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Torture Vs Abuse

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But I guess that's the grey area though, that point between when you're just acting out because you aren't in control and don't have a good way to solve anything, and the point where you fully have self-control and still choose to subject someone to pain.

Well, sadiatic pleasure is hard to understand but I think one that is lashing out beating their kids cant be defined as torture unless one was calm, one planned it, and inflects high intensity abuse on another for their own sadiatic pleasure, or for whatever reason.

What separates the two?

I personally cant see a defined line, no matter which way I think about it, I always see a combined grey area where abuse becomes torture. Like a bit of overlap no matter which way I turn it.

I do agree its a certian type of abuse though. Just not all black & white; I do see overlap grey areas.
 
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I haven't gotten all the way through this yet and will need to take some time with it. I am just starting to come to where I can admit, even to myself, that some of the abuse I endured as a small child was really torture. I'm trying to stay with my pounding heart and not space out too badly.

But anyway, I think it's partly a matter of intensity, but also of intent. Torture is premeditated and planned to achieve a specific outcome.

That's the best I can manage at the moment. Good question.
 
Marking the thread for future response.

Basics being there's so much in terms of variables. It's not one thing (pain & suffering respectively) or a set of techniques (interrogation, respectively) that make something torture and other things 'just bad abuse'. What's done and by whom and for what reasons and to whom and how and with what effects, both intended and collateral, all play a role.
 
I think it's partly a matter of intensity, but also of intent. Torture is premeditated and planned to achieve a specific outcome.
This is where I think I'm closest to...I think.

But like @sun seeker ( I think) I'm kind of looking for reasons to reassure myself that my abuse didn't cross the line into torture like my T keeps telling me. I don't seem to be winning that argument, and I don't like that.
 
To me, torture is the purposeful actions to cause either belief of oncoming death, or the wish for death to come.

My experience of abuse did cause me to believe I was going to die, or wanted to die but I don't believe that was my my abusers intention....So, to me, it wasn't torture....though I could say it felt like it....but it wasn't.
 
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my abuse didn't cross the line into torture like my T keeps telling me.

My therapist calls my past 'torture' too but it doesnt feel that way to me.


What's done and by whom and for what reasons and to whom and how and with what effects, both intended and collateral, all play a role.

So in other words, lots of gray? Thats how Im reading that. To me, all of that reads that there cant be a definative line drawn because of all of those variables. Am I reading that right?
 
that the line can be drawn on multiple axes.

Ok, i can see that. I just see that and I guess if they overlap where abuse starts to turn torture and can be seen either way depending on how you look at it (and define it) then its torture as torture is abuse and would be seen as abuse either way.

Got confusing there for a bit but i see what you are saying.
 
My thoughts on the subject are simple, and they are just that: My thoughts.
Abuse is something that someone does for personal gratification: whether sexual, power/ dominance/ of pure narcissism.
Torture is something that is done for political or ideological reasons; a method of gaining information, or cooperation from the tortured.
 
See the thing here though is that if the sexual abuse were intentionally done to harm the other person as the primary motivator, not simply for sexual satisfaction or dominance, but just to see the person suffer and it were done in a calculated manner, then I would see that as torture.

My second childhood sexual abuser abused me and his enjoyment came from my emotional pain and confusion and fear. It was calculated and scheduled (specific known times each week - unless something interferred with him getting away with it). I was trapped as he conned my parents and everyone that he was "just" a teacher.

So I've always considered it abuse not torture. But my first sexual abuser was "just" standard sexual pleasure and that has been much easier to heal from. I don't know...but I'm interested in this posts debate/question.
 
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