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Over Spring Break I read a new history book on the Uruguayan war period I survived in the 1970s, where I got PTSD. A chapter on torture got my attention, because it put something into words that resulted in my not being able to talk about my torture for many years. When the military dictatorship began to use widespread torture on civilians, civilians responded defiantly by saying having been tortured was a badge of honor.
That's great and very brave for them. But for me, when I was tortured when I was 15, it didn't feel like a badge of honor. Civilians who were tortured and considered a badge of honor didn't break under torture. I "broke" in under a minute. Rather than earning a badge of honor under torture, I thought I won the shameful label of coward.
I didn't break under torture in the sense of giving up the name of a friend or any information under interrogation. I was too young and innocent have know anyone or anything of value to give up to make the pain stop. I "broke" in under a minute by wetting my pants, something that the officer conducting my torture session laughed at heartily. I was tortured in front of 3 school friends of mine in order to make them talk, not me, so they all saw me wet myself, too. After we were released they never spoke of it to me again. I figured it was because they knew I was a coward.
I carried that shame with me from 1974 until a session with my PTSD therapist, a VA doc, in 2009. Until then for 35 years I didn't feel worthy to count myself among those who had been tortured. I couldn't carry the memory as a badge of honor. Instead, torture had done to me what it was designed to do.
Torture had terrified me to the point of wetting myself. With that physical response of mine my torturer had shamed me, humiliated me, and told me he had shown me what I didn't now about myself until then. It was proof, he said, that at my core I was a true coward and nothing more.
In therapy I was able to embrace that my physical reaction was normal for a teenager in that situation, and nothing to continue to be ashamed of.
Whether it was concerning torture or sexual assault or any of the other ways we got PTSD here, has anyone else had to work through shame over not feeling like they had the "correct" response during the moment in what happened to you?
That's great and very brave for them. But for me, when I was tortured when I was 15, it didn't feel like a badge of honor. Civilians who were tortured and considered a badge of honor didn't break under torture. I "broke" in under a minute. Rather than earning a badge of honor under torture, I thought I won the shameful label of coward.
I didn't break under torture in the sense of giving up the name of a friend or any information under interrogation. I was too young and innocent have know anyone or anything of value to give up to make the pain stop. I "broke" in under a minute by wetting my pants, something that the officer conducting my torture session laughed at heartily. I was tortured in front of 3 school friends of mine in order to make them talk, not me, so they all saw me wet myself, too. After we were released they never spoke of it to me again. I figured it was because they knew I was a coward.
I carried that shame with me from 1974 until a session with my PTSD therapist, a VA doc, in 2009. Until then for 35 years I didn't feel worthy to count myself among those who had been tortured. I couldn't carry the memory as a badge of honor. Instead, torture had done to me what it was designed to do.
Torture had terrified me to the point of wetting myself. With that physical response of mine my torturer had shamed me, humiliated me, and told me he had shown me what I didn't now about myself until then. It was proof, he said, that at my core I was a true coward and nothing more.
In therapy I was able to embrace that my physical reaction was normal for a teenager in that situation, and nothing to continue to be ashamed of.
Whether it was concerning torture or sexual assault or any of the other ways we got PTSD here, has anyone else had to work through shame over not feeling like they had the "correct" response during the moment in what happened to you?
I should've/shouldn't've is the heart of shame.
I'm trying to realize that should/shouldn't have is self-torture.... I've been telling myself I should've been braver, tougher, kinder, etc. for all my life.... to avoid the mockery.... the pain of that mockery.... Sometimes my sistter's smirk is a knife in my brain, interrupting all the thoughts that want to flow, because it was.... yeah.
BTW, I have a dear friend who did time in some serious military situations who said flat out, "Everyone breaks. It's when, not if." For what that's worth.
Getnlest purrs.
As teens, their empathy connections in their brains, were not made, but shame for not stepping forward is an emotion taught early.
So they turned away because to face you hurt them, they didn't step forward, not out of courage, but out of shame and fear.
With 6 grandchildren I can tell you kids that age do it too when someone is bullied, or takes the blame for actions they didn't commit, my granddaughter took a beating by some bullies for another girls actions, but put on FB with her name in the post. Not even the culprit, but the only name to target.
I guess I'm a coward, too, because just reading that story paralyzed me, Muji.
As always ... I'm so sorry. What you went through -- what people IN war go through -- nowhere to run, nowhere to hide, nowhere that you can be safe. You had enemies, Sir ... both foreign AND domestic.
[apropos of nothing ... I LOVE(d) the West Wing series :-) ]
Man's capacity for inhumanity to man ... never ceases to disgust, sadden, and sicken me.
When my story happened ... I was stuck between "freeze" and "fight" modes. I was sick .... for months and months and months.
They could barely throw enough drugs (ie, antibiotics, antivirals, antifungals, IV's, eventually ... a surgery) at me to keep up.
And they did NOT keep up.
I couldn't "flee" (a/k/a flight) any more than you could have, but ... because everybody told me I SHOULD HAVE fled ... I still beat myself up for not HAVING fled.
If you follow that.
It's funny how readily some of us can have incredible, inspirational empathy and compassion for others, and ... yet ... not be as understanding about our OWN historical situations as we are for theirs.
Which is something I work on every day, and something I need to work on more.
Last Thursday, they were pretty sure they knew what happened to me this past Christmas Day -- the liver thing ... that they believed was going to kill me.
On Friday, another expert said he was "not so sure that diagnosis was correct."
Back to knowing nothing, then.
I have had a raging sinus infection for weeks and weeks, and cannot take antibiotics for fear that they -- at this point, literally -- might kill me, or -- worse, actually -- trigger something like Stevens Johnson Syndrome/Toxic Epidermal Necrolysis:
http://www.dermnetnz.org/reactions/sjs-ten.html
[Not at ALL unlikely for me, right now. I've met DOZENS of people who had this happen to them. You Do Not Want This]
Which (among ALL the other things that my current medical crisis has triggered) has triggered me, rather violently, flashing back to the days that my circumstances were *analogous to* (deep respect for you and others, Muji) torture.
And I couldn't escape.
*Complex* PTSD.
Complex, indeed.
During the worst of MY saga ... when I was begging the authorities for help .... they -- quite literally -- laughed at me, too.
I think it would have left fewer scars on me, as a human being, if they had doused me with gasoline and lit me on fire, instead.
Yeah. Sociopathic, psychopathic torturers -- whether they ARE that by DESIGN or by DEFAULT -- aware or unaware -- have an unbelievable and awesome power to do what they do: ruin everything about a person that once made them human and decent.
It's like physical fitness, huh ? It takes a lifetime to be(come) a decent, kind, sensitive, giving, caring human being, and only a week or two for it to be taken away from you.
Back in the gym, then, Muji -- for you ... for me ... for us all :-)
I guess I am a little, though, that I didn't stand up for myself back then.
I think that's when I trigger now. When I'm feeling violated now, I REALLY stand up for myself and over compensate.
I guess I wasn't a coward after all, and I was brave enough. I guess, too, that I do deserve to be part of Uruguay's healing as a whole. The president of Uruguay was tortured in the 1970s too. He talks now about his having PTSD, so there's less of a stigma.
That was part of why I went back last summer and did exposure therapy visiting where my car was bombed and then visiting where I was tortured. It helped me accept more that what happened to me was no worse and no better than what happened to others who lived through that time. That I was no worse and no better a person in how I survived through it and have lived with it until now.
You're kind people, coming up alongside me with this. It happened so long ago, in 1974. Nonetheless, as with all of us, the memory of my trauma is fresh enough that it requires work still to have meaning. I thank you that I'm not alone. Goodness and blessings, all.
I'm a guest speaker in a church an hour out of town tomorrow. I'll be talking about PTSD. Kind of tired. Wish me luck.
So that happened in Uruguay? You suffered so much and what is it about abusers that they think it is funny when they torture someone and they make fun of it afterward?
As a little child I was violated and one sure thing I remember is that they were always laughing.
What is it with that?