Other Kidnapping, Rape And/or Torture

[Eleven]

I'm new here, as in this is my first post ever (yes I know I should post in the introductions thread first). But I really felt compelled to let you know that it is this thread that has made me sign up here. I wanted to thank all of you who have been posting here for your honesty and integrity in talking about all of this.
I have felt so so isolated with the things I have experienced and often scared away from 'help' forums because of the way torture was either glorified or mocked/disbelieved/minimized.
I am in the early stages of dealing with this part of things in my trauma therapy and am terrified to approach it and still very tentative with finding words. But these posts have helped so much just to see there are very genuine people out there who have been through actual hell. I know better than to use that term lightly. I really wanted to let you all know I've read every word of what's been written and it matters to me a lot. So thank you.

 

[Ed Norton]

I've been tortured with asphyxiation, handcuffs, tasing and burned with a taser ( intentionally arcing it again the handcuffs to create a heating element) and being hit/punched repeatedly in the back.

 

[Ronin]

('Like' for 'glad you're posting', Ed, and a lot of sympathizing feelings that are also 'anything anyone may help with' concern and the like, not for what they did to you.)

 

[Deleted member 29961]

Torture, twisted f*cking word, torture. Torture is abuse but abuse is not necessarily torture. Torture is the most extreme use of fear. It is fear beyond fear, it is beyond terror, horrifically beyond terror. It is so far beyond that someone who has not suffered it can not even begin to fathom its depth. It is meant to reduce you to the most primitive instinct, survival. Once at this point you are broken and like putty in you torturer's hands, you will do anything to survive, anything.

 

[Ronin]

Spent a few thinking how to phrase this, didn't get any closer - though 'you'd do anything', hasn't really been my experience. Heck, part of why some matters got worse than they were was precisely because I wasn't willing to do 'anything', anything would be doing what was requested of me and simpler solutions, for both me & the people who were there with me.

Different things than was my usual set of reactions? Wildly different things because I didn't give enough of a damn for a past, it ceased to exist, and future seemed nonexistant so why bother? Yes.

But 'anything'? I'm not so sure about. The awareness there's still people to not compromise, people for whom I must care even if I were too exhausted to? Didn't suddenly eff off; if nothing else, that determination got stronger.

 

[joeylittle]

But 'anything'? I'm not so sure about. The awareness there's still people to not compromise, people for whom I must care even if I were too exhausted to? Didn't suddenly eff off; if nothing else, that determination got stronger.

My experience of this has more to do with (for awhile) a kind of double-blind. So, when it was "do this thing that is impossible or this other thing that is impossible will happen" - I would be surprised at what I was able to do, things that I'd never, ever be capable of without being under that level of duress and control.

I don't know better how to explain it, without using examples. But I guess here's one, read or skip as you like:

Spoiler: detail, graphic content

My diary has more details about this, but the short version is I was supposed to hammer into my own skull with a small sledgehammer, hard. If I didn't, He would hammer on this baby rabbit instead. I have a deep empathy for and love of animals, maybe more than people. I would do anything to keep him from killing that baby creature. But I couldn't make myself break my own skull. Couldn't. So he killed the rabbit, and left me alone with it for awhile. He came back with another one, and this time, wanted me to tape a plastic bag around my neck and kill myself that way, or he would kill the rabbit again. I taped that bag over my head and around my neck without a thought in my head except being glad that I could save the rabbit. And I sat there and asphyxiated. At a certain point, that survival point, where the body is more in control than the mind, my arms wanted to rip the bag. But I could still see the rabbit, so I clenched them and didnt.

It is meant to reduce you to the most primitive instinct, survival. Once at this point you are broken and like putty in you torturer's hands, you will do anything to survive, anything.

I would say almost - it's not so much doing anything to survive, even though that's always what the body will want, when it believes it's going to die. But it's just that you will do what you are told. My captivity was very accelerated, and that may be why I can remember different phases of being broken. I remember not wanting to die. I also remember wanting to do what he wanted. And some steps in-between. But at the end, it was only wanting to do it right, to do what I was told, and at the very end, there weren't even any consequences, really. I wasn't doing it 'in order to...'. I was just doing it. That is what I don't know how to ever come back from.

 

[Ronin]

But at the end, there weren't even any consequences, really. I wasn't doing it 'in order to...'. I was just doing it. That is what I don't know how to ever come back from.

Having to choose who dies and what kind of death and how much, doesn't sound inconsequential to me, though?

Neither does the kind of triaging you were made to do, still trying to protect who you could ('who' very much on purpose; non-human people like pets, going by the example alone, are still people, if I didn't go with whole the clusterf*ck 'self protection' in these situations is; it's not you I just have no idea how to address it well, yet).

You were moving in a situation designed to stop you. You came forward, to -now- you.

Helluva good navigation, you.

 

[The ANP]

I was kidnapped, raped and tortured I think it happened over about a 14 hour period. I say torture because these were people I knew who wanted to break me and bring me down, They convinced me with a few mock executions that I was going to die then made me do dehumanizing things in order to survive. I think some of the politic in domestic female torture is a political power, the dominance of the Patriarchy. How the hell else could these 5 teen aged white kids be able to do something like that and suffer no social consequences, meanwhile I, the victim live in fear of telling anybody about it because or retaliation and dismissal. So I would argue violence against women is a political act, validated and covered up by state powers.

 

[Friday]

To avoid a thread-jack pulling this piece over here for a min

... Yes - for a time I was living in the Republic of Basement.

LMFAO :roflmao: I so did that! At the time. Gave various geographical names to things/people/situations.

In the Kingdom of Why Should I Give A f*ck, on the Isle of Blight, on the Continent of VeryBadThings...

They changed all the time depending on my mood. My box for awhile was Cinderblock Empire.

Republic of Basement? So exactly, that.

I'd completely forgotten about all of it. Although it feels like I've remembered it before >.< Hopefullu not in this same thread :meh:

More, though? I've played that game with my son??? ((Here, on Mount Laundry! We make a stand against the evil and tyrannous Red Sock Brigade! In the Principality of Chores, as loyal subjects to the Empire of, Continent of, Hemisphere of, on the planet of, blah blah blah... we do arm ourselves with PreWash and Determination ....and Sticks! (I'm not touching that)...blah blah blah.))

It's a game we've played a 1,000 times. :O_o: Huh. Accidental exposure therapy / normalizing, silliness personality flaw, or just plain creepy? Double huh.

 

[joeylittle]

@FridayJones - I'm gonna go with creativity and normalizing. Did you give things territorial names when you were a kid? I know I got a lot of those kinds of thinking habits from books when I was younger. Probably how I came up with republic of basement :D

Right now I'm on the isle of unfolded laundry, curled up with the cat who found this idyllic resting place before I did. Nice to just shove my face into clean sheets, chases the ghosts away.

 

[Bellak]

I was drugged, taken to a home & kept handcuffed in a small bathroom until I was needed. I was 17yo, in Army Basic Training. My Drill Instructor used my downtime after an injury to take me. He was never punished, I was kicked out after I reported him. My event took place over about 3 weeks. It’s incredible what a person with a little power is capable of doing to an other human being. I always wonder how he got away with it. I know someone noticed me missing. The suffering was beyond anything in my vocabulary at the time, and 25 years later, I still struggle to find words for what he did to me. I have gone through almost every type of therapy & used every kind of medication, drug and alcohol to fix what I now know is PTSD. So far, the only helpful thing is isolating myself & speaking out online. Especially in the last 5 years or so, since trying to stay sober.
I find it interesting that we all blame ourselves for one thing or another. I have major survivor guilt, especially wondering how many recruits he victimized after me because he was never punished. I’m very angry at our government & My recruiters who never warned me that rape was “a thing” in the Military. I get so angry and self destructive that I end up cutting or making life so much harder for myself. I get angry at women who get rich telling their kidnap, torture, rape stories for a price & become motivational speakers or experts on the subject.
There are days that my anger totally consumes me, then I find that I am not alone. And anger will never take the pain away.

 

[joeylittle]

Bellak, I'm so sorry to hear what happened to you. And I'm glad to meet you, at the same time. I know that's bizarre. Just, thank you for posting.