ship’­to Me.”

    Believe in Jesus Who died on the cross for our sins and res­ur­rect­ed so we don’t have to go on in iso­lat­ed quar­ters with­out the Beau­ti­ful God Who sees and knows all things.

  • Anika Borgeson says:

    so this is def­i­nite­ly a more rare sce­nario and not as bad as an actu­al prison cell, but I grew up in a sort of soli­tary con­fine­ment cre­at­ed by my moth­er. no toys, no books, no form of enter­tain­ment, even­tu­al­ly a cam­era so I could­n’t move, I had paper for writ­ing sen­tences (same thing over and over) and that helped because I would write sto­ries even though that would mean phys­i­cal pun­ish­ment. blinds had to stay closed, but I fig­ured out how to tell time by the sun pat­terns on the floor from the small win­dow above the blinds, and that also helped with the men­tal agony, I don’t think there’s a bet­ter way of describ­ing it if you haven’t expe­ri­enced it. besides school, that was all I knew, food and water brought to my room, nev­er left with the fam­i­ly, strong­ly relat­ed to Har­ry Pot­ter being locked in a clos­et or rapun­zel being locked in a tow­er. I remem­ber scream­ing bloody mur­der for hours some­times. absolute­ly los­ing my mind and being in a lot of psy­cho­log­i­cal pain. dread­ing breaks from school because that meant any­where from 2 weeks to 3 months of soli­tary con­fine­ment with some­times a few hours of a break if my mom was feel­ing nice enough to let me write sen­tences and watch the oth­er kids have fun, but it was bet­ter than sit­ting in that room with noth­ing to keep me busy but writ­ing sen­tences and track­ing time by the sun pat­terns, which took me a while to fig­ure out how to do let alone that it helped a lit­tle. I also remem­ber talk­ing to peo­ple that did­n’t exist, pray­ing all the time because what­ev­er i thought was up there in the sky was all I had to talk to. I remem­ber pur­pose­ful­ly scream­ing while my mom was home to piss her off so I would­n’t just be sit­ting in silence alone even if that meant phys­i­cal pain and fear and get­ting screamed at. I remem­ber hav­ing reg­u­lar pan­ic attacks and being on heavy meds to be able to sleep at night espe­cial­ly as time peri­ods increased as I got old­er. this last­ed and pro­gres­sive­ly got more inten­sive between ages 7 and 12 at which point I was removed from the home because my men­tal health was past the point of recov­ery and obvi­ous safe­ty issues, if not phys­i­cal­ly then men­tal­ly. I would bang my head against walls repeat­ed­ly and scratch words into the paint, rip my hair, eye­lash­es, and eye­brows out in huge chunks, I was extreme­ly angry and even homi­ci­dal, but the most con­sis­tent thing I can remem­ber besides the same days lived out over and over is how excru­ci­at­ing the lack of human con­tact and noise was, just over­all lone­li­ness, hav­ing noth­ing to dis­tract me from that pain oth­er that phys­i­cal abuse and a lot of yelling and scream­ing, lis­ten­ing to the voic­es of my fam­i­ly under the door and try­ing to look out through the small crack between the door and the floor before they put a cam­era in there, scream­ing when noone was home to hear me and to get atten­tion when there was, over­all a lot of psy­cho­log­i­cal pain and feel­ing clin­i­cal­ly insane. I’m 18 now, I’ve been out of the worst of it since I was twelve but there’s been a lot of dif­fer­ent trau­ma and I was reuni­fied with my par­ents by the fos­ter sys­tem at 15, thank God it was­n’t the same house because I would­n’t have been able to han­dle that. even being around that fam­i­ly was hard enough, and I don’t talk to them any­more. I’m still deal­ing with the effects of it to this day, I’m still pret­ty bad off but at least I can some­what func­tion now, I was basi­cal­ly mute for years, I tried to be nor­mal and still try but I can always feel that some­thing is deeply wrong and am always very afraid and con­scious of peo­ple being able to notice that there’s some­thing real­ly wrong. I feel like most of my nor­mal­cy has come from prac­tice and com­plete­ly sep­a­rat­ing myself from the kid I was. I can sleep with­out meds now, I still am afraid of peo­ple and don’t real­ly know how to func­tion social­ly so I usu­al­ly dis­tract myself by dis­as­so­ci­at­ing into my phone. I don’t have pan­ic attacks any­more unless some­thing direct­ly trig­gers me but most times it’s just severe dis­as­so­ci­a­tion, thank­ful­ly because that’s just a calm, I’m not even here, com­plete­ly zoned out numb place that feels famil­iar and safe. I don’t have extreme anger any­more although the mood swings are still hor­ri­ble and I’m on meds for that, the anx­i­ety, and the depres­sion. I still deal with a lot of para­noia, obses­sive think­ing, hyper­fix­at­ing on things, cre­at­ing sce­nar­ios in my head that don’t exist, some­times just liv­ing in a real­i­ty that isn’t real to dis­tract myself from know­ing there’s some­thing real­ly wrong with me. I don’t like think­ing about it because I doubt it will ever change and all I can do is learn how to mask it and car­ry on with life in the ways that I can. on my psych eval it came out with very high masochism, max depen­den­cy lev­els, a max on some­thing else I think it was avoidant, and bor­der­line all in the per­son­al­i­ty range. I still am not ful­ly aware of how peo­ple per­ceive me from an out­side per­spec­tive and a part of me real­ly does­n’t want to know. all I know is that any­one who real­ly knows me or has spent enough time with me knows there’s a lot wrong, most of them don’t blame me for it but have admit­ted I’m real­ly hard to under­stand and be around because of it. it feels a lit­tle hope­less some­times espe­cial­ly since my expe­ri­ence seems to be a rare excep­tion, but it’s kind of sad that I relate to so many of these prison sto­ries. I kin­da came here try­ing to fig­ure out more about why I am the way I am

  • Danny says:

    Ani­ka that sounds awful, I’m sor­ry to hear it. Hope you’re doing bet­ter these days.

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