Other Kidnapping, Rape And/or Torture

[RussH]

I am not sure how important it is to define torture, but I personally think when one person inflicts injury and pain on another human being to excert control, or just to get pleasure from it that would be torture.

I am sorry for all you have been through, and I know there are people here on the forum that will understand, and be supportive of you while you seek your healing.

 

[joeylittle]

I have become incredibly aware of a pattern. I experience a very high level of panic when I believe I have not met expectations, or get some indication that I am not doing something as fully or correctly as I should be.

I was a perfectionist as a kid, but not at all in the same way. I don't think this started til after they did what they did with me. Intellectually, I get it; it makes sense. How much pain I was going to be in was directly related to whether or not I was meeting their expectations.

It's just astonishing to me that I still have this feeling. It's very, very primal. It's not that I have a panic attack, or even that I have anxiety. It's that I become mortally afraid.

Which I understand as well. But I was only there for a long weekend, basically. Friday-Monday. I cannot grasp how in such a short space of time I became conditioned to this level of response. I am a pretty thorough person, overall, so I usually avoid the problem altogether. But it just happened at work. And I am right back at square one.

 

[Beachlife09]

I had a hard time with identifying what I went through as "torture" for a few months after I got home. But now that I've come to accept that that is what it was I've felt a sort of... I don't know... peace? Like I can finally know what it was that was being done to me. But that's just me.

I have a question for y'all though: Now that I've come to call what happened "torture", I've had people shy away from the word and try to persuade me that maybe abuse is the "better" or "nicer" word. People seem to think that "torture" is too strong of a word. (Even when they don't know what happened)
They seem to hold to the ideal that torture is reserved for combat veterans, not an american college student.

Has anyone else dealt with this problem?

 

[Kintsugi]

I've never been kidnapped, nor would I describe any of my trauma as torture. I just wanted to say @joeylittle that telling other people about my trauma has made it much, much more real to me. Even after all these years, sometimes I feel like it's not real, and I am afraid to mention it in the slightest way, because it is rarely addressed. But it is real and there are people in my life who know. It's been so long now that I forget who knows what or how much.

I empathize also with the fear of disclosing my experience to others. It's been years since I've broken my silence, but it still is no light matter. My trauma was not as shocking as being held hostage and tortured, but incest is still something that tends to shock people, and I have battled many times with whether or not to say anything about my experience to someone, no matter how close they are to me.

 

[RussH]

@Beachlife09 I just wanted to mention three things regarding your post:
1. I am sorry for what you have been through. I know it was terrible, but you survived it.
2. People shy away from the word torture because they don't want to acknowledge that it happens; especially in the civilian world, and using that word makes them uncomfortable, so they try to nice it up.
3. They did not experience what you experienced, so if it was torture to you, then it was torture regardless of how others try to nice it up.

take care of yourself and focus on your healing.

 

[joeylittle]

But now that I've come to accept that that is what it was I've felt a sort of... I don't know... peace? Like I can finally know what it was that was being done to me. But that's just me.

It's probably important that you hold onto this, no matter what other people say.

Do you think people are trying to help you to feel better by diminishing the event for you? I know that sounds kind of odd - and it's really an unhelpful thing to do - but I think sometimes people do it with really bad things. Like thinking about what you wrote, @Simply Simon - I can imagine, if any of your incest was by a step-family member, that someone would think it's helpful to say "it wasn't incest if you weren't fully related by blood". But that's not helpful. Because it's incest.

So, maybe people say "it was horrible abuse" because torture as a word conjures up such violence, that they don't want you applying that word to yourself.

Misguided, but possible.

 

[Kintsugi]

@RussH Actually I have never had anyone but my parents and other family members minimize the abuse. It was my brother and I have certainly feared people would minimize it because we were both adopted from different families at birth. No one has ever said such a thing.

I actually worry about reactions in terms of people getting super freaked out. I don't like all the fuss. I minimize myself. I actually just assumed in reading this post that fears related to saying members were abducted and tortured lay in people freaking out, not minimizing the events.

 

[Beachlife09]

@Beachlife09
1. I am sorry for what you have been through. I know it was terrible, but you survived it.
2. People shy away from the word torture because they don't want to acknowledge that it happens; especially in the civilian world, and using that word makes them uncomfortable, so they try to nice it up.
3. They did not experience what you experienced, so if it was torture to you, then it was torture regardless of how others try to nice it up.

@RussH 1. Thank you, I did... on dark days I wish I didn't, but I know that God has a purpose for even this.
2. I guess that's the only explanation for it, but it still hurts when they try to lessen what happened.
3. Honestly there is no way that is was not torture. Being chained to a surgical table and cut and such doesn't happen in "abuse". (That was not all that happened, but that is all I think I should share at the moment.) But I understand what you were saying :)

So, maybe people say "it was horrible abuse" because torture as a word conjures up such violence, that they don't want you applying that word to yourself.

Misguided, but possible.

@joeylittle In a way, yes. My family- for example- blames themselves for it happening to me so they are in denial and are trying to say that it's "all in my head". But it's more of them trying to protect (fool) themselves than trying to help me. It's really confusing... and frustrating. :[

 

[Friday]

I have a question for y'all though: Now that I've come to call what happened "torture", I've had people shy away from the word and try to persuade me that maybe abuse is the "better" or "nicer" word. People seem to think that "torture" is too strong of a word. (Even when they don't know what happened)
They seem to hold to the ideal that torture is reserved for combat veterans, not an american college student.

Has anyone else dealt with this problem?

I've been tortured, and I've been abused, and I've been hurt in/for training (simulated torture).

All 3 are very different.

They're hard in different, unequal ways. All 3 involve excruciating pain. All 5 on my personal f*cked up pain scale do, really (accidental pain: like breaking a leg or being trapped in a flipped car... & good for you pain : like having the leg set or childbirth...are the other 2 on the scale) are hard in different, unequal, ways.

It drives me a little nuts when people toss the torture word around / immediately slams a wall down & I have a tendency to immediately disbelieve most of what they're saying. (Ex: It felt like torture! / Blink. Blink. Really? Doubt that). Just like when people say they were a prisoner, when they could actually have walked away at any time. It's easier being a true prisoner in many ways, because that choice is taken away from you. People using it as a woe is me example, just don't get that. Same thing with being tortured.

People don't get it. It's "just" a word to them. Something they see on TV or read about in the paper, and they make up stories in their head. Rape victims can usually be made to see how it's not just a word, when someone says they were raped after being shortchanged at the store or something. But most people I don't even bother with. Yeah. Yeah. Whatever. In theory I can be glad it's a metaphor for most people.

I've had to step away from this 3 or 4 times, because it's really close right now. I almost never have to deal with not being believed, because it's something I almost never talk about. (Or as a very wise person told me once: It's hella f*cking personal, you know?) Had to talk about it this week. That's why we were there.

They wanted the torture to be a metaphor. They didn't believe us. Which just baffles me. Ahem. The reason why we were all summoned here was to talk about torture, and now you want, what? That it never happened? It did. That it was part of some bigger thing? It wasn't. Or. Fine. Whatever. I don't f*cking care. As we all f*cking were. Talk about a head trip. Meanwhile next day I'm supposed to be speaking about this teeny tiny aspect, super narrowed focus, of what went on during the same time period. That is inextricably linked. Same people, same time, same place, different program. And people are outraged. Up in arms. Beg pardon? WTFO? The whole story is dismissed, but what wasn't even the worst part of my day, something I don't even particularly care about... Is this huge big ugly thing?

Trying to grok it all out... Is why I've had to step away from your question. People understand abuse. It's common. It's ugly and dark, but readily accepted as something that happens. Torture? Not so much. So when we were telling the whole story? Even to a crowd (select group, but more than 1 feels like a crowd talking about this shit) of people who were -in theory- expecting to hear exactly what we were telling them? They couldn't process it. It didn't compute. They didn't want it to be real. So it wasn't. Meanwhile, when we narrowed our focus the next day, into an area most people are familiar with? That processed just fine.

It was an exceptionally odd experience.

 

[Beachlife09]

People using it as a woe is me example, just don't get that.

I agree... and I guess it all just boils down to the fact that they just don't understand. And I guess, in a way, that's good that they don't... I don't wish this true horror on anyone.

People don't get it. It's "just" a word to them. Something they see on TV or read about in the paper, and they make up stories in their head. Rape victims can usually be made to see how it's not just a word, when someone says they were raped after being shortchanged at the store or something.

That's absolutely it, and it kinda hurts when they just throw the word around like they're describing the weather or something (if ya know what I mean). Yes, torture is very real and I wish people wouldn't be in denial of it's occurrence. And I wish they wouldn't treat it as though we had to deal with a hang nail or something.

@joeylittle I wanted to make a random twist back to your question earlier:

Has anyone been kidnapped?

I'm honestly having a bit of a crisis here... I've never called it kidnap (because I went willingly originally), but once everything took a drastic turn for the worst, I was most certainly being held against my will and I was locked in those rooms with them for seven hours each night, but I've never called it that... it was always just the "vacation from hell".

Do you think it qualifies?

 

[joeylittle]

Yes, you don't need to be dragged kicking and screaming to have been kidnapped/abducted. This is one that I'm more comfortable owning, now. If you were held against your will for I think at least 12 hours, you've been kidnapped. I'll need to look that up.

It's a bit like how I've struggled to own the word, torture. But I do think many events relate specifically enough to the UN definition of torture.

What makes the difference, to me, is not what was or was not done to me physically. What makes it torture, the aspects that were torture, is that they were specifically meant to cause a desired reaction in me, and that the authority my keeper had over me was as intense and real as it could be.

I was abused, also, during that same time period. That's the being punched and raped and dragged around. Also, some of the humiliation.

But the torture was different, I agree with how @FridayJones put it. And Friday, I cannot even imagine needing to tell the story of what happened to me to panels of people who don't understand. I've only said any of it out loud to my therapist. I doubt I'll say it out loud to anyone else. Or, frankly, ever again, as soon as I have it processed into oblivion.

I also get oddly angry when the word is tossed around. But just like there is big-D Depression and little-d depression, I think there's Torture and then there's torturous, torturing, all small-t. I think people don't really think about it.

 

[RussH]

I was most certainly being held against my will and I was locked in those rooms with them for seven hours each night,

If you were held against you will, then yes this would qualify as kidnapping, or at the very least unlawful detainment.