Boneyman said:
have you ever had a friend who has spent a long time in prison? and who is released? or maybe even someone who has just gotten out of the military?
have you ever seen how they need to have "rules" and people telling them what to do, and threatening them with punishment, or else they simply don't know how to act.
some of them freak out because of these feelings, and actually look for a way to get back into prison, or they re-enlist, even though if you had asked them while they were on the inside, or while they were enlisted, they would have quickly told you they desired freedom. i've seen this happen to people who were incarcerated, and to people who were enlisted -- not everyone, for sure, but some. some kind of personality quirk, i guess . . ?
The term is "becoming Institutionalized." Not a quirk of a persons personality, rather a systematic indoctrination that actually becomes "the accepted norm" of how one lives their life. It becomes a "safe haven" for them, and when they are apart from it, it can be so very frightening, as if they have lost all aspects of the accepted "normality" they were accustomed to.