slow motion's still a motion

TW: ABUSE DISCUSSION

a lot of people who experience intrafamilial childhood torture (ICT) don't have the visibility or language to identify why traditional abuse/trauma therapy doesn't work for them. a lot of the times i have taught my mental healthcare providers this language and, fortunately, they have been very receptive to it. it is not defined in the DSM. we are very often diagnosed with bpd, ptsd, cptsd, or attachment disorders. a lot of researches who publish on ICT worked to get cptsd including in the DSM

Dr. Barbara Knox’s (2014) definition of ICT states that a diagnosis of child torture should be made when a child victim suffers:

a long-term period of abuse characterized additionally by

at least 2 physical assaults

2 or more forms of psychological abuse (i.e., terrorizing, isolating)

which result in prolonged suffering, permanent disfigurement or dysfunction, or death

neglect is almost always present

deprivation is a planned part of intentional cruelty

family dynamics include:

a desire for totalitarian control

an intentional desire to break the will and humanity of the child

use of intense humiliation and terrorization

according to Knox most physical abuse involves a caregiver’s episodic, unchecked anger or loss of self-control, while child torture involves strategically planned acts of harm "designed to establish the perpetrator’s domination and control over the child’s psyche, actions, and access to the necessities of life".

researchers in this paper identify very similar patterns of psychodevelopmental disruption in ICT victims, including problems with arousal, attachment, sensory integration, emotional regulation, and more complex cognitive constructs such as identity, values, and beliefs

paper: Cloitre et al., 2009

what sealed the deal for me was reading the list of 10 coercive control tactics used. when i initially read this i thought i had 8. eventually i came to terms with the fact i had experienced all 10

isolation

degradation

gas-lighting and mind games

physical abuse

physical deprivation and weakening

sexual abuse

withholding of attention/the silent treatment

economic abuse/labor exploitation

abuse through institutions/legal abuse

rules and restrictions

rules and restrictions goes beyond the parental norm. ICT abusers often establish rules and restrictions that "inhibit the target’s individual development, expression and liberty. Rules may concern dress, eating, socializing, chores or other areas. These rules are not expressed as preferences but rather as requirements that will be met with consequences if not fulfilled. With a child, these restrictions may inhibit the child from engaging in the very behaviors that children need for their normal development, such as climbing, running, laughing and playing. In extreme forms, the rules concern the most minute aspects of a person’s life such as the position they sleep in, the expression on their face or how many squares of toilet paper they can use".

one example of rules i like to use is the trauma doorknob turn. do you turn the doorknob when you open or close it before moving the door to make the least amount of noise possible because one time you didn't and you were "taught" the "correct way" to open/close a door?

the story under the cut is used as an example of why ICT training should be given to mandated reporters. it reminds me of a quote from matilda, ironically a favorite of my abusers:

Never do anything by halves if you want to get away with it. Be outrageous. Go the whole hog. Make sure everything you do is so completely crazy it's unbelievable. No parent is going to believe this pigtail story, not in a million years. Mine wouldn't. They'd call me a liar.

Trigger warning for definitions and examples of abuse and torture, methods are discussed but not in detail

Torture is generally defined as "the intentional and systematic use of severe pain and suffering in order to break the victim's will". Specific definitions may vary a bit from source to source, but those are the main features used to differentiate torture from other forms of abuse.

To break it down a little bit more:

Intentional: the perpetrator generally knows that they are harming and/or traumatizing their victim and they are doing it on purpose to achieve their goals

Systematic: the abuse is occurring repeatedly and is integrated into the victim's life for the time period in which the abuse occurs (i.e. torture committed in an interrogation still counts as the abuse is repeated and integrated into the victim's life for the duration of the session, even if it's only a few hours)

Severe pain and suffering: may be physical pain (i.e. striking, burning, suffocating, physically exhausting the victim), psychological pain (i.e. inducing intense fear, humiliation, or despair; forcing the victim to witness or partake in extremely disturbing things, extreme isolation or sensory deprivation), or both (i.e. sexually abusing the victim, Munchausen by proxy style medical abuse). Torture generally involves multiple abuse methods

Breaking the victim's will: the perpetrator is doing this in order to traumatize the victim to the point of them losing their ability to remain defiant, to make them submit to the perpetrator. This may be to get the victim to exert certain behaviours; force them into certain beliefs, thought patterns or even a full-blown ideology; or purely for sexual or nonsexual sadism (or a combination of these)

Abuse is a more broad category that involves any pattern of physical, psychological or sexual harm from one person to another. All torture is abuse, but not all abuse is torture. It can sometimes be difficult to draw the line between abuse and torture, since doing so requires knowing about the perpetrator's intentions at least somewhat.

Here's an example that might help demonstrate the difference between psychological abuse and psychological torture:

Psychological abuse: parent yells at, threatens or humiliates their child to get them to stop engaging in a behaviour that is annoying the parent. They aren't necessarily trying to traumatize the child, the thought process is simply that the child will stop the behaviour if the parent does this. This may occur more than once, but the parent is not doing this regularly enough to integrate it into the child's daily life, and they are not doing it to exert any serious long-term control over the child's patterns of thought, emotion and behaviour.

Psychological torture: parent regularly terrorizes the child through threats, extreme humiliation, or disturbing punishments whenever the child appears to be thinking, feeling or acting in a way that does not align with what the parent wants, or sometimes at random. This happens regularly enough to keep the child in a constant state of fear, trauma or dissociation. They are doing this specifically to break the child's psyche to the point of complete submission for the goal of maintaining control over the child's long-term psychological and behavioural processes

Again, it can be somewhat difficult to find the line. If you'd like more information on the topic, looking into Intrafamilial Child Torture (ICT) is a good place to start. Here's some articles that may be of use (keep in mind these can be extremely triggering):

Child Torture as a Form of Child Abuse

Child torture as a form of child abuse: An exploratory study of investigative aspects among 42 offenders (not open access but you can see parts of the findings)

Child Torture Perpetrated by a Caregiver: Identification, Evaluation, and Management (not open access)

Child torture victimization: Review of criminal statutes and medico-legal issues (not open access)

Through the Shadows: Exploring Domestic Child Torture

Some other resources:

Common Elements of Child Torture

Child Maltreatment Policy Resource Centre: Intrafamilial Child Torture

Intrafamilial child torture: Making the Case for a Distinct Category of Child Maltreatment (there are two PDFs attached, one policy report and one case study)

Intrafamilial Child Torture: Most Extreme Form of Child Abuse

The Impact of Intrafamilial Child Torture on Children

Recognizing Intrafamilial Child Torture (ICT): Key Indicators

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