Other Let's talk about torture.

[Freida]

And that is so isolating.

yep.

T tells me all the time that one of my biggest challenges with sharing anything about my past is that I know it will upset whoever I'm talking to because they won't be able to handle it and they will fall apart. Then I'll end up taking care of them.

I already have that experience just from my 911 calls. So how in the world do I tell them about anything from my personal life? it's just another reason I'm so very, very grateful for this place. I honestly don't think I would have ever told anyone, even my t, about the torture part if I hadn't been with the people here who made it possible.

oh ya - and bout those articles. Totally get what you mean - I hate when I realize that I'm the person they are describing. I don't think that will ever get easier.

 

[Ice_Fire]

Head, meet wall; bang here. I’m going around and around with this sh*t again.

So, this topic really pushed me into getting therapy again really, amongst other things. At the end of last year. And now I’m 7 months into it, with an amazing therapist. But we’ve only flirted with the trauma stuff so far.

Until this past couple of sessions. He’s got context, got vague “well xyz” or “this is how life was”, but no real solid specific incidents. Until Tuesday gone. I’d been triggered in the session before by a comment that made me think of the “degrading treatment” aspect of torture. Of sh*tting in a box. Right, he doesn’t know my triggers and well, it’s kind of out there anyway and the context shouldn’t have triggered me. Not on him. Buuuuuttttt it did bring the topic up.

And the water boarding stuff. I’m still swinging between accepting it as more than commoner garden abuse and torture.

However, T immediately said “you get that that’s forms of torture, right?” So thats two that have said it to me. and this one actually does know
his stuff. Well crap.

This distinction between abuse and torture, still, round and around, there's a huge wall there, a line that i can cross conceptually but…

 

[Muttly]

This thread again, except this time I'm posting here. I'm fairly sure that what I went through doesn't (mostly doesn't?) qualify as torture. And technically, if you are talking about pain inflicted on someone who can't escape, isn't all child abuse torture?

I say, I don't belong here and for now I'm sticking with it but something about this topic amps my dissociation up to full speed. If I'm not making sense, I apologize. I'm trying really hard to stay present and not being totally successful. I read almost all of the first 4 pages..

However, T immediately said “you get that that’s forms of torture, right?” So thats two that have said it to me. and this one actually does know
his stuff. Well crap.

This is what got me here. A second T just said what I went through was torture.

It is a weird feeling of relief to read that constant verbal sexual harassment does constitute a violation. It is something I kept on thinking as not that bad because well, it doesn’t scar, it doesn’t kill. That voice still does haunt me if I don’t manage well.

It's something that I feel like I can never make people properly understand. There was worse stuff but the day to day sexual degradation, starting from... toddler years? That was the worst in a lot of ways. knowing at any moment he could turn something innocent I did (Eight year old me, "Look, I learned how to do the splits", and him saying men are going to like how I can spread my legs). That made it so some how my body was always there, for him. Was never what I wanted it to be.

There was something else I was going to comment on but I've lost it.

 

[Freida]

I say, I don't belong here and for now I'm sticking with it but something about this topic amps my dissociation up to full speed. If I'm not making sense, I apologize. I'm trying really hard to stay present and not being totally successful. I read almost all of the first 4 pages..

Ya, "I don't belong here" was my mantra too.
Take it slow - you have time

There was worse stuff but the day to day sexual degradation, starting from... toddler years?

Uhm, the day to day degradation counts under the heading "torture"

There's another thing though, that I wasn't able to verbalize. I guess it would give context to some things?

Ya - that might be a bit of a sign that you DO belong here.
You don't need to give context if it makes you uncomfortable because you have nothing to prove. This is just sharing a topic where we can come to understand our individual truth.

 

[Weemie]

And technically, if you are talking about pain inflicted on someone who can't escape, isn't all child abuse torture?

I'm hesitant to answer this question directly - not just yours, but anyone who comes here asking "was I tortured?" because I do not wish to cause inadvertent pain or to invalidate what other people are experiencing. Do know that I cannot hold an opinion about whether you have been tortured, as I do not know the extent of what you have endured.

The things that you have mentioned, I would classify as child sexual abuse. Some people say that psychological abuse can rise to the level of torture, and I believe that this is true. I have written another thread in the Let's Talk series called Let's Talk about indoctrination and brainwashing. This is a form of verbal/psychological abuse that I would classify as torture. It was specifically designed to break my identity and coerce me into committing harmful acts.

There is a colloquial definition of torture, and when it comes to a person experiencing pain, it is individual to that person whether or not the pain rises to the level of "torture." For me, most of the abuse I endured as a child was not torture. Being hit, or raped, was not torture. Many other people would say that rape and beatings are a form of torture - particularly when conducted under the color of the law (in fact, this is a standard definition of the term).

Probably, most people would say that most of my experiences could fit under the umbrella of torture; but as the person who endured them, there are "mild", "medium", and "extreme" events. The extremes only are what I consider torture. That is my personal definition, and what "feels right" to me. It just so happens that my "mild" and "medium" are severe as well, so my baseline is very much off-center. I say this because most of these experiences, did not rise to the level that my extreme experiences did.

I think it's something that you just "know when you know it."

A person's threshold for pain and suffering is going to be dependent on their physical composition, and the context of their experiences in relation to every other experience they've had. A baby that stubs its toe for the first time - that's the worst pain it has ever experienced. So the baby being like, "this is the worst pain ever, oh my god, I don't know if I can ever cope with anything ever again, aaahhh," until something worse happens. And then, they understand that the first experience wasn't actually the worst thing ever. And so on, and so forth.

At least one of your experiences rises to the level of being "the worst" - that is, you have experiences that are "mild," "medium," "extreme" - the "extreme" is what I would count as torture. And what is extreme is going to vary from person to person. It comes down to what the label of "torture" actually does for you. Is it important that you were tortured? Or is non-torture just as significant as torture? What would it mean for you, if you were tortured?

 

[Muttly]

day to day degradation

I want to back up and say "degradation" is too strong a word. Ok, some of it was. A lot of it was just being sexualized. That's different than degradation maybe? The degradation... I guess, that's easier to judge. I watched it happen to my mom too. How he loved to humiliate her. How she hated it. It's easier to think about it when it's not me. Although, since it was my mom, it gives me a ton of other other emotional tangles.

At least one of your experiences rises to the level of being "the worst" - that is, you have experiences that are "mild," "medium," "extreme" - the "extreme" is what I would count as torture. And what is extreme is going to vary from person to person.

It might not be quite that straight forward? At least for me? Maybe. It's really hard for me to separate out events. Where my "mild" things part of an "extreme" event but the memory is too fractured to sort it as that? What about the the events that I am not sure if they happened to me or my brother or my mother? And maybe that's me just being avoidant or dramatic. *Shrugs*

A person's threshold for pain and suffering is going to be dependent on their physical composition, and the context of their experiences in relation to every other experience they've had. A baby that stubs its toe for the first time - that's the worst pain it has ever experienced.

Hmm.. well, if we go by physical pain I would say I haven't been tortured. A few things stand out as more dramatic but my family was big into not leaving marks so that alone kept it to small stuff. (it is surprising you can cause though, without leaving a mark or doing lasting harm). Some of that stuff I might call sadistic or at the very least, brain f*cky, as the whole lack of notable harm was supposedly proof that I was the weak one for feeling any pain.

Talking with my therapist tonight, I figured out what lead her to say torture. That was my dad dangling me over the water and threatening to through me in. I'd nearly drown in the past and was terrified of the water. He knew that. That's why he did it. I'm pretty sure that happened more than once. Maybe when I was really little I knew he didn't enjoy causing fear, but I sure figured that out. Just like he enjoyed humiliating us. I suspect that made the whole thing worse.

Edited to add- I appreciate the comments @Weemie and @Freida

 

[Weemie]

Some of that stuff I might call sadistic or at the very least, brain f*cky,

It definitely does sound like a form of sadism. There used to be a disorder in the DSM III that was taken out, that I have always thought would be a good stop-gap between ASPD and something like psychopathy, which was known as Sadistic Personality Disorder. It's no longer diagnostic - these people would instead be diagnosed with one of the current cluster B personality disorders - but I've always found it to be an accurate depiction of the psychopathology behind certain abusive individuals. In my experience, it is quite unusual for human beings to genuinely enjoy knowingly causing pain to other people, so it's notable when it occurs.

The diagnostic criteria:

• Has used physical cruelty or violence for the purpose of establishing dominance in a relationship (not merely to achieve some noninterpersonal goal, such as striking someone in order to rob him/her).
• Humiliates or demeans people in the presence of others.
• Has treated or disciplined someone under his/her control unusually harshly.
• Is amused by, or takes pleasure in, the psychological or physical suffering of others (including animals).
• Has lied for the purpose of harming or inflicting pain on others (not merely to achieve some other goal).
• Gets other people to do what he/she wants by frightening them (through intimidation or even terror).
• Restricts the autonomy of people with whom he or she has a close relationship, e.g., will not let spouse leave the house unaccompanied or permit teenage daughter to attend social functions.
• Is fascinated by violence, weapons, injury, or torture.

The other related, but non-included disorder is called Sexual Sadistic Disorder. I've known about a few people who qualify for this diagnosis, and at the time it was considered to be a form of neurodivergence similar to psychopathy. That is, those with SSD are just "wired differently," and this had impacts on whether or not they could be rehabilitated, with the consensus being it's unlikely.

• the person repeatedly and intentionally inflicted suffering on a nonconsenting person, to experience sexual excitement
• repeatedly or exclusively preferred simulated or mild suffering with a consenting sexual partner
• employs extensive, permanent, or potentially fatal suffering to achieve sexual excitement, regardless of the consent of the other person.

These are no longer considered in the DSM V, but I've often found them useful indicators to describe certain types of abusers. Many of my abusers were pedophiles who had specific paraphilias, but only a few of my clients (that I can recall) actually enjoyed causing me harm. They did harm me, and they did enjoy it. But to them, what they were doing was not harmful, or it was harmful but at least they weren't XYZ. "I may be a pedophile, but at least I don't rape people. I'd never do that, that's sick and those guys are monsters." Or, "I just watch child pornography. I'd never offend. Those guys are evil."

They justified it, they believed it was OK, they blamed me for seducing them, or they were non-pedophiles participating in an event in order to maintain a sense of mutually assured destruction (these would be filmed so that if the person ever went to the police, we had evidence that they were pedophiles). The same went for the people who trained me. There were only a few who genuinely gained pleasure from hurting me, and these are the events and people that cause me the most cognitive difficulty.

But I did have quite a number of instructors who were more or less Machiavellian, viewing the process of training me as a means to an end. Often they justified it by saying things like it was "for my own good, they were training me to be stronger, they were teaching me important skills" (which is not exactly incorrect) or punishing me due to misbehavior (thus, I deserved it/it was my fault) etc. Of course, none of this is true - but it also shows that in their own mind, the actions they were conducting were excusable (and ergo, "worth" the amount of harm they caused), a necessary evil, or my fault (meaning, they weren't responsible for their harmful behavior).

The people like K and M stick out because they were so incredibly violent and sadistic. They purposefully enjoyed physically hurting me, and causing me the maximum amount of distress and suffering. It also should be noted, however, that whenever I encountered groups of people, those groups were always more violent and more sadistic - there is a study that helps to explain this behavior.

It is related to groupthink, group mentality, and in-group/out-group bias. These psychological vulnerabilities may help to explain why we so often hear about groups of people committing the worst acts of war. (I am actually witnessing this in real-time, in my own friend groups, as both parties rapidly dehumanize one another and justify the killing of innocent members of their opposite "group" - these are normal, ordinary, non-pathological people. It is simply human nature.) Drug use was also a precipitating factor - the more drugs that were involved, the more violent and sadistic the behavior tended to be.

I cannot answer whether your experiences rise to the level of torture, but I can tell you that physical pain is not required for an event to be considered torture. Once I had someone go through the entire process of preparing to murder me (even restraining me on top of one of those plastic mattress covers) and then fired a cap gun at me. I still remember the sound of the gun going off, and that split-second I'll never forget.

The confusion as I waited for pain, for death, and then slowly realizing (it must have been about 5 seconds or so) it sounded absolutely nothing like a gun. It was just a "prank." I've had other experiences like that, sometimes with people using real guns. I once had to dig a pit that was going to be my "grave." This is a form of torture known as mock execution. Mock executions can also occur from pranks such as the one played on Paris Hilton, where she was made to believe that her plane was about to crash.

Anyone who plays a "prank" on someone to convince them they are about to die, is sadistic. No physical harm was conveyed to me, but those are all criterion A events for PTSD. They are incredibly damaging. You do not need to "leave marks" to torture and abuse others, not at all. That prank that was played on me caused me to have permanent triggers associated with those covers. I had enuresis for years and my mom used them. Without fail, every night, I'd wake up on the opposite side of the room.

The reason I mention all of this peripheral stuff is to try and explain how significant it is that your father deliberately caused you to suffer. It is unethical, illegal, and immoral, and is representative of a serious psychological deficit on his part. There is no need to concern yourself with being dramatic - having endured trauma, often causes our memories of said experiences to become fractured, inconsistent and disorganized. All that means, is that you are having an "ordinary response to atrocity," as Judith Herman put it.

 

[Friday]

@Muttly / @Weemie

If it helps at all, on the pain/ being unable to escape/ etc. conundrum?

- I’ve had my teeth (and nerves below) drilled on/shattered by one of the people holding me prisoner. Tied to a chair, or held against a wall, depending on their mood. It was usually the part of my day I liked least. The day usually started off with rape, or gang rape, and went rather downhill from there. (Some days, though, it might have been the best part of my day. It’s all relative.)

- On being medevac’d out (a zillion years later, once our ransoms were paid) I had those same broken teeth shards cut out of my infected mouth by the doctors transporting us. First on the truck, then pulled off to the side of the road, for awhile.

The first one was torture.
The second one was medical trauma.

The second one? Was waaaaaaay more painful, required I not only be tied up but people to hold me down / laying full body weights across me, knees/elbows/fingers all crushing down on pressure points, fun times were had by none; but I was dying of sepsis and they had to be taken out, now, before I could be moved. I was probably jabbed with morphine? Don’t really know. Out of the next 2 weeks I really only remember having the shards cut out, clearly. Pain does that to me. I don’t dissociate, and I don’t pass out, but am SNAPPED to the present. No escape possible. Not even dissociative, much less physical, or agency/by decision (that last one is what reeeally f*cks me up abot domestic violence; I’ve been held prisoner, and I’ve had people trying to save my life, both equally powerless to do anything about it. Staying in an abusive relationship? Was my choice. I had my reasons, and I stayed).

I fought.
I begged, pleaded, screamed to let me die.
I tried to die.
I tried to escape.
I tried to be “good”.
I tried …everything… I could think of.
I reacted blindly, like a feral animal, far past reason or “trying” anything.

In both.

And a whole lot more.

In both.

This is one of those things that, IME, it’s not where aspects and facets of trauma are the same… but where they differ… that I actually start processing them.

Soooooo much of trauma & PTSD (in my experience) it’s about finding the similar kittens (LMAO, autocorrect, but I like it) similarities that provide traction, finger & toe holds, strengths & commonalities, to find ways through.

But repeat-ish traumas? Different kinds of rape (stranger rape, intimate partner rape, gang rape, torture rape, sadistic rape in exchange for something I need/want, military rape, etc.); different kinds of having my mouth drilled on / cut into (torture, medical trauma, normal life dentist oopsies & doesn’t wait for Novocain to start working)…

…have these very KEY differences, that if I’m attempting to squish/lump/unify them together? I’ve learned that’s my PTSD avoidance attempting to knock one outta the park.

Whether I’m

- denying one thing being what it is (hey, what the medics did hurt more, I was far more terrified, I had way less control), and I’ve been drowned, beaten, raped, electrocuted, etc. in other areas of my life …so… the bloke torturing me wasn’t reeeeeally torturing me.

Or?

- lumping everything together; the actual torturer, the medics trying to save my life, and the dentist who made a mistake? were ALL torturers, ALL torturing me.

I am so focused on the similarities, there is no difference.

>.<

Avoidance. It’s a real SOB.

Shrug. But that’s also PTSD, for ya.

I’m super lucky I have a number of repeat-ish traumas that hold that mirror up to the tricks my brain is trying to play on me. Similarities? Matter. Differences? Matter.

If I really wanna process through something? I have to see it for what it is, whatever it is. Both the similarities AND differences.

 

[Freida]

mm.. well, if we go by physical pain I would say I haven't been tortured

So according to the ts my reading the script was torture because of the reason behind it ( death, pain, his entertainment, etc). Even though there was no physical pain it still affected me on the "torture" bar because of the level of sadism involved. So ya - degradation can count, even if they aren't actually "hurting" you.

e reason I mention all of this peripheral stuff is to try and explain how significant it is that your father deliberately caused you to suffer

Yep. All criterion a

here is no need to concern yourself with being dramatic

This! Especially here because we get it

I really wanna process through something? I have to see it for what it is, whatever it is. Both the similarities AND differences

Ya this part has been really hard for me. It's separating bad events from torture events and sometimes it's damn hard to see the difference

 

[Weemie]

I don’t dissociate, and I don’t pass out, but am SNAPPED to the present. No escape possible.

Same. When I experience too much pain I usually vomit. I have only ever passed out from pain due to endometriosis. Eventually a specially finally saw me at 22 and explained that I had internal organ damage.

 

[Muttly]

So... I'm not sure I can reply to this in an organized way right now. I think for me, right now, the useful way to think about this is there are things I experience that were like torture.

The people like K and M stick out because they were so incredibly violent and sadistic. They purposefully enjoyed physically hurting me, and causing me the maximum amount of distress and suffering. It also should be noted, however, that whenever I encountered groups of people, those groups were always more violent and more sadistic - there is a study that helps to explain this behavior.

The thing you posted about Sadistic Personality Disorder fits my dad so well it's unsettling. And what you say about groups. Well, both my brother and mom had times when they flat out enjoyed being sadistic. You could see the pleasure. The fact that I was so nice? It was mocked and seen as weakness. It's taken me a long time to see it as a strength.

And I'm rambling. I just know that one of the only ways I could retain any power was by not giving them the pleasure. Acting like things didn't hurt/scare me. Or if the physical pain was so much that I couldn't hide it, acting like that didn't matter or was something I could shrug off. And I don't even know if saying that fits in this thread. Except there is something about torture-like treatment. They are taking something from you. It's not the pain. I mean there's that, but it's I guess you all have said it. It's your humanity.

 

[Freida]

And I don't even know if saying that fits in this thread.

Yep - fits here perfectly

They are taking something from you. It's not the pain. I mean there's that, but it's I guess you all have said it. It's your humanity.

And this is why. Pain isn't the point. It's the means to the ends. The goal is taking away what makes you - you simply for their entertainment.