Torture Vs Abuse

[ghotiff]

Why my personal worst can not just be worse than the rest of my experience? Why do I feel the need to put it in a different category? What was so different about it?

This is also how I also feel. There was something with my second abuser that was different and I have no language for it. I think having language for it would help me process it.

 

[Friday]

Torture Vs Abuse

@lostforgottensoul if you check out the links I posted on the 2nd page (link to it, above), they're far from complete, but they do open the window. One of which is a several hundred page document made available to smaller NGOs who are not as familiar in dealing with torture to help them define from both the practical sense (wtf do we do with these people?) and the legal sense (what do we call this, how is torture defined versus several close cousins, how do we report & to whom). There are a few torture handbooks floating around the NGO community. This is one of the more authoritative ones, but hardly the most. Since it breaks things down for people just getting their feet wet in this scene, I figured it would be a good starting point for anyone interested.

 

[Weemie]

FJ thank you for posting that. I had skipped past it somehow.

I disagree slightly with the Handbooks narrowing definition of 'state' authority, and prefer the UN 'official capacity'. It doesn't matter whether it's a rebel group, child sex traffickers, private or state military, K&R, etc.,...aka legal or criminal organization

In the end, this is what I was looking for. When I mentioned that I didn't necessarily believe that it was solely in an official capacity, I conflated that to mean, solely, a state capacity, and hence why I had a bit of trouble meandering around definitions and belonging and. This and that. I knew I was looking for something, but--now that I have found it, I'm not sure why I was looking. But I will put this here in case anyone else is looking for something similar; this is it.

 

[Powder]

Trauma has a number of effects not listed in the DSM. DSM offers the core definition, but there is a cluster of symptomology of PTSD not captured in it that leaves many frustrated.

In fact, most clinicians do not use the DSM to diagnose, merely to square up their diagnosis: "And given that experienced clinicians mostly diagnose through prototypes and not by counting criteria, and that there is no significant change in PTSD from DSM-IV, it is hard to imagine that the experienced clinician will pay much attention to the changes...". - See more at: Link Removed

One of the established symptoms of PTSD is self-isolation, which takes whatever form is most logical or useful to the PTSD sufferer, and usually weaves facts and distortions.

It might be a good use of time in this thread, or maybe not, for me, and anyone who knows this is an issue for them in other contexts, to reflect on their recovery and how perhaps one might "my trauma" to be "different" and how this may help to maintain a sense of isolation, even if only by definition or theory.

This is an open question for those interested as part of this discussion and nothing more. Not saying anyone "needs" to in my opinion. Just wondering if anyone else sees what I'm seeing as part of my reaction to this topic of "defining" trauma.

 

[scout86]

how perhaps one might "my trauma" to be "different" and how this may help to maintain a sense of isolation,

Did a word get left out of that? If I'm following you (and I'm not sure I am!) you're saying that, at least for some of us, if we look at "our trauma" as being something different from any other, we can use that to maintain an added sense of isolation? I want to make sure I'm following you before I go any further!

 

[Friday]

It might be a good use of time in this thread, or maybe not, for me, and anyone who knows this is an issue for them in other contexts, to reflect on their recovery and how perhaps one might "my trauma" to be "different" and how this may help to maintain a sense of isolation, even if only by definition or theory.

It is exactly the opposite for me.

Coming together with those who have faced the same trauma, who struggle with the same side effects not found elsewhere, that allows a degree of connection -and understanding- I thought I'd lost forever. Hell. That I'd never really knew existed. Things I thought were just me. Things I didn't even know about myself... Until talking with others who have walked the same path, and all of a sudden, pieces click into place. Oh. Oh! Oh! Connections.

I'm not alone.

One reads that constantly in the childhood abuse threads, the DV threads, the rape threads, the... Pick a trauma, any trauma.

My general focus in this site is taking a step backwards. Ignore whatever traumas caused or contributed to PTSD and focus on the disorder itself, the symptoms, the tips and tricks, the way to move forward. At a very real level it doesn't matter whether someone experienced CSA or a train accident or combat. They're CritA traumas. You must be this tall to ride this ride. They are exactly the same. What brought us here? Doesn't matter. If you take a step backwards. PTSD is PTSD is PTSD. Whatchagonnadoaboutit? Alright! Let's rock this bitch! :sneaky:

Except?

Why is it useful for people with developmental trauma to be able to compare notes, but not people who've dealt with torture to compare notes?

Why is it understood that it's useful for every other trauma, but not this one?

Some people want to get into a pissing contest about what's worse. I dont f*cking care about worse. I care about trying to find commonality. Finding toeholds, breathing space, things I can use. The wealth of words, wisdom, experience of others who have walked this road and have figured shit out I haven't. Who are figuring shit out. Who are fighting shit out. Who see in me things I never even knew to look for. Who remind me of things I've forgotten. Who know, without needing to ask, things left unsaid. It's a very real connection. Not the opposite.

 

[Ronin]

Why is it understood that it's useful for every other trauma, but not this one?

Ssssh, we're not talking about it, terrible things might happen to overhearing it people who never experienced it, and we might scare the forum audience by real lives, too!

(... Sorry. Some times, I'm really better with snark as opposed to a long rant.)

 

[joeylittle]

Where's that standing ovation smilie when I need it? Well - I can use the guy I call High 5: :stop:

Well-said, @FridayJones.

 

[Kintsugi]

You must be this tall to ride this ride.

I really wish there were a sticky in the Introductions section with this as the title... :whistling:

But no, seriously, I completely understand how those who have been tortured would want to find the same common ground that, for instance, children of abusive narcissists seek on the forum from time to time. Children of abusive narcissists is a pretty narrow category, but it's big enough for many members here to fit into (as opposed to children of abusive narcissists named Sue and John) and small enough to be specific about the sort of struggle endured (as opposed to the category of just people abused as children by caregivers).

More and less specific categories will form a vendiagram and overlap ("Hey, my mom's name was Sue, too!" "My parent's weren't narcissists, but they used that same abuse tactic!"), but even still, those sitting squarely in that category will likely get a lot out of connecting with one another and comparing notes.

For instance, my heart always jumps a little, in some sort of bizarre sympathetic trauma resonance, when I "meet" someone on the forum who was sexually abused by a sibling. I know a lot of members with similar narratives to mine, but there are only a half dozen or so sibling incest survivors I know of, and I feel a sense of deep, intrinsic camaraderie with them.

This thread has also been really informative for me as an outsider. I know a lot more than the layperson about a lot of different types of trauma because of this forum, but torture has always been a pretty dimly lit subject. Sometimes I have wondered if the relative quiet on the subject is due in part by some sense of a decorum on the part of survivors who shy away from using the word "torture," regarding it as either too dramatic or assuming it won't be taken literally enough. I don't know if that makes any sense, but I know I get kinda weird about language sometimes. Do I say my mother was harsh or emotionally abusive? My brother raped me in the legal sense, but does that conjure too violent and dramatic an image to say to others? Am I misleading people? Should I tone down what I share? Should I just use ambiguities, play it safe? Etc. Etc. Etc.

 

[UnKnown-Self]

I read the last and first page of this thread and perhaps there needs to be official government definitions of what is what. Just like there needs to be the diagnostic manual.
This is one of those threads I know I should stay away from because it is like fingernails going down a chalk board and I want to howl like my dog does when he hears sirens.
Perhaps it is simply I don't have an intellectual type of thinking. I don't mean that as a put down to myself, I'm just saying I don't understand the point.
I see so many people on this forum apologize because what happened was not " that bad" compared to others they've read about here. Nor am I trying to minimize anyone's harrowing experiences that they survived.
Everyone deserves validation for their pain but I don't think that validation should include a "status" of torture vs abuse.
I think it sends a message that so many of us heard all too often of "it wasn't that bad, others had it much worse"

Many times I was asked the question, when I said my father sexually abused me: "was it your real father your step father? "
Seriously? I had the good luck of it being my real father who I grew up with that raped me so I have a valid reason to be messed up by it?
There are no scorecards on pain. We each have our own unique experiences. As @FridayJones said so well, it is the road to healing and sharing that gives us the connection of "me too".
I am concerned that to try and separate this vs that might be some peoples (no one specific) way of saying I'm too broken to be fixed because of A,B or C.

Maybe it's because I don't remember a lot of what happened to me. I know I am in denial or totally fragmented and have no memory of so many things.
Each time I read something someone wrote about how they feel about what's happened to them and it strikes this gong of recognitation, and I say, yeah me too. It strips just a little of that denial away. It is not the validation of others or the governments definition of where and how our experience ranks. It's our self validation of our experience, owning not only that we have been through some horrible things but the fact we did make it through. That in itself says we can heal from it and healing is the end result we all want.

 

[lostforgottensoul]

I'm not alone.

Those 3 words can explain why Im on this site at all, and why I find this site a very helpful place to be.

 

[ghotiff]

I'm not alone AND
When I'm suffering and I tell people here I'm suffering I receive kindness and support (where in the real world I get confusion and denial followed by platitudes and the conversation closed on me).