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Other Let's talk about torture.

Is been almost three weeks since I used that word...torture.

Never before outside of therapy or here with you all. But in front of people, being honest. Face to face.
Is been long enough now that I'm freaked or about what they must think of me.

I don't want them to think of me... not good, not bad, not anything. I don't want their pity or their praise. I just want to take it back

Then i tell myself i just used the word - I didn't tell them what happened so there are no details. So they don't really know what happened.

I think how wrong it feels ....the danger factor goes way up because you aren't supposed to tell anyone. Talking means death.

But it's just a word
It doesn't change anything.
I'm still me
Its just a word
 
I've never told anyone. I've told my therapist a little bit, but not much. I don't say the word torture, but that's what it was. This thread is a good thing, and I'm grateful that it's here so we can talk about it if we need/want to. It's so hard for me to say, "I was tortured." Just like I've only said the "R" word (rape) maybe 3 times. So much was done to me, and it's so hard to even talk about it or say the words. I have so much buried inside me. I'm afraid of any of it getting out.

I was terrified, but I had to act like everything was ok because no one could know about any of it. He isolated me, beat me, raped me, kept me trapped and unable to leave the house. A lot of the time I wasn't allowed to eat, or I fixed dinner and wasn't allowed to eat any of it. He strangled me, constantly threatened and punished me for things I said, or did, or didn't do. Or just because it was a Tuesday or he was in a bad mood. There's more, but I can't write anymore right now.

This is the first time I've ever said/written any of this. I have trouble getting into bed to go to sleep. I sit up late at night and hope I get exhausted enough to be able to climb into bed despite the horrific memories. That's what I'm doing right now, sitting here dreading going to bed to try to sleep.
 
I've never told anyone. I've told my therapist a little bit, but not much. I don't say the word torture, but that's what it was. This thread is a good thing, and I'm grateful that it's here so we can talk about it if we need/want to. It's so hard for me to say, "I was tortured." Just like I've only said the "R" word (rape) maybe 3 times. So much was done to me, and it's so hard to even talk about it or say the words. I have so much buried inside me. I'm afraid of any of it getting out.

I was terrified, but I had to act like everything was ok because no one could know about any of it. He isolated me, beat me, raped me, kept me trapped and unable to leave the house. A lot of the time I wasn't allowed to eat, or I fixed dinner and wasn't allowed to eat any of it. He strangled me, constantly threatened and punished me for things I said, or did, or didn't do. Or just because it was a Tuesday or he was in a bad mood. There's more, but I can't write anymore right now.

This is the first time I've ever said/written any of this. I have trouble getting into bed to go to sleep. I sit up late at night and hope I get exhausted enough to be able to climb into bed despite the horrific memories. That's what I'm doing right now, sitting here dreading going to bed to try to sleep.
I’m really sorry that happened to you and that you’re still struggling with it. I couldn’t even begin to fall asleep for more than a year afterwards, and had to take an amount of tranquilizers even the docs who prescribed it didn’t think it was possible to remain awake after having taken it all. I kept waking in puddles to the point I had to change my mattress. It does get better. Talking about it will help because it’s the very proof this situation isn’t true anymore. You’re doing an amazing job, the first times certainly are the hardest. Gentle hugs to you <3
 
This is the first time I've ever said/written any of this.
I'm honored you could share it here Sues. Judith Herman said it herself.

“Recovery can take place only within then context of relationships; it cannot occur in isolation.”
― Judith Lewis Herman, Trauma and Recovery: The Aftermath of Violence - From Domestic Abuse to Political Terror

This is why we make the threads. This is why we name the things. This is why we say the words. The more we speak, the less power silence holds.

It is very tempting to take the side of the perpetrator. All the perpetrator asks is that the bystander do nothing. He appeals to the universal desire to see, hear, and speak no evil. The victim, on the contrary, asks the bystander to share the burden of the pain. The victim demands action, engagement, and remembering. . . .


We are not bystanders. We are here to witness. Gentle tippy-toe hugs. 🤗
 
@Sues I totally get it. I didn't tell anyone for decades, and even after T introduced the concept of torture I still didn't say anything. I just couldn't make those words fit the person I saw in the mirror. Well, that and the remembered threats of speak=death. So. Y'know.

But like @Weemie said - we aren't bystanders. We are people who get it.
It's ok to be honest here - when you are ready. And if it takes you years, like it took me? That's ok too
 
My definiton of torture has always been someone who was forced to endure pain against their will...but the highest level of torture would be the old medievil style such as being skinned alive or the brazen bull...or the one where they leave you in a canoe type deal covered in honey to be eaten alive by parasites. Being raped especially in sex slavery is also high on the list it makes me rage with anger especially when small children are involved even newborn infants straight out of the mothers vagina.

My definiton of torture has always been someone who was forced to endure pain against their will...but the highest level of torture would be the old medievil style such as being skinned alive or the brazen bull...or the one where they leave you in a canoe type deal covered in honey to be eaten alive by parasites. Being raped especially in sex slavery is also high on the list it makes me rage with anger especially when small children are involved even newborn infants straight out of the mothers vagina.
Look up the Dutroux affair it's some sick stuff. Do not read further beyond this point if you are sensitive to child abuse of other children besides your own abuse.

There are reports of these sick freaks who sell their own children to other sick freaks...the worst I have read is that some sick freaks opt to pay to have sex with and kill infants with their penises...they rip them apart. Some of the older children kill themselves after they are brutally raped in front of their abuser. Ever heard of racoon eyes on children? It's when they are sodomized so violently their eyes turn black like they were beaten in the face. I will stop there.
 
but the highest level of torture would be the old medievil style such as being skinned alive or the brazen bull..
Not just medieval. Several of us here, on this site, have lived it. Hence this thread, and others like it.

I survived being tortured. And came out the other side relatively intact. Many of the people I was with, did not.

Technically I did die several times, but I was always able to be resuscitated / it was just part of their schtick to kill/revive/kill/revive. As were most others. Those who died dead-dead? Were usually killed on purpose. A few were accidents, or unable to be resuscitated. But most of the time if you died, dead-dead // forever, it was because that was their goal. As object lessons to the rest of us, more often than not. On display. Beaten until brains covered us, or stomach acid burned our skin, as the puddles of blood and shit crept towards us.

The person I loved most in the world died in my arms. An ‘accidental’ death, that got the rest of us punished for ‘letting’ him die &/or killing him.

(We weren’t allowed to kill each other. It’s hard to kill yourself when you’re naked in a cement box. Smashing your head against the wall was probably the most effective? But it didn’t kill, usually, it ‘just’ rendered you a drooling piss/shit idiot. All trace of you gone, except for your body. Trying to strangle yourself doesn’t work. A reflex kicks in right at the last moment, or you pass out before that moment. Rubbing your pulse points to bleeding is frustratingly ineffective. But if anyone else is with you? It’s very very easy to kill someone else. Especially someone who is already weakened to the point of not being able to crawl, much less stand. Whose broken teeth and swollen face don’t let words shape, but they can use their arms to move yours to their neck. Because our hands were broken, we used arms to “talk”. And breaths. And tones. And leans. About many things. Communication? Ain’t just talking shit out. Or maybe it’s lowest form is talking shit out. IDK.)

I often wish I’d killed him. Rather than letting him die.
I often wish I’d saved him. Rather than letting him die.

Either way?

This ain’t metaphorical, and ain’t historical.

This is MY motherf*cking life. And the lives of others.

Electrocuted. Drilled on. Flayed. Burned. Raped. Beaten. Starved. Worse.
 
the highest level of torture would be the old medievil style such as being skinned alive or the brazen bull...or the one where they leave you in a canoe type deal covered in honey to be eaten alive by parasites.

These are types of torture, but whether or not they are the highest forms of torture is relative. The capacity for human beings to do to one another actions that evoke agony is beyond listing methods of torture.

Myself, Friday, Freida, and many other survivors who have posted on this thread could easily create lists upon lists of actions taken against us. Actions we were made to do. Actions we witnessed. The permanent harm that we suffered as a result and that those around us also suffered. If they made it out alive. && I can personally vouch for having heard from the mouth of children experiences that are well beyond this.

The purpose of this thread is less to list methods of torture (we could be here all night long) but rather to discuss our specific experiences and what those experiences mean and how they have affected us & how we would, as survivors, choose to define "being tortured."

I often wish I’d killed him. Rather than letting him die.
I often wish I’d saved him. Rather than letting him die.

When it comes to life && death, I try to remember that my ability to process these events is hindered by my neurological capacity as a human being to grasp what death and grief actually mean. Idk if this is a me-thing or if it's normal across humanity but watching people die and/or being responsible for death and/or participating in the act of killing/doing it yourself.

The "afterwards" piece where we say "I wish" is so difficult. Especially when these events occur during the moments where we are less than optimal cognitively. Ykwim. I was a kid, you were in the process of being tortured. When loss of life occurs in those moments, let alone in general. Let alone to someone you are attached to (at least I didn't endure this as I was incapable of forming attachments as a child.)

But I still vividly recall the sensation of pulling the trigger, && would classify this event as among the worst in my life even though I was completely unharmed. The other one? I can't talk about. At all. I just cannot discuss it. I can barely even hint at what it is about. In drips and drops, I have alluded to it. && I was similarly physically unharmed. So was the individual in question who was already deceased, technically.

Technically unharmed in that moment, since they were no longer capable of experiencing physiological pain responses. Spiritually? Emotionally? Not so much. Mostly bc the capacity to process what it means is simply not functional. Because what happened was an "outrage against human dignity" as defined by IHL legally. That's the scientific definition & it is accurate. It reduces someone to absolutely nothing beyond anything that could otherwise be done to them. The capacity to process these events as little more than snapshots is simply not present.

Even though I can easily recount the beatings, the rapes, being made to torture others with a machete, being made to rape others with weapons until blood gushes out of them and they lose the ability to control bodily functions (yet remain alive, by some unholy grace, tethered to a body that is ruined beyond recovery where more than likely they did die out-of-sight, I was given the mercy of not having directly murdered them && the mercy of being able to say "perhaps they did recover.")

The animal abuse, the drug-fueled insanity, the "stress testing," the buried alive shit, the restraints and suits and masks and laughter

and and and and and and and and and and

On and on to form one long, meaningless drone. Snapshots. Idk if I'm making any sense.
 
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They say trauma is trauma, and we don't need to be comparing it to each other. I think the torture is like that too. Torture is trauma.

I'm on a long road trying to deal with everything that was done to me over a 20+ year period. Having support here is such a precious and amazing thing. No one I know gets it or understands any of it. That makes dealing with it so much harder. This past week has been especially hard. And hearing the news and seeing the video of Keaira Hudson being beaten and was then shot and killed by her husband, has triggered so many things in me. Every-freaking-day is a struggle.
 
The person I loved most in the world died in my arms. An ‘accidental’ death, that got the rest of us punished for ‘letting’ him die &/or killing him.
I've been thinking about this .... and it just breaks my heart for you
I think it's pretty safe to say the worst kind of torture isn't what happens to a person.
It's what happens to someone the person loves.
Having to go thru that? While being tortured yourself?
Being blamed for their deaths?
There just are no words.

But I hear you.
And I know you did all you could
Even if you don't think that's true.
 
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