#ourfinaldecember

(restrictive food rations, washing facilities treated as a luxury rather than a necessity, poor access to health-care etc.) In the story, my character has just been released, and he is both physically and mentally unwell. My question is about the onset of posttraumatic symptoms. My understanding is that some posttraumatic symptoms are initially adaptive. 2/3For instance, being on edge and thinking people might be about to kill you is an understandable, even helpful thing to feel on a battlefield. However when you are not in that environment and that still sticks, it becomes maladaptive. How would the way you deal with trauma of past torture differ if you are somewhere unsafe like a labour camp as opposed of somewhere safe (e.g. with family)? Might new symptoms start appearing after release? ¾ (previously 3 - messed up my count)  Might new symptoms start appearing after release? Might they change how they present? My MC’s trauma is going to be new to his family who have not seen him since before his arrest, but to what extent might them be new to *him* too? Thank you! 4/4

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That’s an interesting question. Keep in mind that I’m not a mental health professional so my answer is based on a combination of survivor accounts, personal experience with mental health issues and what mental health professionals say about survivors.

 I don’t tend to think of symptoms as being adaptive while I’m writing but that’s very much bound up in how I tend to approach writing symptoms. If thinking about symptoms as adaptive and becoming maladaptive helps you then by all means use that approach. I think you can make that argument for most of the common torture symptoms.

 I’m not sure if it’s accurate to say that new symptoms appear after release, I think it might be more accurate to say new symptoms are discovered after release.

 What I mean by that is that symptoms don’t suddenly pop up out of nowhere, but they might suddenly become more apparent or consciously recognised as conditions.

 For instance- a lot of forced labour camps use dogs as guard animals and occasionally weapons. Within the camp it just makes sense to avoid the dogs. But back out in the world the character might suddenly become aware that dogs make him feel anxious, that barking causing panic attacks. And that would be a lot more difficult to deal with in a culture where dogs are companion animals that can be encountered virtually anywhere at virtually any time.

 He might also discover aspects of his symptoms that he just didn’t have a chance to notice existed before.

 For example depression often causes problems around food. It’s very common for people with depression to feel nausea and have difficulty eating. It’s also very common for people to over eat and make themselves feel sick.

 In a highly regimented environment where food is strictly controlled your character may not have experienced that particular aspect of depression. Which means any depression-related issues around food could take him completely by surprise.

 It’s also very possible for presentation of symptoms to change with time and with environment.

 If I keep using depression as an example; let’s say the character and his family recognise that his problems are probably depression and he goes for treatment quite quickly. Let’s say he gets a prescription and he’s one of the lucky people who finds an effective medication first time. As the depressive symptoms ease he might expect life to get easier- only to find that now he’s not in deep depression most of the time other symptoms become more apparent and seem more severe.

 I say ‘seem more severe’ because I’m not actually sure if symptoms really become worse in these scenarios or if they just seem worse because the survivor doesn’t have as many coping strategies for these other symptoms.

 I guess what I’m driving at here is that yes I think a lot of these symptoms and behaviours could be (or at least feel) new to the character. But they don’t necessarily have to be new to the readers.

 Establishing some of these behaviours and thought patterns beforehand or just hinting at them is perfectly realistic and can be a good narrative choice.

 I get the impression that any huge change, especially if it’s unexpected, can have a negative impact on mental health. I’m saying this because I think it’s worth stressing that going from one safe environment to another safe environment would have a negative effect on most mentally ill people.

 Suddenly being in control of his routine, the type and amount of food he can eat, access to hygiene facilities; all of that is a positive change but it would also be a stressful one. A lot of survivors from this kind of forced labour scenario seem to struggle with that sudden shift from having no real control of their lives to being in control of everything again.

 The impression I get is that at first it’s good, it’s a relief. But after a while it can become a source of stress, especially if the character’s symptoms involve memory problems.

 For instance perhaps he finds he likes spending a long time in the shower now. A lot of people find hot water soothing and it would be perfectly normal for him to indulge in something that was denied him.

 But if it becomes something that he turns to often then it could easily go past the point of soothing or indulgence and start having a negative impact on his life.

 ‘Why were you later for this appointment?’ ‘Well I was having a shower’ That lasted two hours. Why’s the water bill so high? Why’s his skin red and flaky?

 And then the behaviour starts becoming stressful, perhaps even a guilty cycle.

 Learning to establish a routine of his own again could be quite difficult. Especially if his family have little experience with mental health problems.

 Because it’s hard to tell when it’s ‘right’ to let someone have a lie in (he’s been through so much, let him rest) and when it’s an extension of depressive behaviour driving him to withdraw.

 The presentation of symptoms can change a lot with such a sudden and extreme environmental change. The reasons behind the changes can be hard to pin down and there is quite a bit of variety.

 I think the only thing I’d caution against is having a main established symptom vanish completely and replacing it with completely new, unestablished symptoms.

 Partly because I’ve never seen that described by a survivor, but also partly because I think it wouldn’t work in a story. Readers need to be able to see at least a little of where these symptoms come from and how they change. Otherwise it can seem like it’s come out of nowhere.

 Wrapping this up the ask reminded me a lot of Levi’s The Periodic Table. It’s a series of short stories covering incidents before, during and after his incarceration during the Holocaust. It’s been a long time since I read it and I’m not sure if it would be helpful to you. It might be though.

 Generally, it sounds like you’ve thought about this scenario and the character a lot. I’m confident that you’ll be able to establish the symptoms you pick and the ways those symptoms change.

 Writing this sort of long term recovery is a challenge, in part because there often isn’t a pre-defined end point. But it sounds like you are putting in the work and care a lot about how this story comes out.

 And that’s more then half the battle. :)

Availableon Wordpress.

For @ourfinaldecember or @apolesen: the last couple of sentences of The Turing Test, illustrated.

The Doctor led us up, into the fire that was not the fire of salvation but the sort that burns, with smoke and hurt and tortured bodies and death. He walked arm in arm with Turing, and they talked, probably about miracles and the mysteries of the universe, but I couldn’t hear them anymore. And anyway, it was probably all in code.

Thanks so much for theprompt! Hope you enjoy!

“Sometimes I wonder if I’m really cut out for this line ofwork.”

________________________________________________

It often seemed as if gardening came naturally to me. Itwasn’t strictly some inherent talent – Tolan had taught me a great deal, andI’d learned even more through my own research. But there was something about itthat felt as if it was what I was meant to do. I was content here, in the soilof my homeworld – even if said homeworld was still reeling from the devastationwreaked by our enemies.

In a way, my new role in our government came naturally aswell. That was another half-truth. It had taken me years of studying the waypeople interacted, communicated, and reacted to achieve my current level ofskill. If nothing else, my time in the Order had certainly prepared me well tohandle stuffy diplomats and bureaucrats.

And that was the problem. It was now second nature to me tomanipulate, to turn people to my purpose, to “persuade” them to do whatever Iwanted. That ability unsettled me deeply, and I wondered if Cardassia would bebetter off with me simply tending to my plants.

Plants didn’t object to being guided, directed. In fact,many of them needed it. Working out their secrets and finding ways to coax themalong didn’t mire me in moral quandaries, didn’t cause me to doubt myintentions. In fact, I thought with a darkly humorous bent, pruning away weedsand areas that compromised the health of the whole was considered a good thing!

Considering other things we see of this culture, it seems likely the victim is restrained and he might well have been beaten or otherwise tortured before the staring described above. Furthermore, there are implications elsewhere that the torturer and the dissident knew each other, possibly very well, before these events. 2/3I’d be interested to hear your take on this, its plausibility and anything that might ‘salvage’ it if it seems very unrealistic. How common is the use of intimidation tactics such as long stretches of silence? What is known of the difference between being tortured by a stranger and by someone you know and possibly trusted? P.S. Thank you for this excellent blog! 3/3

Youknow I think I’ve seen part of this episode.

Fromwhat I can remember there’s a heavy implication throughout that thetorturer-character is an unreliable narrator. Part of that seemed (tome at least) explicitly tied to his role as a torturer.

Andwell, that isrealistic. Torturers are often incredibly unreliable sources when itcomes to both the effectiveness of torture and what they actually didor why something they did was harmful.

Whatthis reminds me of is the way American torturers described usingheavy metal or other Western music against non-Western prisoners.They seemed to consistently put the distress down to the formof music that was being repeatedly played. Rather than the fact itwas constant and at top volume, preventing the prisoners fromsleeping.

Silencecanencourage people to speak but it doesn’t necessarily encourage themtowards confessing or speaking about anything relevant. And I don’tthink staring at someone would have this effect. It’s the ‘HISEYES!’ that underlines the disconnect from reality for me, it justseems so melodramatically implausible if staring was genuinely theonly factor at play here.

It’sone of those strange depictions that can be read as either veryrealistic or hugely unrealistic depending on how much weight you givethe torturer’s account.

Becausethis does seem like a realistic thing fora torturer to claim.But it isn’t a realistic thing to happen.

Whichis another reason why nuance is so important in these stories. We’redealing with unreliable narrators throughout. Torturers, survivorsand even witnesses are all compromised at a neurological level; theirmemories are suspect.

Andtorturers are additionally heavily biased in their accounts. Theytake credit for things that are beyond their control, don’t mentionthings that go against their accounts (sometimes they don’t seem toeven make the connection between them) and bend over backwards tojustify their actions after the fact.

Ican give you an idea of the kind of thing that a torturer mightreport in this way.

Aprisoner is brought in. They’re restrained. They might be beaten.And then they’re ‘sweated’.

Thisis something that used to be common among police forces across quitea few countries. It basically means the victim was tied to a chairwith a bright light shining in their eyes and interrogated for aprolonged period of time. Rooms were usually cramped, so the lightwould make the room unbearably hot. There’s an element of restrainttorture, keeping the victim for a long time in one position. There’ssleep deprivation (because this often went on for over 12 hours).There’s dehydration, because the victim usually wasn’t given foodor water. And they generally weren’t allowed to go to the bathroomeither.

InRussia (and some other countries) they combined this with somethingRejali calls ‘relay interrogation’. Which means they basicallykept switching the torturers. This meant that the torturers wouldalways be pretty well rested but the victim could be kept awake forliterally days at a time.

I’dsuggest that was what happened here.

Ratherthan the victim confessing after ‘four hours’, I’d suggest itwas much more likely he’d been brought in 36-48 hours before andconsistently deprived of water and sleep.

Overthat time frame humans (we shall pretend that aliens work in the sameway) become delirious and often start to hallucinate. Which couldexplain saying something like ‘THE EYES!!!’ It might also explainthe ‘confession’ because in this state some victims aredisconnected from reality to the point that they don’t reallyunderstand they’re confessing.

Torturersare competitive. In a situation like this, with relay interrogation,the firsttorturer gets absolutely no ‘credit’ for a forced confession thathappens five torturers later. All of the ‘credit’, all of thepraise, goes to the last person in the room.

Giventhat there is considerable encouragement for that last torturer toact as though the entire thing was down to them and theirunique/unusual tactics.

Andas torturers are prone to exactlythe same memory problems as survivors,it’s also possible that a torturer in this situation could havegenuinely forgotten that that particular prisoner was brought inseveral days before and had been tortured for that time.

I’venot heard of the use of silence as a tactic by torturers.Intimidation, yes. But it generally seems to come in the form ofthreats.

Howeversilence is commonly used as a tactic by people being interrogated. Atthe very least I know the IRA used this as a consistent organisationwide tactic that members were told to employ if arrested. They wouldturn their back on the interrogators and remain silent. It’sincredibly disquieting and does prompt some people to talk. I thinkthere’s a link to a more detailed discussion of this in the EffectiveInvestigation masterpost.I’m not sure if the Alisons have written any papers on it: their worktends to focus on tactics for interrogators rather than people whoare being interrogated. They’d be a good place to check though.

Fromwhat I know, silence could be an effective tactic in genuineinterrogation but it would have to be part of a broader strategy. Idon’t think it would be effective without the use of other tactics orif it was applied randomly.

Itcould help to get a person to start talking but it couldn’t replacebuilding up a rapport or the ability to steer a conversation to thetopic of interest.

Asfor the last question- I’m afraid I genuinely have no idea. Therereally aren’t enough studies on torturers and the studies I am awareof use a very small sample size. Studies with survivors tend to be alot larger but I’ve never come across a study that talked aboutsurvivors and torturers having a prior relationship of any kind.

Anecdotalaccounts aren’t much better on this front. I’m aware of cases wheresurvivors and torturers came from the same village or small town. I’maware of cases where they knew each other as acquaintances prior tothe victim being tortured. But none of the cases I’m aware ofshowed any indication that the relationship was close. It’s- peoplewho knew each others names, passed on the street, perhapsoccasionally lent the other person a cup of flour. There’s noindication of anything as close as a working or colleaguerelationship in the accounts I’ve seen.

Theaccount Fanon records of a torturer’s daughter who came to him forcounselling doesdescribe a closer relationship with victims. But that’s atorturer’s family member and victims, rather than the torturerhimself.

Becauseit is, by definition, institutional torture doesn’t seem to involvethose sorts of previously strong relationships often.

Nowabusedefinitely does and I suspect that if a prior strong relationshipmakes a difference then you could find that difference by comparingsurvivors of abuse with survivors of torture.  Which is a doctoralthesis I’d very much like to see funded but it’s rather beyondthe scope of the blog.

Inthis case I don’t think I’d advise going through anecdotalaccounts and trying to make the comparison yourself. In order forsomething like that to be significant you’ve got to control for alot of factors, which might not be reported in anecdotal accounts andyou need to go through a lotof accounts. I think it would be very easy to leap to an incorrectconclusion, especially when you don’t have direct access to thesurvivors themselves and can’t ask them.

Forthe purposes of the story I’d suggest assuming that there isn’t asymptomatic difference. Assume the symptoms would be the same whetherthe relationship with the torturer was close before or not.

Butadd to that particular issues around relationships and trust.

Thesecan show up as a normal part of the mental illnesses torture causesbut they don’t always. I think tying this kind of… element ofself-isolation and difficulty around personal interaction to thecharacter would add to a story with this kind of relationship.

Accountsfrom survivors of abuse (especially spousal or familial abuse) cangive you an idea how these sorts of difficulties with trust andrelationships manifest. I’d suggest asking @scripttraumasurvivorsfor a source recommendation there though, it’s outside of my area.

Ihope that helps. :)

Oh no senpai noticed me

Okay. Okay. I’ve got this. Only two artists, though.

In the Beginning (Mike Oldfield)

Let There Be Light (Mike Oldfield)

Message from Io (Enigma)

20000 Miles Over the Sea (Enigma)