Can I say I've been tortured? TRIGGER WARNING

[Pilgrim]

HI

I'd like to ask people a question but want to first say

TRIGGER WARNING - GRAPHIC DETAILS ABOUT PHYSICAL/EMOTIONAL ABUSE




I'm a child of the Northern Ireland Troubles and an abusive upbringing. I would like to ask fellow sufferers whether I can say that I've been tortured - I don't like to lie and don't want to over-egg things that happened to me. Numerous things happened to me growing up in Northern Ireland during the Troubles and I'd like to share a couple of incidents to see if "torture" is the right  and truthful word for me to use. I'd also like to stress that I never had or never will have any truck with terrorism or religious bigotry.

During the annual p*** up on Easter Monday I gave a policeman the fingers just as an impulsive childish drink fueled gesture. I was 15 (and I'm female). At the time the police were called the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC). I was duly arrested. At the police station I was told to face the wall while I was searched. My hair was grabbed and my face bashed into the wall. I was led away to one of those portable cells (like G4S today). On the way I struggled with a couple of policemen taking me there. I was put on the ground in a kneeling position - so on knees, calves parallel to the ground. One policeman walked behind me, stood on my calves, bent my arms up behind my back and then started to lift me off the ground while still standing on my calves. Other male colleagues just looked on and laughed. With soaring pain in shoulder I was taken off to portable cells with every other cell full of men. Once they heard a female was on board well the threats etc got worse. Eventually (and I mean eventually) 2 female officers came and took me to a cell in the police station. Only then was my dad contacted. I'm still left with lasting pain in my shoulder. Bailed out of the hospital when I went to get it checked out 2 days later as I think the doc was going to get police involved when I said how I had come by it. So never got any x-rays etc done - just ran out of A&E.

Another incident - stole a toaster. Early hours of morning arrested. In the cell I was kicking the door and swearing. A male inspector and female PC arrived to get me to stop kicking and swearing. The Inspector pushed me up against the wall, I bite him. We slid to the floor with him sitting astride me on my chest. He started swinging my hands to hit me in the face. When not working as well as he would like put his hands round my throat, told the WPC to get help, she stamped on my stomach on way to get it, came back with 2 or may be 3 male colleagues and another WPC. Both male and female PCs searched me - unzipping pockets, stuffing hands in, pulling top off (did have T-shirt on though). Left sitting in a T-shirt, jeans, no socks, no top, no bedding, no glass in barred window and in depths of winter. When male detective came to interview me in the morning he went nuts over my condition. Demanding blankets, hot sweet tea, practically attached me to a radiator, fed me as many fags as I wanted. I fessed up - never denied it anyway when they originally came for me. I was 16.

Can I truthfully say I've been tortured - or is that insulting others far worse off than what I got.

Really appreciate views - always struggled with how to describe those things. Torture just seems too big a word for me to describe what happened to me.

Thanks.

Pilgrim

[Sceal]

Oh dear, this is awful, just awful! 
I am so so sorry to hear you've been through this.

I can't really say if it's torture or if it is categorized as brutual police voilence. But I remembered that the UN has a definition of what torture is, I don't know if it's going to help you get any answers, but I thought I'd share.

the term "torture" means any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person for such purposes as obtaining from him, or a third person, information or a confession, punishing him for an act he or a third person has committed or is suspected of having committed, or intimidating or coercing him or a third person, or for any reason based on discrimination of any kind, when such pain or suffering is inflicted by or at the instigation of or with the consent or acquiescence of a public official or other person acting in an official capacity. It does not include pain or suffering arising only from, inherent in, or incidental to, lawful sanctions.

You've clearly been through physical abuse inflicted with intent by a public official.

[Kizzie]

Whatever you call it it was definitely assault and abuse.  (Please note that I edited your trigger warning as your post is quite graphic.)  How does this impact you in terms of your CPTSD?   

[sanmagic7]

i call what my d did to me 'torture'.  it may not have anything to do with what the UN says, but it felt like torture to me, to my mother's heart.  it felt like torture, having her withholding herself from me, giving me the silent treatment for years on end, not allowing me to share in her life, humiliating me in front of her friends and their parents, and lying about me to friends and school officials - starting back in middle school. 

i don't try to compete with anyone else's torture, and certainly don't compare.  my experience was torture to me, that's all i know.  the emotional wounds and scars i will carry to my grave.  i believe that if it was tortuous for you, you can claim it as your own brand of torture.   just my thoughts and opinions.    big hug to you.

[Blueberry]

I didn't read the details, but I just wanted to say a bit similar to sanmagic: when I was learning the language I speak daily, which is not the language of my childhood and FOO, it occured to me that what happened in my childhood was xyzpq, a word in this foreign language. It wasn't till a good while later that I looked the word up in a bilingual dictionary and discovered that this word I had in my head means 'torture'. In my case that was emotional/mental torture. It felt like torture, so it was.

We don't need to constantly prove that we were abused or tortured or hurt or or or. Unless we go to court, then that's a bit different.