Torture Vs Abuse

[Ronin]

It is common during torture techniques to get information to go back and forth to confuse and weaken the victim.

^ This.

Or: 'Kindness' still guts me. &
Learning some times, kindness really is kindness and not something else = A Journey For A Lifetime.

 

[Aggie]

If information is their goal. If their goal is simply to cause you continious pain and to get you to comply, then no. And "being nice" is fake during torture anyway...as goes the remainder of that post:

Explain?

 

[lostforgottensoul]

@Aggie, explain what exactly? How i was tortured just for the fun of it and there was no down time or true nices-ness? How psycopaths have no true nice-ness and its all fake ass shit? Really? If you want my personal story it can be found in trauma diary members, the first post, but this thread isnt about me, its about torture vs abuse and the difference between them.

 

[Weemie]

When you are being tortured, those period of niceness do not seem to be fake, even if they are. I believe is the point that @Aggie is attempting to make. Not only that, but there are so many degrees and levels.

Those who tortured me, in the legal definition of the word, did in fact intersperse their acts of torture with being nice. Urging me to comply, wondering if perhaps they could catch more of my flies with honey. Because if I complied, I got rewarded, and I latched onto that.

When you are a child, or when you are broken down to the point where it's all a blur, acts of kindness simply do not seem fake. They seem real. And honestly, I have some doubts that it wasn't real, for me. I genuinely believe in those moments where they were being nice to me, it was because they were proud of me--proud of themselves for having accomplished their goals. Proud of me for bending.

They were proud, they needed what they wanted, and so they were kind.

 

[Friday]

It is common during torture techniques to get information to go back and forth to confuse and weaken the victim. It can be a part of the torture routine.

Absolutely. It's an extremely effective tactic.

It's also found in other ways, sometimes. People trying to be nice, or people actually being nice, with no end game whatsoever. The moments of kindness are... Difficult to describe, sometimes. Sometimes they strip you of your humanity, sometimes they give you a piece of your soul back.

People who are skilled at torture and interrogation really know how to use that. Other times it just happens. And, from the other side of the street, knowing that the kindest thing you can do at all -in certain situations- is to show no kindness.

Like @Cashew & @lightraze, seriously f*cks with sorting out what's what.

 

[lostforgottensoul]

Those who tortured me, in the legal definition of the word, did in fact intersperse their acts of torture with being nice. Urging me to comply, wondering if perhaps they could catch more of my flies with honey. Because if I complied, I got rewarded, and I latched onto that.

Mine did as well. I guess the stage where Im at is trying to see things as they are, and they werent actual true nice-ness. It wasnt real. It was an act. The point of the post that was quote orginally, I was advising that psycopaths can make one think and feel its true nice-ness when its not. So I was just trying to put that back into context.

 

[Ronin]

Ah, two different things.

Talking oneself out of trauma bonding, vs. talking of any merit and kindness in one's torturers.

Quite different topics, even though related.

(I need my usual asterisk here. Will come back to add words or rephrase or continue etc, when I can persuade myself it's academic, in some fashion.)

 

[Ronin]

is to show no kindness.

Yep. As that's both normal, and expectable, for the situation.
It's normalizing. It's soothing. It's belonging, not spinning everything out of senses far worse.

Cool water, cruelty, at times.
Still too much by little drops, but better than lack of it.