Disgraced former Theranos CEO Elizabeth Holmes said it’s been “hell and torture” behind bars during a rare interview from prison, revealing how her life has drastically changed since she has been locked up on fraud and conspiracy charges.

“Human beings are not made to be in cells,” Holmes, 41, told People in a story published on Wednesday, February 12. “It goes so far beyond understanding. I’m trying really hard not to tear up right now. I’m trying to grow, as every moment matters.”

Elizabeth broke her silence from Federal Prison Camp Bryan in Texas, detailing her regimented daily schedule and how it’s an ongoing struggle to be separated from her family.

Holmes said her days begin with a 5 a.m. wake-up, after which she typically eats fruit for breakfast and then does a 40-minute workout.

At 8 a.m., Holmes checks in at the education building where she works as a re-entry clerk and earns 31 cents an hour helping fellow women inmates who are preparing for their release by writing résumés and gearing up to apply for government benefits. She is also serving as a law clerk behind bars and teaches French classes.

“So many of these women don’t have anyone, and once they’re in there, they’re forgotten,” she explained.

Holmes said that she sticks to a largely vegan diet for lunch and dinner. There are five roll calls every day, and she is allocated 300 minutes on the phone every month, often waiting in an hour line for the two calls she usually makes to loved ones on a daily basis. She can see her family on the weekends although conjugal visits are not permitted.

Watching her husband, Billy Evans, and kids, William, 3, and Invicta, 2, leave “shatters my world every single time,” Holmes said. “The people I love the most have to walk away as I stand here, a prisoner, and my reality sinks in.”

Once a week, Holmes attends cognitive and behavioral therapy for PTSD overseen by a psychiatrist. She also counsels inmates who are rape survivors, which Holmes finds solace in.

Holmes surrendered into custody in May 2023. She was charged and convicted of wire fraud and conspiracy to commit wire fraud in 2022 after the value of her billion-dollar tech start-up, Theranos, plummeted upon revelations that its blood-testing technology was fraudulent.

Holmes and her ex/former partner Sunny Balwani were charged by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) in 2018 and he was later sentenced to 13 years for defrauding investors and patients about the company’s business and technology in 2022.

Holmes has already served two years of an 11-year sentence, which has since been reduced to nine years for good behavior.

“I’m not the same person I was back then,” Holmes declared while maintaining her innocence today and noting that she would have handled things differently.

“It’s surreal. People who have never met me believe so strongly about me,” she explained. “They don’t understand who I am. It forces you to spend a lot of time questioning belief and hoping the truth will prevail. I am walking by faith and, ultimately, the truth.”

Holmes said that upon her release on April 3, 2032, she plans to fight for reform of the criminal justice system and even recently drafted an American Freedom Act bill.

“There is not a day I have not continued to work on my research and inventions,” she shared. “I remain completely committed to my dream of making affordable healthcare solutions available to everyone.”